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PIRKKALA AIR BASE, Finland – U.S., U.K., French and Finnish forces partnered in Atlantic Trident 25, a two-week, tactical and operational training exercise held across multiple locations in Finland June 16-27, 2025.
Atlantic Trident 25 was a multinational effort designed to reinforce warfighting capabilities, amplify the warrior mindset and re-establish credible deterrence in a contested, simulated environment.
The exercise aimed to strengthen fourth- and fifth- generation fighter interoperability and improve combat readiness across the participating countries.
“Atlantic Trident 25 demonstrated and advanced our deterrence, and it demonstrated that if deterrence fails, the four nations represented here today are ready to win decisively,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jason Hinds, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa deputy commander. “The confidence I saw in all Airmen was backed by readiness, interoperability and our ability to field lethal forces.”
While fourth- and fifth-generation fighters took to the skies, U.S., U.K., French and Finnish Airmen and joint partners on the ground exercised a wide range of critical functions necessary to generate combat airpower at a moment’s notice. Airmen trained together to rapidly repair airfield damage on realistic timelines, allowing flying operations to continue within hours instead of days.
They executed multi-national hot-pit refueling and cross-nation aircraft servicing, practicing participants’ abilities to support recovering and launching aircraft from other air forces. And the nations exercised combined-coalition logistics and command and control, joint functions history has proven as essential to operations.
This level of cooperation and precision training allowed participants to strengthen teamwork among NATO Allies’ aircraft and Airmen. It also increased U.S. Airmen’s ability to adapt to unfamiliar locations and airspace in Finland, enhancing combat response capabilities and expanding the reach of the U.S. military forces.
“Airmen from our four nations were training together and learning together all in peacetime. Now they're developing trust across the Alliance at the unit level, down to the individual,” said Hinds.
Finland hosted Atlantic Trident 25 for the first time this year and played a key role in planning, demonstrating an important expansion beyond the traditional U.S., U.K., and French framework.
“Everything we’ve asked of the Finnish in planning this past year, they have responded with ‘that will not be a problem,’” said Michael Goodwin, the USAFE-AFAFRICA Atlantic Trident 25 lead planner.
This milestone reflects Finland’s growing role in Allied air operations, with missions based out of Pirkkala, Rovaniemi, Halli, Kuopio, and Jyväskylä air bases.
“This type of exercise, for us, means to train together,” said French Air and Space Force Col. Vincent, Rafale aircraft pilot. “We know we can fight together, and we know we can exchange and distribute our capabilities.”
Each country had air assets participating in the exercise. U.S. Air Force aircraft included the F-35A Lightning II, F-15E Strike Eagle, and KC-135 Stratotanker. The Finnish Air Force participated with F/A-18 Hornets. The French Air and Space Forces sent Rafale, E-3F Sentry, A330 Multi-Role Transport and Tanker, and A400M Atlas aircraft. The U.K. Royal Air Force participated with the Eurofighter Typhoon.
These training opportunities demonstrated quick response and sustainment capabilities under the Agile Combat Employment (ACE) model, which enables the rapid deployment of combat power in dynamic, high-threat environments. The exercise emphasized cooperation under realistic conditions, reinforcing common standards and procedures, and building trust among Allies.
“This exercise was solely focused on readiness, and that’s readiness to win the high-end fight,” said Hinds. “This year, Finland provided us with the opportunity to train and respond in a realistic scenario in defense in the High North, so together, we advanced our air forces’ ability to integrate across the countries – all four of them.”
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.30.2025 05:29 |
| Story ID: | 501848 |
| Location: | PIRKKALA (BIRKALA), FI |
| Web Views: | 111 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, US, UK, French and Finnish Air Forces conclude Atlantic Trident 25 in Finland, by A1C Bridget Rossignol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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