Photo By Rodney Jackson | Lt. Col. Kyle Kolthoff, U.S. Army Central Command Air and Missile Defense senior air...... read more read more
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MANAMA, Bahrain - U.S. Army Central and the Bahraini defense force, co-hosted, the second International Air and Missile Defense Symposium in Manama Bahrain, March 22-26.
The first International Air and Missile Defense Symposium was held at Fort Bliss, Texas in December 2007.
The event, the first of its kind to be held in the Gulf region, included participants from U.S. Central Command, the 32nd Air and Missile Defense Command, Air Forces Command Central, Navy Command Central, the Gulf Cooperation Council and several other Arab countries' land forces. During the symposium, leaders attended a scenario driven exercise which encouraged participants to discuss air and missile defense topics, as well as encourage an exchange of tactics, techniques and procedures.
The group used the U.S. mission analysis and military decision making process as their framework during the exercise to determine how to integrate and organize assets in response to an air and missile defense threat. They also talked about what each partner nation's responsibilities are when a threat occurs and how they can improve air defense readiness. Upon completion of the exercise, they were able to refine and finalize a course of action for the area of responsibility and present it to senior leaders.
"I am very impressed with the level of the professionalism and competence of all nations involved and their ability to work together," said Col. William T. Morrow, 32nd Air and Missile defense command chief of staff. "We have learned a lot from each other and because of shared interests, we have developed lasting friendships. Based on the work over the last few days, I'm a better air defense officer."
Col. Mike A. Carter, USARCENT air and missile defense chief, emphasized the importance of this symposium in today's world.
"Each country may have different air and missile defense systems, so we need to understand how their systems operate in order to integrate them," Carter said. "We don't fight alone anymore, we fight as a coalition. Together, we will defend our interests, promote regional stability, and ensure we have the most capable systems to defeat threats throughout any region."
As he welcomed and introduced senior leaders to the symposium, Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace, commander, U.S. Army Central, commented on how the symposium allowed the participants to increase insights on improving air defense readiness and set conditions for future air and missile defense symposiums.
"As a diverse group we benefit from the differing approaches each nation brings and its unique perspectives toward integrated air and missile defense," said Lovelace. "As a collective body, our continued cooperation will lead us to better solutions than we might devise on our own. Just this week, these teams created individual approaches and collaborated to generate one collective solution."
In his presentation on integrating international air and missile defense Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, commander, 9th Air Force and U.S. Air Forces Central echoed Lovelace's comments.
"Integrating international air and missile defense must be flexible, secure, and redundant," said North. "Regional leaders must strive consistently in our improvement for interoperability. Our technology, computer systems, and rules of integration must be linked. A cooperative approach to counter an enemy attack is clearly in everybody's interests."
USARCENT hopes this event will become an annual Air Defense engagement hosted by their respective partner nation's armed forces in support of regional security.
We want to continue to work towards interoperability and ensure we are working together with all the countries in the region, Carter said. We hope to eventually integrate air and missile defense throughout the region.
| Date Taken: | 03.26.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 04.06.2009 15:29 |
| Story ID: | 32078 |
| Location: | MANAMA, BH |
| Web Views: | 247 |
| Downloads: | 210 |
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