By Michael Carvelli, May 08, 2026
NATO has spent years telling Moscow that reinforcements can move quickly across Europe. That promise loses credibility if the corps, divisions, movement-control teams, host-nation agencies, and tactical leaders required to execute the campaign arrive without the same maps, route books, bridge data, rail information, port diagrams, and contact information in hand.
The problem is larger than land navigation. A NATO corps campaign on the eastern flank would depend on a shared operational picture that extends from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe and corps headquarters down to company commanders directing convoy movement on unfamiliar roads. Russia has already demonstrated its willingness to pressure the systems supporting that picture through Global Positioning System disruption, cyber activity, and attacks against infrastructure and command-and-control nodes.
Digital systems will remain central to alliance campaigning. Corps and divisions rely on digital planning tools, operational graphics, movement-control systems, and intelligence feeds. Tactical leaders executing the campaign do not always have access to those same systems when they arrive in theater, disperse across wide areas, or operate under degraded conditions. Many of those leaders have never rehearsed the campaign plan that exists on operational shelves across Europe. They cannot execute the plan without the information required to move, sustain, protect, and sequence forces in their hands when the campaign begins.
Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 sites in Europe already store combat equipment, sustainment capabilities, engineering assets, medical support, and armored platforms so formations can generate combat power faster after deployment. The Powidz, Poland, Army Prepositioned Stocks worksite was designed to accelerate projection toward NATO’s eastern flank.
NATO should apply the same logic to campaign information. Corps-level campaign packets should include current maps, movement-control graphics, route books, bridge classifications, rail transfer points, fuel distribution nodes, airfield recovery priorities, medical routes, port diagrams, civil displacement corridors, and contact rosters for host-nation coordination. Those packets should be ordered, delivered, stored, refreshed, issued, and rehearsed before crisis.
History provides a warning. During Operation Desert Storm, the Defense Mapping Agency shipped more than 44 million map sheets to support coalition operations. Large-scale campaigning creates enormous demand for shared geographic information. NATO should not rediscover that requirement after the opening phase of a crisis begins.
NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command should establish a standard campaign packet for eastern-flank reinforcement. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe should make campaign information distribution part of reinforcement readiness. Army Prepositioned Stocks sites, corps headquarters, national mapping agencies, and host-nation support nodes should physically store and exercise those packets during major alliance exercises.
Deterrence rests on credibility. Credibility requires faster reaction, shared understanding, and operational continuity under pressure. NATO can improve all three by ensuring the leaders responsible for executing the campaign arrive with the information required to fight it.
Michael Carvelli is a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and engineer officer. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official position of the Department of Defense or its components.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
