Tag Archive for: exercise

In A Historic First, Ukraine To Join NATO’s Largest Cyber Security Exercise, Locked Shields 2024

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For the very first time, Ukraine will debut in NATO’s flagship cybersecurity exercise, Locked Shields 2024, announced by the National Cyber Security Coordination Center (the first working body of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council). 

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Locked Shields, organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), is the world’s largest cybersecurity exercise. It will take place between April 22 and April 26.

The exercise serves as a crucible for honing cyber defense capabilities, fostering an environment where participants leverage their collective expertise to develop robust defense strategies. 

Since its inception in 2010, the exercise has evolved into the world’s largest and most realistic cyber defense drill, setting the standard for comprehensive cyber readiness.



This annual event convenes experts from diverse backgrounds to tackle cyber threats through realistic scenarios, emphasizing the importance of international cooperation in defending against cyber-attacks.

The National Cyber Security Coordination Center of Ukraine stressed the growing importance of Locked Shields in strengthening international collaboration in cyber defense, which is evident from the increasing number of participating countries each year. 

In its previous iteration in 2023, Locked Shields saw the participation of 33 countries forming 24 different teams. This year’s exercise, hosted in Estonia, is expected to draw around 4,000 experts from over 40 nations tasked with safeguarding a fictional nation’s critical infrastructure from cyber threats.

According to the National Cyber Security Coordination Center, Kyiv is forming a joint team with the Czech Republic for the exercises. The goal is to cultivate skills, share experiences, and foster cooperation in countering modern cyber threats. 

In March 2022, Ukraine became a member of the NATO Cyber Center in response to Russia’s large-scale invasion. 

Serhiy Demedyuk, Deputy Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense…

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DVIDS – News – Maryland Air Guard exercise skills to be ready for warfare

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The Maryland Air National Guard conducted a readiness exercise involving Airmen in a simulated deployed environment across Martin State Air National Guard Base from March 2-5.

The exercise, designated Operation Lucky Strike 2023, was built to test and demonstrate the 175th Wing’s ability to survive and operate in a near-peer conflict while executing unit-level critical tasks. All training activities were observed and monitored by unit subject matter experts and the inspector general’s office, which provided feedback to leaders and participants.

“Operation Lucky Strike is a full-scale readiness exercise designed to test our Airmen’s ability to ensure mission essential tasks are met in a contested, degraded, operationally limited environment including CBRN, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear environments,” said Maryland Air National Guard Capt. Sara Nittinger, 175th Wing director of inspections. “Everything is driven by the new Air Force generation concept, AFFORGEN. It is how we prepare our Airmen for deployments, where they have to be able to demonstrate that they can accomplish their core mission essential tasks in a variety of threat levels.”

During the exercise, wing Airmen had to operate during simulated cyberattacks, power outages, hazardous material accidents, force protection events, and severe weather. The exercise also took place at multiple locations, including Aberdeen Proving Ground and Ft. Meade, testing the wing’s ability to demonstrate agile combat employment, known as ACE.

“In the future, we could be operating in a hostile combat environment that is contested or degraded against an adversary that has peer capabilities – in other words, as capable as us and in some cases maybe more capable,” said Maryland Air National Guard Col. Richard Hunt, 175th Wing vice commander. “They are going to threaten us as much as we threaten them. In order for us to survive, operate, and be effective in a high-risk combat scenario, we need to have the ability to forward deploy to conduct combat operations for a very limited…

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STARCOM’s ‘Black Skies’ exercise includes satellite jamming

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SpaceFlag 22-3

SPACE FLAG 22-3 participants pose for a group photo at Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado, Aug. 8, 2022. (U.S. Space Force photo by Judi Tomich)

AFA 2022 — The first of a new series of Space Force exercises aimed at training Guardians in specific skill sets is underway this week, called Black Skies and focused on electronic warfare — including “live fire” in the form of real-world satellite jamming, according to the head of the service’s training command.

“It’s an electronic warfare exercise that Guardians are participating in, particularly the Space Operations Command units,” Maj. Gen. Shawn Bratton, commander of Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) told reporters here today.

The chromatic “Skies series” of exercises are modeled on the Air Force “Flag” exercises, and are more focused than the annual SPACE FLAG exercises that have been ongoing for many years. This year’s SPACE FLAG 22-3 was held Aug. 8-19 at Shriever SFB in Colorado, and was the first following the exercise’s accreditation as a joint training activity. It involved some 120 participants, including from the Air Force and the Army. The next iteration of Space Flag will be a coalition exercise involving allies among the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing group (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

“There was a big Army presence there,” Bratton said.

The ongoing Black Skies exercise includes Guardians and Air National Guard units specializing in space, since the Defense Department has yet to come to a conclusion about the fate of those Guard personnel. Bratton explained that the exercises mixes both “live fire” and “constructive” training, including the use of a satellite “leased” from commercial companies to play the target.

He explained that the key area of EW training for Space Force personnel that is different from that required by Air Force trainees revolves around satellite jamming — a capability that many potential adversaries, including China and Russia, have in spades.

Black Skies will be followed later this year by the Red Skies exercise focused on “orbital warfare,” Bratton said. Next year, he added,…

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China launches empire building exercise in Pacific theatre

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President Panuelo: ‘Chinese control over our security space, aside from impacts on our sovereignty, increases the chances of China getting into conflict with Australia, Japan, US and New Zealand, on the day when Beijing decides to invade Taiwan.’

Time to head to the map room. We’ll open the long, wide, top drawer, pull out the map of World War II’s Pacific Theatre, and set it aside on the chart table for now. We’ll get back to it. But first we’ll pull out an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) map of the region.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every island can get up to 200 nautical miles off its coast as an EEZ in which it controls resources, say, fisheries. That means, for example, Pacific Island Country (PIC) Kiribati may have a population of around 120,000, but, with its EEZ, it covers as much of the planet as India.

Now let’s colour in the EEZs of the countries being visited at the moment by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his large delegation. What we see is a large, contiguous band—Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa—off the northeast coast of Australia, backed against Kiribati. And off to the northwest of Australia, almost embedded into Indonesia, strategically located Timor-Leste.

What are we looking at? Well, China helpfully tells us.

CHINA’S ‘VISION’ AND ‘FIVE-YEAR ACTION PLAN’ FOR PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

Wang is hoping the PICs who recognize China will sign on to two prewritten documents. We know what’s in them because they have been leaked by Pacific Islanders worried about the implications.

The first one is “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision”. The second is “China-Pacific Island Countries Five-Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026)”. The “Action Plan” describes how China plans to achieve its “Vision”.

“Vision” talks about: law enforcement cooperation, including “immediate and high-level police training”; “cooperation on network governance and cyber security”, including a “shared future in cyberspace”; the “possibility of establishing China-Pacific Island Countries Free Trade Area”;…

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