BALTDEFCOL students and staff participated in international exercise VIKING 14

The Baltic Defence College students from JCGSC and CSC as well as members of the staff participated in the exercise VIKING 14. The exercise was a computer assisted joint, multinational and comprehensive command post exercise in the “Spirit of Partnership for Peace”. The VIKING 14 was conducted between 31st of March and 10th of April, and was co-chaired by the Swedish Armed Forces and the Folke Bernadotte Academy.

The Exercise was built on a fictitious BOGALAND scenario, involving several countries in deep crisis in the need of Joint Combined Civilian and Military Peace Support. Peace operations tasks addressed in this exercise were aiming at the need to reflect current multi-dimensional challenges.

The students and staff members of the BALTDEFCOL were spread out in five different exercise locations – Enköping, Uppsala and Karlskrona in Sweden, as well as Tiblisi, Georgia and Dublin, Ireland. All students were integrated in the Headquarters of Air, Maritime or Land Forces to fulfill their staff roles.

Over 2500 participants from over 50 countries and over 60 different organizations participated in VIKING 14. In order to be an effective platform for preparing a wide range of organizations and individuals in a ‘comprehensive approach’ the exercise had an adequate balance of civilian, military and police organizations within the Training Audience.

Exercise had realistic scenario based on current situation in some of the most “hot spots” around the world. Operational concepts used in the training reflected current operational concepts used by the UN, NATO, EU, Regional Organizations and principal International Organizations as well as Non-Government Organizations.

On 8th of April the Commandant of the BALTDEFCOL MG Vitalijus Vaikšnoras had an excellent opportunity to visit the personnel of the College during the Distinguished Visitors’ Day. During the visit he received very good reflection on the performance of the students and staff members.