Military Airlift: DOD Plans to Participate in Multi-National Program to Exchange Air Services with European Nations
Abstract
This report formally transmits the enclosed briefing in response to section 1276 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, which mandates that we conduct a review of the Air Transport, Air-to-Air Refueling and Other Exchange of Services (ATARES) program. ATARES is a European program through which member nations use a system of credits and debits to facilitate sharing of air force-related services-such as troop and cargo airlift-without monetary transactions. ATARES is managed by the Movement Coordination Centre Europe (MCCE), a multi-national organization established in July 2007 to coordinate and optimize the use of airlift, sealift, and land movement assets owned or leased by member nations militaries. The Department of Defense (DOD) is not a member of ATARES but is seeking to join the program. DOD is a member of MCCE and pays a fee for this membership; there is no additional fee to become a member of ATARES. Currently, because DOD is not a member of ATARES, it utilizes Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements to exchange services with other nations- including ATARES member nations-often through monetary transactions. DOD believes it would benefit from membership in ATARES and requested approval from Congress in 2011 to participate in the program. Our objectives were to determine (1) the types of services exchanged through ATARES, (2) the extent to which information is available to determine whether ATARES is achieving its intended purposes, and (3) the extent to which information is available on the cost-effectiveness of ATARES. Enclosure 1 details the results of our review based on our briefing to your offices on September 10, 2013. To address our objectives, we visited U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, Germany, and MCCE headquarters in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, to interview officials knowledgeable about the ATARES program and to gather documentation and information about the program s operations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 30, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA587111
Entities
People
- Amie Steele
- Carol Dawn Petersen
- Cary Russell
- Edward Anderson
- Joanne Landesman
- Kimberly Seay
- Lisa Mcmillen
- Michael Shaughnessy
- Mike Silver
- Yong Song
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office