Before 1989, when the world's balance of power was shaped by the Cold War, military doctrine concentrated on set-piece, in-theatre war-fighting with known threats and pre-determined response plans. Today, however, modern military doctrine has developed to deal with the unexpected.

Inter-theatre war-fighting; peace-keeping and humanitarian interventions are the order of the day, often against ill-defined threats or natural disasters and with less than well prepared response plans - but, most ironically with reduced budgets.

At a time of the so-called 'peace dividend', the armed forces of the USA, Europe and other regional powers around the world have been called to intervene more often than at any time during the Cold War. The calls on military air transportation are now different:
Conflict is stratified and regional, with an emphasis on 'out-of-area' operations - the need is for crisis response through rapid intervention, at short notice, often over longer distances, with greater amounts of bulky and varied equipment, both military and civil/humanitarian - but within strict financial limits.



The 'peace dividend' has meant shrinking defence budgets with a consequential need to design new equipment that fulfils a wider set of roles - the emphasis is now on reliability and availability, versatility and flexibility, commonality, and interoperability.