North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations/Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
September 25, 2013
Steadfast Pinnacle 13: The journey continues
Story by SHAPE Public Affairs Office
The second instalment of the two-week long Steadfast Pyramid & Pinnacle Exercise continued this week in Riga, Latvia. The candidates, a variety of Senior Leaders arriving from the NATO command Structure, NATO Force Structure and partner nations will make maximum use of the planning achieved during Exercise Pyramid. The aim is to allow the participants to hone their skills as commanders at the Operational/Strategic level.
In his welcoming remarks Mr Veiko Spolitis, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Latvia, emphasized the importance of Steadfast Pinnacle 13, in that it not only shows a clear example that NATO is in the Baltics, but also underlines Latvia’s commitment to supporting NATO. “Latvia will keep its promises while slightly increasing the defence expenditures next year to reach the 2 % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2020″. “NATO, the strongest ally of democracy, builds trust among the nations”, he stated. “The one will survive who will transform”, he quoted from a famous Latvian poem, Rainis, since “we have to transform ourselves in the direction of new security challenges, such as asymmetric and cyber threats”.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), thanked Latvia for hosting this event for the third time. He also welcomed the partner nations’ (Australia, Austria, Finland and Sweden) who he believes “add further political strength to the 28-nation Alliance”.
“Key leader training remains a strategic goal for NATO”, he stated. Civilian expertise is a key ingredient of the comprehensive approach and he was happy that so many IO’s and NGO’s were represented. The Comprehensive Operational Planning Guidance, the tool-box given to commanders, is only a tool box and using “refreshed operational knowledge should allow best practices to be developed over the coming week.
Prior to being split into 3 syndicates, the participants were given a series of lectures on a broad spectrum of topics such as Crisis Management Processes in NATO, Knowledge Development and the Commander’s Perspective.
The exercise is scheduled to finish on 27 September 2013.
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