After the redeployment of its forces from Afghanistan, NATO is expected to shift the emphasis from operational engagements to operational preparedness, with a view to remaining capable of performing its core tasks while maintaining its forces at a high level of readiness. The Connected Forces Initiative (CFI) will help to maintain operational readiness through expanded exercises, incuding common logistics, education and training and a better use of technology, e.g. in the area of alternative energies for forces.
Invisible yet indispensable
Logistics transformation in the making by Ambassador Jiří Šedivý, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to NATO
Military logistics is like oxygen. One fully realises its vital importance only in the moment of its absence. It may seem unfair that well-functioning logistical support is invisible and usually taken for granted by those whom it supports; visibility comes usually with failure. But logisticians are a modest lot, used to working hard behind the scenes of military operations, knowing well from the history of warfare that the success or failure of most of the major campaigns – from Alexander the Great to our times – has largely been defined if not decided by logistics.
Logistics are going joint Yet logistics became at the same time highly visible and successful during the recent NATO exercise Capable Logistician 2013 (CL 13). The exercise was organised in June 2013 jointly by the Praguebased Multinational Logistics Coordination Centre and the Slovak Ministry of Defence in the Slovak training ground Les̆t.
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It was the largest event of its kind since 2004, date of the last NATO logistics exercise, Collective Effort. However, CL 13 was three times bigger, involving some 1750 personnel and around 600 pieces of equipment committed by 24 NATO Allies and 3 Partner nations (Austria, BosniaHerzegovina and Georgia). All in all, representatives from 35 countries participated in the exercise as either players or observers. Moreover, a total of 14 elements from the NATO Command and Force Structure as well as Agencies were represented, together with several external organisations and agencies, such as the EU Military Staff, EDA, EUROCORPS and the African Union, as observers.
Test bed for collective and smart logistic solutions
Photo: www.mlcc-home.cz
The main objective of the exercise was to test and develop collective and smart logistics solutions, to assess the level of interoperability
Photo: NATO/ Flickr
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
