NATO-Russia Computer Assisted TMD Command Post Exercise

In accordance with the work plan of the NATO-Russia Council Ad Hoc Working Group on Theatre Missile Defence (TMD), the next TMD Command Post Exercise (CPX) is scheduled to take place from 17 to 24 January 2008 in Ottobrunn near Munich in Germany. This is the fourth such exercise to be held under the auspices of the NATO-Russia Council. The first was held in two stages at The Hague in the Netherlands in December 2003 and at Colorado Springs in the USA in March 2004. The second joint CPX was held in March 2005 at the De Peel Airbase in the Netherlands. The third took place in October 2006 in Moscow at the 1st Research Centre of the 4th Central Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defence. All the exercises have focused on validating the NATO-Russia TMD experimental concept and the joint NATO-Russia experimental concept of TMD operations.

The computer assisted exercise in Germany will concentrate on joint TMD planning issues and will aim to deal with the following tasks:

- planning TMD combat operations as part of a wider NRC crisis response operation involving simulation of deployment and redeployment of TMD capabilities and their use to defend an agreed list of assets;

- developing agreed coordination procedures for planning combat operations by NATO and Russian TMD forces on the basis of agreed procedures;

- preparing and implementing independent but coordinated NATO-Russian planning processes for actions by TMD forces;

- verifying the developed concept of defence configuration and TMD plans using simulations.

More than forty representatives from eleven NATO nations and twenty-three representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defence plan to attend the exercise. A Distinguished Visitors’ Day is scheduled for 22 January 2008, when it is expected that General Ray Henault, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, will attend the exercise.

The preparatory work for the exercise was carried out by experts from the Russian Ministry of Defence and representatives from the NATO International Military Staff, International Staff and Extended Air Defence Group, together with specialists from a number of NATO agencies and the Simulation and Integration Test Centre of the German company IABG, where the exercise will be held.