We train to be ready

Training and Exercises

Excellence in a profession is achieved through continuous and repeated training based on realistic scenarios. Professionalism is required from all personnel committed to delivering Airpower for the Alliance, protecting and maintaining our freedom and security. As NATO constantly adapts to new challenges and an evolving security environment, tactics, techniques and procedures require continuous development, and practical training. Exercises offer the opportunity to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

The rationale for planning and executing military exercises is to prepare commands and forces for operations in peace, crisis and conflict. Whilst resembling realistic conditions, all exercise scenarios are fictitious and don’t reflect real world geography or real world political players.

Exercise Forms

NATO Military Exercises are executed in three forms: as Live Exercise - an exercise in which actual forces participate; as Command Post Exercise/Computer Assisted Exercise - a Headquarters exercise involving commanders and their staffs in which NATO, friendly forces and opposing forces are simulated; or as an Exercise Study - an activity which may take the form of a map exercise, a war game, a series of lectures, a discussion group, or an operational analysis.

A NATO Partnership for Peace Exercise is an exercise or related activity scheduled and conducted by a NATO Commander, or under certain conditions by a National authority, in which personnel and/or forces from at least one NATO and one Partnership nation perform operational and/or related functions. Partnership for Peace exercises combine planning and training in order to strengthen missions in the fields of Peace Support Operations, Humanitarian Assistance, Search and Rescue and others.