As in Somalia and Haiti, as well as Bosnia, Kosovo and most recently Afghanistan, MOOTW often encompasses open-ended missions unrelated to traditional military core competencies of fighting and winning wars. Geopolitical factors, transformations in US foreign and security policies, and terrorist attacks, when combined with US political leadership and advances in power projection capabilities, all contribute to the growing importance of MOOTW. Consequently, an emerging challenge for the military is how best to use FAST in training commanders and their staffs to fight and win on the battlefield of MOOTW.
To enhance warfighter readiness, the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) continues to explore FAST in the representation of the natural environment, human and organizational behavioral representation, and repository support. Today, such efforts make it possible to create a prototype MOOTW toolbox that promotes training and readiness as it supports mission planning, analysis and execution. In consonance with documented operational needs for modeling peace support operations and multinational training, as well as non-force-on-force and stability operations, DMSO developed a prototype toolbox to advance end-to-end problem analysis and/or situation rehearsal. Moreover, this prototype supports data and working scenarios, a knowledge base containing lessons-learned in the use of the tools, and assessments done with the tools as well as supporting training materials.
This paper describes the challenges of developing a toolbox environment that allows various tools to operate synergistically through the exchange of data, as well as the employment of reusable scenario definition files, in eXtensible Markup Language. This prototype includes the integration of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence stochastic simulation model of Diplomatic and Military Operations in a Non-warfighting Domain (DIAMOND) modified for DoD use, the US Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation (JCATS) Tool, the Canadian Mine Tool, and the US Unit Order of Battle Data Access Tool (UOB DAT).