SHAPE, Mons, Belgium – During 16 – 20 September 2013 and 23 – 27 September 2013, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe will conduct exercises STEADFAST PYRAMID 2013 and STEADFAST PINNACLE 2013 in Riga, Latvia.

Demonstrating the strategic partnership among Allies and the close connection between NATO and Latvia it is the third time this Baltic nation has hosted these exercises which focus on commanders and senior staff, across the NATO Command Structure, NATO Force Structure and troop contributing nations to the NATO Response Force. The ultimate goal being to improve command and control skills during planning, preparation and conduct operations.

The use of fictitious but realistic scenarios built within the context of a non-Article 5 crisis response situation, the 54 candidates from 14 different nations will have the authentic environment to test their planning procedures.

PYRAMID 13 focuses on the role of commanders in operational planning and decision-making process, while PINNACLE 13 focuses on the role of commanders at operational level.

NATO regularly plans and conducts exercises in order to develop operational capabilities, readiness, standardisation and effectiveness, demonstrates its capabilities and the effective integration of forces, however, once the ISAF mission comes to end NATO will be forced to increasingly rely on exercises in order to enhance cooperation, exploit opportunities for transformation, maintain high-levels of interoperability and help promote NATO’s Connected Forces Initiative (CFI) between member and non-member countries by supporting training programmes.

After more than 10 years of experience fighting together in Afghanistan, we have achieved an unprecedented level of cohesiveness among allies and partners. We are operating as a seamlessly integrated team right now, and we aim to maintain this level of cohesion … by intensifying our education, training and exercises across the air, land and sea domains,” said General Breedlove, Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe.

Exercises „Steadfast Pyramid” and „Steadfast Pinnacle” were first conducted in Latvia in 2011. According to the agreement between Latvia and the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation the exercises will be conducted in Latvia til 2016. During the exercises, Latvia develops the joint operational capability as a host nation and benefits from these exercises by improving abilities to work with other NATO nations.