Current military operations are exceedingly complex, reaching far beyond direct combat operations into social, political, economic, and information dimensions. As our National Military Strategy continues to emphasize the importance of "military operations other than war" (MOOTW), the demands and expectations for warfighters to understand their shifting roles within dynamic and interrelated settings is likewise growing in importance. Accordingly, military leaders across the ranks require a comprehensive set of modeling, simulation, database, and other computational tools to rapidly represent the operational situation and to perform various analyses to assist in planning, course of action evaluation, decision support, mission rehearsal, and training.

In response to documented operational needs for modeling peace support operations as well as non-force-on-force and stability operations, the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office continues to explore flexible asymmetric simulation technologies (FAST) relevant to MOOTW. An initial prototype MOOTW "toolbox" has been developed comprising a collection of loosely integrated software capabilities to advance critical analysis across shifting civil-military operations in support of deliberate and crisis planning as well as to facilitate data and scenario re-use.

This paper will describe the current operational status of the MOOTW FAST Toolbox, providing a brief synopsis of functional capabilities and proposed additions to the tool set. Inclusive in this overview is an example of how to employ the toolbox in representing and analyzing an operational situation as well as continued science and technology initiatives designed to advance automated processes, especially those related to initializing/updating data for models and applications to use. Finally, the presentation will describe lessons-learned from application of the toolbox in an instructional setting at the Naval Postgraduate School as well as selective insights gained from supporting Service and joint user groups.