National logistics directors address lessons learned from NATO’s largest exercise in decades
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Following Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024, which took place earlier this year, the Logistics Committee met at NATO Headquarters this week (20-21 November 2024) to discuss how to improve mobility corridors, digitalisation, innovation, multi-national maintenance, interoperability with partners, and delivery in a contested environment. These elements are important in ensuring an efficient and effective deterrence and defence.
ASG DPP, DCMC, National Logistics Directors and Partners.
Much of this comes down to logistics, and getting these right is key to ensuring the Alliance can effectively move, deploy, sustain and reinforce its armed forces. This is fundamental in all military operations and ensures NATO can execute its core tasks across all domains. Allied forces must continue to be fully enabled with all the logistics necessary to deter aggression against – and, if needed, to defend – all of NATO territory.
In the meeting this week, national logistics directors addressed a range of challenges and shared lessons learned and best practices in moving troops into, across and from Europe, including in the context of Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024. Held earlier this year, this was NATO’s largest exercise in decades, with over 90,000 troops from all 32 Allies participating. The exercise tested NATO’s logistics network from the Arctic to the Alliance’s southern flank, including the deployment of large-scale reinforcements from North America to Europe. The Logistics Committee identified opportunities and challenges associated with large-scale deployments, and the importance of working with civil agencies and industry to deliver critical support to military forces at scale and speed. The Committee also met in a dedicated session with partners to discuss these issues.
National logistics directors also met in a joint session with two other senior NATO committees: the Resilience Committee and the Defence Policy and Planning Committee. These consultations focused on the delivery of the logistics and enablement capabilities required for collective defence from both military and civilian perspectives. Allies emphasised the importance of adopting a whole-of-government approach to logistics.