STAVANGER, Norway – STEADFAST DUEL 2024, NATO’s largest computer-assisted command post exercise of the year, is taking place from October 22 to 31, 2024.
Scheduled by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and directed by the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), STEADFAST DUEL 2024 will focus on the delivery of multi-domain operations against a peer adversary and terror groups at speed and scale.
Two years in the planning, it is one of the first exercises designed under NATO’s new exercise process to rapidly build NATO readiness and warfare advantage in response to a threat against any NATO ally.
STEADFAST DUEL will involve more than 20 NATO Command and Force Structure headquarters, including Allied Joint Force Command Naples (JFC Naples) and NATO Allied Air Command (AIRCOM), in the collective defence of the Euro-Atlantic area at strategic, operational and higher tactical levels.
STEADFAST DUEL 2024 will exercise a full array of advanced capabilities in the land, air, maritime, cyberspace and space domains, including NATO's chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence, strategic communications, humanitarian and total defence missions and more, with the aim of enhancing NATO’s operational readiness in the defence of the NATO Alliance.
In his welcome remarks on October 17 to the participants of the JWC-led Exercise Control (EXCON) organization, Major General Ruprecht von Butler, Commander JWC and the Exercise Director, stressed that with the help of synthetic scenarios simulating command and control activities, the JWC aimed to provide the most realistic training possible for all involved.
Major General von Butler said: “Without this realism, the exercise would never work. STEADFAST DUEL 2024 provides an excellent opportunity for us to showcase our strategic and operational capabilities and demonstrate our commitment to NATO’s collective defence.”
(From left) Brigadier General Raymond L. Adams, JWC's Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff; Major General Ruprecht von Butler, Commander JWC, and Colonel Michael Vibholm, JWC's lead planner for the exercise
STEADFAST DUEL 2024 will exercise a full array of advanced capabilities in the land, air, maritime, cyberspace and space domains, including NATO's chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence, strategic communications, humanitarian and total defence missions and more, with the aim of enhancing NATO’s operational readiness in the defence of the NATO Alliance.
Colonel Michael Vibholm, the JWC’s programme director and lead planner for the exercise, highlighted the vast level of cooperation and shared understanding between the JWC and other critical enablers during this comprehensive planning process:
“This team effort enables the JWC to deliver exercise STEADFAST DUEL 2024 in a seamless and comprehensive manner. In our increasingly volatile and insecure world, we must prepare to fight – and win – tonight. STEADFAST DUEL 2024 delivers beyond an isolated exercise and in doing so contributes to the unified act of deterrence and empowers our warfighters.”
The JWC’s senior EXCON Advisor, Major General Roger Lane (Retired), underlined that the JWC’s exercises continued to develop in complexity.
“STEADFAST DUEL 2024 is the premier NATO exercise that trains HQs from the strategic to the higher tactical level in the art of contemporary warfare against peer adversaries,” he said.
“The HQs are immersed in a rich, realistic and challenging simulation from which they must create knowledge and understanding in order to make good, timely decisions, thereby maintaining a warfighting advantage and enhancing the readiness of the Alliance.”
Colonel Kevin Rafferty, JWC’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Exercises, Training and Innovation Directorate and the Chief of the EXCON team, explained that STEADFAST DUEL 2024 involved 27 participants, across 11 locations.
“The exercise includes the participation of the nations, alongside international and non-governmental organizations, providing greater depth, realism, and nuance for the training audiences," Colonel Rafferty stressed. "The scale, scope, and complexity of the STEADFAST series of exercises, which are multi-domain by design, continue to evolve to meet the strategic security environment."
Colonel Kevin Rafferty, JWC’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Exercises, Training and Innovation Directorate and Chief EXCON
The Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway, fulfills a critical role as the primary venue for designing, developing and delivering NATO’s largest and most complex command post exercises at the strategic and operational levels.
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