 Noble Resolve 07 kicks off
U.S. Joint Forces Command's Noble Resolve has began the first phase of its series of experiments to enhance homeland defense measures and military support in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.
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By Robert Pursell
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(SUFFOLK, Va. - April 23, 2007) -- U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) kicked off its series of experiments here today aimed at enhancing homeland defense measures and military support in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.
Noble Resolve, sponsored by USJFCOM, is an experimentation campaign plan supported by U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) to develop solutions for U.S. agencies and organizations by providing the means to deter, prevent, and defeat threats and aggression aimed at the U.S., its territories, and interests.
This week's event, known as Noble Resolve 07-1, is the first of what will be a series of experiments to be held over a number of years on this topic. The Noble Resolve campaign will be managed by USJFCOM's Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate (J9).
Noble Resolve 07-1 is a week-long event that will bring more than 125 people from across the United States and a number of other countries to develop solutions to provide improved defense support to civil authorities and build upon global partnerships.
Throughout the Noble Resolve campaign, USJFCOM will also partner with the U.S. Transportation Command, and other federal agencies such as the Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI and Customs and Border Protection. It will also team with individual states such as the Commonwealth of Virginia and Oregon, as well as multinational participants to include Canada, Germany, Singapore, Finland and Sweden, amongst others.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chris Oden, the military lead for Noble Resolve's initial experiment which will last through the end of the week, explained the significance of the event.
"It's the first homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities experiment that we're conducting within J9 that has a lot of modeling and simulation support and potential that's going to be built into the Noble Resolve campaign."
Mark Wolfe, the civilian lead for Noble Resolve said the event is a product of Urban Resolve, another series of USJFCOM experiments which concluded this past winter.
He indicated the discoveries from that earlier event are now being applied to the homeland defense arena. One of the unique capabilities USJFCOM has come to understand it has that is of high value to this kind of work is their modeling and simulation capability.
Modeling and simulation is a huge player in this kind of work, according to Wolfe.
Wolfe said Noble Resolve provides the opportunity for USJFCOM to share this capability with NORTHCOM, as well as with the other partners and civil authorities.
Oden said this week's focus will be on maritime domain awareness.
"Maritime domain is a big focus and when you start looking at vessels transiting, especially with man-made devices, it's a huge problem to track over the ocean," he said. "We're trying to see if we do find something, can we track it and look at the information sharing that takes place and see how it affects us over here."
Oden said the other piece of this is the defense support to civil authorities. For example, the commonwealth of Virginia will run its annual exercise called the Virginia Emergency Readiness Exercise simultaneously. Noble Resolve personnel will feed Virginia officials with information regarding a potential incoming nuclear device while they are dealing with their own problem of an incoming hurricane. They will evaluate how information during such a crisis is shared.
Oden said once this week's phase of experiments wraps up, the results will be shared with Virginia officials, NORTHCOM, and all other Noble Resolve participants. The next phase will focus on a wider scope of participants.
"Right now we're really just looking at the maritime domain awareness question and then how that affects information flow. So it's a fairly narrow scope the first time out, but as we expand it in the number of players, it'll become more distributed," he said.
Oden said the next phase in August will focus on a threat in the Pacific theater. Those involved will include the state of Oregon, the city of Portland, the Oregon National Guard, as well as Joint Task Force Homeland Defense, located in Hawaii.
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