NATO conducts annual Crisis Management Exercise (CMX)

NATO Crisis Management Exercise at the Iraqi National Defence College, July 25-29, 2010

From NATO:  NATO will conduct its annual Crisis Management Exercise (CMX) between 19 and 26 October 2011. The exercise is designed to practice Alliance crisis management procedures at the strategic political level and will involve civilian and military staffs in allied capitals, at NATO Headquarters, and in both Strategic Commands. Unlike a live exercise, however, no forces are actually deployed for the purpose of these exercises.

Originally scheduled to take place on 23-30 March 2011, the exercise was postponed to October 2011 due to the Libya crisis and that NATO took control of all military operations regarding Libya under UN Security Council resolutions 1970 & 1973 on 31 March 2011. This postponement also ensured that full Alliance attention could be devoted to operations as well as to exercising crisis management.
 
The scenario for the exercise is entirely fictitious. The portrayed emerging crisis will be based on a scenario focusing on NATO’s collective defence task involving consultations on the basis of Article 4 and potential invocation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, in line with NATO’s new Strategic Concept adopted at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010. The scenario will also contain aspects related to some of the new security threats identified in the new Strategic Concept.   
 
Sponsored by NATO’s Secretary General, CMX 2011 is jointly run by the International Staff, the International Military Staff and the two NATO Strategic Commands, Allied Command Operations and Allied Command Transformation. This is NATO’s 17th CMX since 1992.
 
All 28 NATO Allies have been involved in planning CMX 2011 and EAPC Partners have been informed. In addition, because the exercise will be set in the Northern Euro-Atlantic area, Finland and Sweden have been invited to be involved in this exercise, and staffs from the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been invited to observe relevant aspects of the exercise.  (photo: NATO)

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