News From USJFCOM: Commander visits Multinational Experiment 4 war simulation center

Multinational Experiment 4 logo 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."