The NATO strategic commanders' assessment of requirements for strategic sea and airlift

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War and the adoption of a new NATO strategic concept, NATO nations now emphasize the use of mobile, flexible, and multinational military forces to be deployed for a myriad of crisis response operations outside the normal NATO treaty area. One critical shortfall for a number of NATO members has been the ready availability of strategic sea and airlift assets. Most NATO nations rely on the civilian transport market to provide dry cargo vessels and wide-body cargo aircraft. The two NATO strategic commands, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and Headquarter Supreme Allied Command Atlantic (SACLANT), have been assessing the requirements for sea and airlift and have proposed to nations a variety of measures to improve their movement and transport capability. SACLANT staff has been developing the operations research methods to assist in this assessment. The current paper conveys the methodology and the mathematical programming model used in this analysis, using ship, aircraft, and port availability constraints. Furthermore, the paper presents a framework of the modeling and simulation capability of the NATO commands and agencies in the movement and transportation area. Additionally, the paper provides an example of the use of simulation models in follow-up activities such as high-level seminars in which national military force planners and movement and transport staff participate. During these events, participants are provided with the results from a number of transportation simulation models, in an attempt to steer the decision making process in NATO.