DVIDS – News – U.S., partner nations complete Regional Cooperation 22 in Tajikistan

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Roughly 300 troops from the US, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Pakistan got here collectively for the train “Regional Cooperation 22,” held Aug. 6-18, 2022, in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The annual train, sponsored by U.S. Central Command and primarily performed by Nationwide Guard Troopers and Airmen, centered on enhancing multinational stability operations and selling cooperation on counter-terrorism and joint mixed capabilities among the many U.S. and Central and South Asia, or CASA, nations.

“It’s actually about collaboration and constructing these partnerships and making certain that all of us acknowledge that none of us need terrorism,” mentioned Col. Peter Fiorentino, a Massachusetts Nationwide Guardsman who served because the brigade deputy commander for the train. “All of us need to dwell peaceable, secure lives.”

This 12 months’s train, held for the sixth time in Tajikistan, included each a command submit train, or CPX, and a subject coaching train, or FTX. Each occasions had been preceded by a three-day tutorial lead-up designed to ascertain a baseline of information for all train individuals.

Earlier than the beginning of the CPX, the tutorial portion of the occasion centered on the Army Choice Making Course of. From there, U.S. forces labored with their companion nation counterparts as a cohesive brigade employees to handle a state of affairs that included border disputes and disruptions, ethnic tensions, civil unrest and a humanitarian disaster that included the displacement of fifty,000 folks.

“On the finish of the day, we met our targets and everybody was working towards the identical objective,” mentioned Lt. Col. Kevin Carter, lead train planner for RC22. “It actually helps once we’re all making an attempt to attain the identical goal, which is constructing our capabilities on safety cooperation.”

Workers from the Massachusetts Nationwide Guard served within the lead for the U.S. on the CPX, a task they’ve served in for the final 16 years. Further Troopers and Airmen from the Virginia, Arizona, Montana and Mississippi Nationwide Guard additionally participated in RC22, alongside their State Partnership Program companion nations. SPP is a Division of Protection program that hyperlinks a state’s Nationwide Guard to the armed forces of a companion nation in an effort to construct and keep mutually helpful relationships with U.S. allies world wide. The Virginia Nationwide Guard and Tajikistan have been companions since 2003.

“We’re leveraging the State Partnership Program that we now have with the Nationwide Guard,” Carter defined. “Tajikistan has a relationship with Virginia and people relationships had been important and large for this train.”

Whereas a number of Virginia Nationwide Guard Troopers participated within the CPX, most had been a part of the FTX, held at a coaching website exterior of Dushanbe. There, advisors from Advisor Crew 3320, assigned to the third Safety Drive Help Brigade, led an info alternate that coated the therapy of frequent battlefield wounds, convoy operations and close-quarters battle.

“The alternate went wonderful and each side had been capable of develop collectively all through,” mentioned Maj. Andrew Kuntz, Bravo Troop, third SFAB commander. Based mostly in Fort Hood, Texas, Kuntz and his workforce of advisors are at the moment deployed to Jordan. “I believe the connection constructing, which was the first focus of this, labored out very properly and that relationship is now there to proceed.”

Kuntz defined workouts resembling RC22 are atypical for the SFAB. With the invitation to take part, Kuntz and his workforce discovered a possibility to construct their very own relationships in Tajikistan.

“We don’t essentially come to those occasions for these occasions particularly,” Kuntz mentioned. “What we’re making an attempt to do is construct a relationship so we will get a everlasting partnership with one unit of their nation on the operational degree.”

Sgt. Peter Leon, a workforce chief assigned to the Virginia Nationwide Guard’s third Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Fight Crew, mentioned attending to know his counterparts from Tajikistan was a spotlight of the expertise.

“It’s a great expertise, coming over to those nations and dealing with them. It presents new alternatives for Troopers to study new cultures and new coaching, in addition to prepares each our army and their army for future cooperation so we will know the capabilities and limitations of one another and we will higher complement one another in actual world situations,” Leon mentioned.

Within the last days of the train, senior leaders visited each the CPX and the FTX. Among the many guests had been Maj. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck, the adjutant normal of Arizona; Brig. Gen. Maurizio D. Calabrese, deputy commanding normal for intelligence at U.S. Central Command’s Over-the-Horizon Counterterrorism Headquarters, and Col. Kurt Kobernik, the Virginia Nationwide Guard’s J3 director of joint operations.

“It is vital that we guarantee continued assets for these worldwide workouts. Any likelihood we now have to extend interoperability throughout instances of peace enormously enhances our productiveness throughout warfare,” mentioned Muehlenbeck. “The Nationwide Guard prides itself in our motto, ‘All the time prepared, at all times there.’ That is how we get there.”