The participation of Russia was considered very important for the success of IFOR's mission. It was also a further step in the evolving cooperative relationship between NATO and Russia.
Preparations for IFOR were undertaken in coordination with non-NATO countries and other international organizations which were involved in the implementation of the Peace Agreement. NATO Ministers welcomed the wide range of offers from Partnership for Peace and other nations outside the Alliance.
Every NATO nation with armed forces committed troops to this operation. But IFOR was more than a NATO operation. NATO invited 16 non-NATO countries to participate in IFOR:
The Implementation Force had a unified command and was NATO-led, under the political direction and control of the Alliance's North Atlantic Council, as stipulated by the Peace Agreement (Annex 1A).
As prospects for peace in Bosnia improved in autumn 1995, following Operation Deliberate Force, the Alliance reaffirmed its readiness to help implement a peace plan and stepped up its contingency planning to do so. In the light of the peace agreement initialed in Dayton (Ohio, USA) on 21 November 1995, and following the signing of the Bosnian Peace Agreement in Paris on December 14, 1995, and on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1031, the North Atlantic Council authorized on December 1, 1995 the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) to deploy enabling forces into Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This decision demonstrated NATO's preparedness to implement the military aspects of the peace agreement once it is signed and to help create the conditions for a lasting peace in former Yugoslavia. The North Atlantic Council gave also provisional approval to the overall military plan.
On 5 December 1995, the NATO Council, meeting at the level of Foreign Defense Ministers, endorsed the military planning for the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR), stating that Operation Joint Endeavour will attest to NATO's capacity to fulfill its new mission of crisis management and peacekeeping, in addition to its core functions as defensive alliance. The Acting Secretary General announced that fourteen non-NATO countries — which had expressed interest in participation — would be invited to contribute to the Implementation Force: Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Ukraine.
The land forces that were deployed to support the IFOR mission within Bosnia and Herzogovina were under the command of COMARRC. They were divided into three sectors together with divisional troops: multi-national division South West (MND/SW), multi-national division South East (MND/SE) and multi-national division North (MND/N).