Bosnia and Herzegovina Prepares for Combined Endeavor 2009
19 08 2009During my recent visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, I saw first hand the great job our BiH partners are doing in Banja Luka as they prepare to host the US European Command’s communications interoperability exercise, Combined Endeavor 2009. The exercise, which will be held from Sep 4-17, is in its 15th year.
LTC Alija Kozljak & BG Dragan Vukovic, BiH Army, join Lt Col Dollesin and me for a tour of Kozara Barracks in Banja Luka
This year is especially important, exciting and challenging. The planners from 40 nations agreed to try something new and “break the mold” to accomplish what has not been attempted before in Combined Endeavor’s 14-year history. In past years, all of the participating nations and organizations would, for the most part, deploy their personnel and equipment to a familiar site in Germany to test the interoperability of their communications, save one year when the exercise was in Austria. During planning conferences for this year’s exercise, the national communication leaders agreed to conduct deployable communications operations from three locations.
The Main Operating Base will be in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and two Regional Operating Sites, one each in Denmark, and the Netherlands. Denmark is also deploying equipment to each of the sites to provide the satellite connectivity to tie together the coalition network.
US Ambassador Charles English addresses the press at the Operations Center ribbon cutting, sharing the stage with Minister of Defense Dr. Selmo Cikotić (right)
All participating nations will have representatives working in the Combined Joint Communications Coordination Center (CJCCC) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to coordinate and oversee the exercise and interoperability testing. The results of the testing are compiled in an interoperability guide that is freely accessible to all participating nations.
During my trip I was also fortunate to visit Sarajevo, where I represented the US European Command at the ribbon cutting for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s new Ministry of Defense Operations Center. The center is modeled after the Emergency Operations Center in Maryland, the United States National Guard State Partner for BiH. I was honored to be part of the event with the US Ambassador Charles English and Bosnia and Herzegovina Minister of Defense Dr. Selmo Cikotić.
Tour of new BiH Ministry of Defense Operations Center after the ribbon cutting
As Combined Endeavor gets underway in September, I’ll keep you up to date with future posts.
Brig Gen David Cotton
Director, ECJ6
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