LETA
September 16, 2013
NATO exercise ”Steadfast Pyramid 2013” to be conducted in Latvia next week
RIGA: On Monday, September 16, the NATO exercise ”Steadfast Pyramid 2013” will begin at the Latvian National Defense Academy, where 27 high-ranking officers from 16 NATO and NATO partner countries will participate, LETA was informed by the Defense Ministry’s press department.
The exercise will go on until September 20.
Furthermore, from September 23 to 27, the NATO exercise ”Steadfast Pinnacle 2013” will also be held in Latvia.
Demonstrating the strategic partnership among allies and the close connection between NATO and Latvia it is the third time this Latvia has hosted these exercises which focus on commanders and senior staff, across the NATO Command Structure, NATO Force Structure and troop contributing nations to the NATO Response Force. The ultimate goal being to improve command and control skills during planning, preparation and conduct operations, the Latvian defense portal ”Sargs.lv” informs.
The use of fictitious but realistic scenarios built within the context of a non-Article 5 crisis response situation, the candidates from 16 different nations will have the authentic environment to test their planning procedures.
”Pyramid 2013” focuses on the role of commanders in operational planning and decision-making process, while ”Pinnacle 2013” focuses on the role of commanders at operational level.
NATO regularly plans and conducts exercises in order to develop operational capabilities, readiness, standardization and effectiveness, demonstrates its capabilities and the effective integration of forces, however, once the ISAF mission in Afghanistan comes to end NATO will be forced to increasingly rely on exercises in order to enhance cooperation, exploit opportunities for transformation, maintain high-levels of interoperability and help promote NATO’s Connected Forces Initiative (CFI) between member and non-member countries by supporting training programs, ”Sargs.lv” points out.
Exercises ”Steadfast Pyramid” and ”Steadfast Pinnacle” were first conducted in Latvia in 2011. According to the agreement between Latvia and the NATO Supreme Allied
Commander Transformation the exercises will be conducted in Latvia until 2016. During the exercises, Latvia develops the joint operational capability as a host nation and benefits from these exercises by improving abilities to work with other NATO nations.
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