Coalition Exercise Evolves With Fresh Features

Signal, Sep 2008 by Boland, Rita

The Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration is adapting for today's battlefield.

The U.S. armed forces' yearly demonstration to test and assess interoperability technologies took place in June as military services and government agencies from various countries gathered at worldwide locations to evaluate new communications capabilities. This year's event had several new features and components, including a combatant command sponsor that filled the role for the third consecutive time, increased foreign country and direct academic participation, a focus on Afghan military operations, and a connection with other military interoperability and certification exercises. Now, personnel involved with the effort are looking to take past successes and combine them with fresh perspectives and new ideas as they prepare for the future.

The Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) is an annual event directed by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff to engage cutting-edge information technology. Criteria are set by combatant commanders, and military and government agencies sponsor the participating technologies, though the developers pay their own way to take part. Since 2006, the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) has served as the combatant command sponsor, drawing on its international connections to increase involvement from NATO and other countries in its area of responsibility.

Traditionally, combatant command sponsors take up the position for only two years, but EUCOM kept control for a third year, building on its experience and adjusting for world events. According to Lt. Col. Kevin Westley, USAF, the EUCOM CWID director, the threeyear term gave his command the stability necessary to investigate the coalition interoperability within its area of responsibility, especially with NATO and the United Kingdom. EUCOM was able to build on its relationships from the last two years to improve cooperation from other nations in this year's demonstration.

Though EUCOM will relinquish the role of combatant command sponsor to U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) next year, it will continue to play a leadership role in CWID and interact with its foreign allies. This decision retains EUCOM's expertise while bringing in new vision and priorities. JFCOM is scheduled to hold the combatant command sponsor post for two years, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff could ask the command to extend its time in the position for another year, as they did with EUCOM. For CWID 2008, JFCOM had responsibility for planning and execution oversight.

Capt. Gregory Stephens, USN, the Coalition Task Force commander and scenario working group chair for CWID, has some advice for next year's leaders. "Start early and invite everybody," he says. "I don't mean that in a humorous way." He explains that to ensure CWJD success, planners need to begin their process far in advance so they can work with highranking officials' schedules. They also need time to adjust if conditions or trials change and to procure adequate facilities. Early scheduling also enables the private companies demonstrating their technologies to send out their invitations sooner so they can attract potential customers.

EUCOM helped set this year's CWID apart and improve international cooperation by increasing focus on the International Stabilization Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Many of the foreign participants used CWID to prepare for deployments to the Asian nation as part of that force. Planners found an area of Arizona that mimicked Afghanistan from geography and force laydown standpoints. ISAF operations were not a specific scenario in CWDD, but by reproducing the conditions, troops were able to assess their technologies more accurately. "They were well-pleased with the results," Capt. Stephens states.

CWID officials aimed to make the ISAF training and all of the demonstration as relevant as possible to current warfighters and the challenges they face in the field. Capt. Stephens explains that when he became involved with CWID three years ago, it was modeled on more traditional warfare: bad guy invades, good guy defends. There was no involvement with nongovernmental organizations, refugees or natural impacts. "Now we have evolved the scenario to a more lowto mid-intensity conflict," he says.

To better echo the battlefield of today requires increased focus on joint and coalition efforts. Col. Westley shares, "The biggest area where we've seen the most evolvement is the increased involvement of NATO and the United Kingdom, and trying to really change the shape of how we work together."

More than 20 multinational participants were involved in CWID 2008. All the U.S. military services also participated, including various combatant and service-specific commands, non-active-duty units, and other U.S. defense and civilian agencies. Testing took place at worldwide sites, which were connected through the Coalition Task Force/NATO Reaction Force Network, the Coalition Task Force Network and the Homeland security Network. Participants took part in 41 trials, each falling under one of four CWID objectives: improve coalition and joint command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance architecture; improve information sharing across the full range of military operations; enhance cross-domain and multiple security level information exchange tools; and enhance government agency interoperability. CWID also offered a fifth objective enhance integrated logistics planning tools-but no trials were entered under this category.