In an Earlier Report, I Described a Maturity Model of NATO NEC Command and Control (C2)

13th ICCRTS , 2008

James Moffat

Senior Fellow, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Farnborough UK.

In work with NATO colleagues, we have developed a Maturity Model of NATO NEC Command and Control (C2). This model consists of a number of levels of increasing C2 Maturity, ranging from Conflicted C2 to Agile C2, which, within UK Doctrine, reflect the NEC journey towards NEC Mature, through increasing levels of agility. In that previous work, I also characterised these levels in some detail, and described the conditions required to transition from one level to the next.

In order to validate this Maturity Model, I have examined, with the help of NATO colleagues through the NATO RTO SAS 065 Working Group, the case study of Hurricane Katrina, based on authoritative reports in the public domain made available by the US.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Southern United States, near to the city of New Orleans, on 29th August, 2005. It was a catastrophe on a par with the events of the 11th September 2001, although in this case an act of Nature rather than of intent.

The US House of Representatives met on 15th September, 2005 and created a bipartisan committee to investigate the preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina. The Committee was charged with conducting “a full and complete investigation and study and to report its findings to the House regarding: the development, coordination, and execution by local, State, and Federal authorities of emergency response plans and other activities in preparation for Hurricane Katrina”. In addition, there was an independent report to the President of the USA led by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS). We have drawn from these, and from a report commissioned by the US Government which examines the implications for the US Army and National Guard, carried out by the RAND Corporation.

These three reports identified a number of key Command and Control (C2) related issues, covering particularly Information, Planning and Leadership. For example, information gaps made it difficult to store, move and access information. There were also difficulties in taking decisions due to lack of good information and lack of a coordinated information sharing process.

The NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model

The NATO NEC Command and Control Maturity Model describes, in terms of UK Joint Doctrine, the journey towards the NEC Mature state, through levels of increasing maturity, corresponding to levels of increasing Command Agility.

In the case study of Hurricane Katrina, examples were observed of Maturity Levels ranging from Conflicted C2 to Agile C2, during the build up to and immediate aftermath of the landfall of the hurricane, with the balance towards the Conflicted end. These maturity levels also changed over time in general. Annex A of this report describes in some detail the timeline of events, and how these Maturity Levels changed over time.

The key factors marking out these differing Maturity Levels have been identified, where possible, and are consistent with the current NATO NEC C2 Maturity Model.