Modelling military requirements for non-warfighting operations

Abstract

Describes work undertaken for national force development and planning staff, and NATO scientific staff, developing methods and models to assist military planners in identifying the military requirements for non-warfighting operations, typically peace support, humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Such models, when fully developed, give the military planner the ability to rapidly assess the force requirements as circumstances change. This paper describes the framework within which these tools have been developed. It then describes how it is possible to codify the capabilities required for such operations and the amount of capability required. The ensuing modelling is empirically-based, deriving from military doctrine, historical examples and commanders' personal experiences. This is generalised and represented as 'rules of thumb'. The rules can then be used to derive the types and sizes of defined forces needed to fulfil a given mission in the light of the scenario or planning situation. We describe how these rules can be formalised and combined to represent particular operational models and how the models can be represented in software to provide decision aids. Further development of these methods and models is discussed.