5 Dec. 2005

Viking exercise tests civil-military cooperation News 13 December 2005 - ACT ACT, Sweden walk together down Transformation path Key links Viking exercise Web site From 5 to 16 December, some 2000 civilian and military personnel are looking at ways of improving civil-military responses to crises in exercise Viking 05, led by NATO partner country Sweden. The computer-based exercise is taking place simultaneously in 11 locations in Europe. Participants will have to work together to deal with various rapidly-evolving crisis scenarios, including full-fledged civil war in a fictitious country. Avoiding real-life mistakes This advanced simulation aims to identify ways of improving the information flow between civil and military actors taking part in international crisis response operations. “A misunderstanding within our exercise will hopefully lead to one less misunderstanding in action,” said Jonas Alberoth, deputy director of the Folke Bernadotte Academy, a Swedish government agency dedicated to improving the quality and effectiveness of international conflict and crisis management, with a particular focus on peace operations. NATO’s Allied Command Transformation is contributing by leading two experiments aimed at testing concepts for improving information flow among participants. One of these is a special, secure Web site designed to facilitate information exchange for specific international crises and operations. This is the fourth exercise in the VIKING series, which has now developed into a major joint exercise for NATO and partner countries.