Thirty-five experts from 17 Member States as well as representatives from the EU Military Committee, the EU Military Staff, the EU Commission and NATO Allied Command Transformation participate in the European Defence Agency’s Table Top Exercise (TTX) on long term capability trends, starting today. Results of the exercise will feed into the revised Capability Development Plan (CDP) which will be presented to Ministers of Defence in the first semester of 2018.
The three day long exercise is part of the CDP revision and addresses the review of the current Long Term Trend Capability Assessment, with a perspective on 2035 and beyond. It comprises in-depth analysis and assessment of all military tasks, identifying the evolution of key military requirements, the key trends towards 2035 and beyond, the future importance of the different tasks, as well as related risks and challenges.
“Similar to previous table top exercises, we evaluate capability trends by using threat scenarios. Only this time, the elaboration of these scenarios was more complex as we are looking at trends in 2035 and beyond. We thus worked closely together with military R&T experts to elaborate scenarios including technology available in about 20 years. The aim is to derive future military capability development trends in a European setting”, says Roland Van Reybroeck, Cooperation Planning & Support Director at EDA.
The TTX will address the full scope of military tasks in view of answering the question “which capabilities will Member States’ armed forces need in 2035 and beyond?” An important aspect thereby is to analyse in detail the capability implications in different scenarios.
“If we take for example global warming and the melting of ice caps, apart from ecological and economic consequences, the military would need to look at its long term capability needs to face new geopolitical scenarios potentially resulting from climate change. In this context, military long term capability planners would for example examine related requirements for the next generation of frigates”, explains Lars-Ove Roos, Project Officer at EDA.
The key findings from this exercise, will underpin the long term dimension to the Capability Development Plan. The post-TTX analysis and assessment is to be completed by December 2017.
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