ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to contribute to one's understanding of military change in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It provides a case study of military innovation in a multinational environment. The chapter examines the rise and fall of the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) concept. It describes the origins, development and ultimate failure of the CJTF concept. The chapter examines what factors shaped its development and what prevented it from fulfilling the hopes invested in it in the 1990s. The United States thus encouraged European efforts to build a European ability to conduct military operations based on both a desire to increase transatlantic burden-sharing and reluctance to put US soldiers in harm's way. NATO foreign ministers reached a breakthrough agreement on the overall politico-military framework for CJTF at their meeting in Berlin on 3 June 1996. The chapter explains the CJTF failed primarily because by the time the Allies reached consensus on making NATO assets available to European-led operations.
