Info on exercise

Info on exercise

The Republic of Croatia for the second time since 2009 will host the “Jackal Stone 12” international military exercise, which demonstrates the confidence of the U.S., as a strategic partner, on the capabilities to organize the military exercise of such scale and on reputation of the Croatian Armed Forces.

The exercise involved all government departments and civil institutions responsible for specific segments of the exercise.
In addition to Croatia and the United States, nine participating countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) and seven countries with observer status (Denmark, France, Finland, Great Britain, Canada Slovenia and Hungary) will participate on the exercise.

The “Jackal Stone 12” exercise itself will be held in Croatia from 13 to 25 September 2012, where the overall organization activities run from late July to late September. The exercise will be conducted on the territory, waters and airspace of the Republic of Croatia. Cities around which activities will be conducted are Zadar, Split, Udbina and Delnice.

The “Jackal Stone 12” is the largest international military exercise of special forces in Europe, which aim to increase cooperation and interoperability between the armed forces of participating countries, with the goal of strengthening regional security and stability, training of procedures and raising the level of capabilities in planning and implementation of activities within the scope of special operations units. About 2000 participants will take part in the exercise.

The exercise, through combat training, gives an insight into the readiness of special forces of partner armed forces and the insight on the capabilities of partner countries for rapid response and joint operations against similar types of security threats. The participating countries, as NATO members, bear all the costs of their participation on the exercise.

Furthermore, through this project EUCOM and SOCEUR will invest certain funds for the construction of CAF infrastructure through the so-called Program of military-military cooperation, as well as funds for infrastructure used by the local authorities in the areas of exercise conduct.

Particular benefits of “Jackal Stone 12” exercise

The “Jackal Stone” exercise concept includes the exercise-related construction. It is about building facilities for an exercise or for the Croatian Armed Forces’ needs, but it also include facilities that remain and are used by the civilian community, and as such represent a very important aspect of civil-military cooperation.

In this year’s exercises the exercise-related construction includes: construction of water supply and kindergarten in Udbina and construction of Joint Operations Centre in “Udbina” Barracks. These projects are among the many projects that the U.S. has done in the Republic of Croatia, through the Office of Defense Cooperation of the U.S. Embassy to the Republic of Croatia. The works will be jointly conducted by the CAF and U.S. Armed Forces (“SEABEEs”) engineering units.

Info on projects:

The first project includes the construction of the Joint Operations Centre for the “Jackal Stone 12” exercise, based on the Memorandum of Understanding between the SOCEUR and the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Croatia signed in January 2012. The construction began at the end of May this year, and involves engineering units of the CAF and U.S. Armed Forces (U.S. SEABEEs). Relevant departments of the Croatian Ministry of Defence have been involved in the project from its very beginning, which coordinate the preparation of project documentation so the facility could be registered in the Land Registrar pursuant to the Construction Bill of the Republic of Croatia, since it is a solid multi-purpose facility.

The second project is a continuation of the project related to the previously held JACKAL STONE 09 exercise, by which the reconstruction of the water supply route began, which was dilapidated and of insufficient capacity. By expansion of the previous project, and adequate supply of the “Josip Jović” Barracks in Udbina will be made, which is of great importance for the whole country, since the “Udbina” Barracks is the water refilling place for Air Tractor and Canadair fire-fighting aircraft. The U.S will invest about 177.000 U.S. dollars in this project.

The third project is the reconstruction of the kindergarten, which condition and capacity do not meet the needs of the local population, and which is also for use for the Croatian Armed Forces members. The U.S. will invest about 100.000 U.S. dollars in this project.

Video

{auto width=”644″ height=”312″ displaywidth=”432″ plthumbs=”false”}jackal_stone.xml{/auto}