NSPA, tasked by the United States, will deliver a wide range of services throughout the exercise, including camp support and food services for up to 10,000 soldiers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, North Macedonia and Romania.
The NSPA-provided camp support includes accommodations, power generation, lighting, laundry services, water supply and fuel distribution. The first collection of camp setups were in North Macedonia and completed by mid-March. In Hungary, two camps out of the 11 have been set up in the last two weeks. The remaining camp setups will be completed in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania by the end of April.
Furthermore, as part of the support requested by the U.S., NSPA will provide full catering services, including infrastructure and meals, at Siauliai Airbase in Lithuania and Papa Airbase in Hungary, providing over 260,000 meals across both locations. In the meantime, in Siauliai and Papa Airbases the preparations and catering service mobilisation activities are currently on going.
Both NSPA-provided camp support and food services capabilities will be complete by the end of April, ensuring readiness by May, when the greater part of training activities will occur.
Exercise DEFENDER Europe-2021 increases readiness and builds interoperability between the USA, NATO and Partners. The exercise demonstrates the US's commitment to NATO and its resolve to stand with European Allies and Partners.
NSPA contributes to the exercise tasked under the US's membership of the NSPA Operational Logistics Support Partnership (OLSP). The OLSP offers fast track access to a wide range of contracted support to military operations, missions and exercises worldwide. OLSP is comprised of 24 NATO nations and 2 partner nations. OLSP member nations have access to NSPA's base support, food, fuel, medical, transportation services, as well as camp equipment and infrastructure support. For Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 2021, OLSP continues to work closely with the NSPA service providers. The NSPA Southern Operational Centre (SOC) is responsible providing the camp support and the Operations Services Programme Office is responsible for providing the food services for the exercise.