NATO Steps Up Modeling And Simulation Activities.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold

NATO is stepping up its modeling and simulation (M&S) activities in an effort to modernize, standardize and reduce the burgeoning cost of planning, training, supplying and operating its military forces.

The 51-year-old alliance--which includes 17 European nations, the United States and Canada--has begun to implement an M&S master plan, which was approved in late 1998 by NATO'S governing body, the North Atlantic Council.

As part of this plan, NATO last year established two new organizations, both based at the Paris headquarters of the alliance's Research and Technology Agency:

* The Modeling and Simulation Group (MSG) is a senior-level body responsible for ensuring the coherent management and coordination of modeling and simulation activities throughout the organization.

* Supervised by the MSG, the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office (MSCO) manages day-to-day M&S activities within the alliance.

Graham Burrows, the head of the new office, explained the plan at the International Training and Education Conference (ITEC) earlier this year in The Hague, Netherlands.

The master plan can help alliance members "save very significant amounts of money in their M&S programs," he told National Defense. "Developing individual systems for each country costs enormous amounts of money," said Burrows.

"If NATO members can adopt the same M&S standards and link their systems, there's not a great requirement to start rewriting software," he noted.

Enhanced Operations

The plan, Burrows explained, is to use modeling and simulation to "provide a readily available, flexible and cost-effective means to enhance NATO operations dramatically in the application areas of defense planning, training, exercises, support to operations, research, technology development and armaments acquisition." As envisioned in the plan, M&S will:

* Supply realistic representation of activities in traditional warfare operations, crisis management and peace support.

* Enable NATO to plan its operations and budgets more wisely.

* Allow NATO personnel to train in their normal working environment, interacting realistically with national staffs or simulations of those staffs.

* Enrich live exercises, or in some cases, replace them with simulations.

* Allow operations that would otherwise be impractical.

* Reduce the cost of training and adverse impacts on the environment.

"Simulations will provide a representation of the real world and support rapid, evolutionary improvements in almost all aspects of NATO operations," Burrows said. "For example, they will facilitate analyses of complex decisions facing NATO leaders and improve the mission readiness of NATO forces."

Advanced models can integrate a mix of computer simulations, actual war-fighting systems and military simulators, all of which may be distributed in distant places, Burrows said.

M&S, he added, can be a powerful tool to support research, develop technology and assist in the acquisition of armaments. Acquisition is largely...