Romania and Germany are hosting, from Thursday until Monday, the command exercise Defender Europe 2021 Computer Assisted Exercise / Command Post Exercise (DE21 CAX/CPX), where approximately 400 soldiers are taking part.
The soldiers come from the Commandment of the South-East Multinational Corps (HQ, MNC-SE), 46th Regiment Support, the allied Corp of Quick Reaction (HQ ARRC) of Great Britain, the V Corps of the USA Ground Forces for Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF), as well as from different structures of the Romanian Army.
Defender Europe 21 CAX/CPX, part of the multinational joint exercise Defender Europe 21, planned and led by USAREUR-AF, represents a major training event in which the South-Eastern Multinational Commandment Corps follows, in the context of the operationalisation process it carries, to raising the preparation level and interoperability in a multinational training environment, along with the military of the participating nations, in order to accomplish the Initial Operational Capability (IOC), with support from HQ ARRC, according to a press release sent by the Ministry of National Defence (MApN).
According to the quoted source, within the exercise, the South-East Multinational Command Corps plans, executes and leads a defence operation, in the context of the Romanian-American and allied strategic partnership, by exercising the command and control of the Romanian and allied forces and in cooperation with those partners, based on a scenario that contains fight actions of high intensity, integrating in the command chain NATO structures created on Romania's territory.
The start of the exercise was preceded by a series of complex activities of training and planning, which included theoretical training exercises of staff, dislocating in Romania of military from the Allied Quick Reaction Command Corp from Great Britain and of USAREUR-AF and integrating them in specific structures especially prepared for the exercise. Furthermore, during this period, the training of approximately 150 Romanian military was carried out, belonging to all force categories of the Romanian army and dislocating them for fitting the response cells associated with the drill, at the Center for Training of USAREUR-AF in Grafenwohr, Germany.
On the national territory, the training sequences of the Defender Europe 21, organized based on the Romanian-American strategic partnership, are synchronized with those of the exercise carried out in allied format within NATO Steadfast Defender 21 through the national level complex exercises DACIA 21. The Defender Europe 21 Command exercise CAX/CPX marks the end of the series of exercises carried out within Defender Europe 21.
Defender 21 is a reunited large-scale multinational military exercise, planned and led by the USA Ground Forces Commandment for Europe and Africa, having the purpose of increasing reaction capacity and level of inter-operability of the USA Ground Forces with the forces of the NATO member countries and partners. The exercise integrates approximately 28,000 military belonging to allied forces and partners from 26 nations which are training simultaneously, in over 30 training areas in 12 countries.