Baltic Defence College students and staff joined over 1,200 participants from 24 countries in Sweden’s Combined Joint Staff Exercise 2017 (CJSE 17) from 18 to 28 April. The exercise prepares students to join multinational military staffs while simultaneously strengthening the tie between NATO and Sweden through the Partnership for Peace program.

    
(Pictures by Leah Jorsell, Chief Press and Information officer, National Home Guard Combat School, Swedish Armed Forces)

Students and staff filled joint staff and trainer positions in the Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters and Land Component in Enköping, the Maritime Component in Karlskrona and the Air Component in Uppsala. Students were presented with a challenging scenario where they acted as the staff of NATO force charged to restore safety and security to a fictitious, civil war-torn country in a dynamic international environment. Trainers provided challenges ranging from refugee situations and irregular armed actors to aggressive neighbouring states all within a single scenario. Baltic Defence College students filled many of the lead roles in the exercise in areas including Operations Planning, Political Advisement and Civil-Military Cooperation, demonstrating the wide range of comprehensive skills the students had developed in Tartu over the previous eight months. Many of the problem sets were based upon situations militaries have confronted in history. Students used NATO planning processes to tackle these problems on joint operational and tactical levels, putting into practice what many of them had studied at their various defence colleges.

  
(Pictures by Leah Jorsell, Chief Press and Information officer, National Home Guard Combat School, Swedish Armed Forces)

Baltic Defence College student Rauno Leskov shared, “The exercise validated and connected so much of what we have been learning in Tartu over the last year. I was very impressed with how familiar the Swedish and Finnish students were with NATO planning processes and the level of investment Sweden has in ensuring its armed forces’ ability to effectively partner with NATO.” Participants in this year’s exercise left the experience with an increased understanding of the challenges faced by operational-level planning staffs and with the confidence to lead within such staffs during future assignments.

More about the exercise here.