As America’s forward deployed corps in Europe, V Corps led the theater wide military exercise, Saber Strike 22, which encompassed a variety of joint multi-national training throughout Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Saber Strike is a bi-ennial exercise between NATO and allied partners which has been held since 2010. Large scale exercises like Saber Strike demonstrate the strategic readiness of the U.S. military through integration into multiple NATO ally and partner exercises in the region. Saber Strike includes approximately 13,000 multinational participants from 13 nations such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and the United States.
Training with partner nations in Europe provide unique opportunities to hone skills and retain the ability to shoot, move and communicate as a combined arms team with allied forces. This large scale two month exercise showcased different events including a tactical road march through the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia; multiple live-fire and force-on-force exercises; rail operations from Germany to Lithuania; as well as establishment of air, ground and sea lines of communication through Denmark and Sweden. No nation can confront today’s challenges alone. Fostering relationships with allies and partners increases interoperability and ensures the readiness, agility and strength of our combined forces.
“Saber Strike was really the first multi-national exercise led by V Corps since becoming fully operationally capable and it was designed to test our ability to provide operational and tactical oversight of U.S. troops and exercise command and control of the formations during the training. Exercises like Saber Strike build readiness, enhance interoperability and strengthen relationships by providing a joint, multinational environment to prepare allies and partners to train as we fight. The real value of an exercise like Saber Strike is that it demonstrates alliance readiness, interoperability and capability. It shows that the U.S. can rapidly deploy combat-credible forces to Poland, the Baltics, and Central Europe to support our allies during contingencies,” said Maj. Gen. Jeffery Broadwater, deputy commanding general, V Corps and the exercise director.
Training exercises like Saber Strike demonstrate that NATO allies and partners are stronger together and are designed to ensure U.S. and allied forces are trained, able to operate together, and ready to respond to outside threats in a multi-domain environment. V Corps’ presence and commitment to the defense of allies on NATO’s Eastern flank will enable greater use of dynamic force employment in the European Theater, providing strategic predictability for allies and partners while introducing greater operational unpredictability to adversaries. Saber Strike demonstrated ability to conduct operations in winter and rough terrain conditions while allowing us to build interoperability with multi-national partners to reinforce the alliance. This exercise just further proved that our alliance is strong.