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 Commander
visits Multinational Experiment 4 war simulation center
The
commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command talked about
the importance of working together and the role of modeling
and simulation in experiments and exercises when he visited
a NATO facility participating in the USJFCOM-led Multinational
Experiment 4.
By
JOC(SW/AW) Joel I. Huval
Allied Command Transformation Public Information
(ISTANBUL
- March 14, 2006) -- The
commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command held
a press conference during his visit today to the Ataturk
Wargaming, Simulation and Culture Center here to
discuss the centre's importance in simulation and planning
for current and future NATO operations.
U.S.
Air Force Gen. Lance L. Smith, who is also NATO's Supreme
Allied
Commander Transformation, visited the center during
the last week of Multinational
Experiment 4, a USJFCOM-led
experiment involving participants from eight NATO and
Partnership for Peace nations whose goal is to improve
effects-based operational planning.
"It is great to be here in this terrific facility,
doing a really leading-edge type of experiment to sort
out just how we can best achieve effects on the battlefield,
and I mean that in very broad terms," he said in his
opening remarks. "When you say battlefield,
people tend to think of dropping bombs and that's not what
this experiment is about. It's about how you deal with
humanitarian operations in a remote area and how you work
with agencies in government other than the military."
Smith made a statement regarding the experiment's goal:
finding ways for better coordination and communication
between military and non-military organisations working
side-by-side in a battlefield environment.
"The beauty of this experiment is it includes numerous
nations, not all of which are part of NATO. For instance,
Finland, Sweden and Australia are involved," said
Smith. "These people are connected all over the world
as we speak and we're all exploring the same thing: how
to deal with different agencies of the government. We continue
to learn in Iraq and Afghanistan that solutions to problems
are not going to be solved in the military realm alone.
It's going to require cooperation between governmental
and nongovernmental organisations operating in the area."
The
Ataturk Wargaming, Simulation and Culture Center is a
state-of-art facility, and Smith recognised not only
the center's importance, but the important role Turkey
plays within NATO.
"This
first-class facility allows that [global] connection
to occur," Smith said. "It is also another
indication of Turkey's seriousness about engaging and
experimenting
with other nations within NATO and other governmental organisations
with the goal of trying to win this very difficult battle
against terrorism. Our job is to collectively understand
how we need to organise, equip and train our forces to
be able to fight what I'll call a 'new war,' but certainly
Turkey has been engaged in these types of efforts for a
long time. Turkey has been leading the way and trying to
help the rest of us understand how to deal with organizations
that are not really military organizations, that don't
have any borders or boundaries, and don't operate under
any civilized rules."
Before taking questions, Smith mentioned the monetary
savings made in using simulation and experimentation versus
funding real-world exercises.
"This is really leading-edge stuff for what I think
is the future of exercising and experimentation, in that
it allows us to save money by not having to deploy people
and forces all in one place," he said. "It allows
us to do distributed operations from any place in the world
and it is going to open the door to allow us to train better
and more effectively."
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