At the Prague Summit in 2002, NATO Heads of State announced the creation of the NATO Response Force (NRF), a relatively small expeditionary force for spearhead operations in out-ofarea conflicts. The central concept was to create, over time, an advanced, primarily European force for high-intensity conflicts that would catalyze force transformation and capability acquisition in Europe, promote Transatlantic force interoperability, and provide Europe with outof- area capabilities to match its new strategic direction and reorient NATO toward out-of-area expeditionary operations. The hope was and is that this type of operational force would, along with other steps, help to revitalize the NATO alliance and improve Transatlantic security relations in these times of tensions and drift.