Co-ordination of multi-national military activities on land and water, in air and cyberspace in emergency situations – that is the main nonsubjective of "Steadfast Duel '25". All 32 NATO states take part in the command and relay exercises. The commanders act in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which assumes a joint defence in the event of an attack on 1 of the allies.
"Steadfast Duel ‘25’ is simply a command and control exercise to test NATO's readiness and interoperability in crisis conditions. Actions carried out in accordance with a realistic script shall take place in virtual space. For the first time, all 3 NATO Joint Forces Commands (JFC Brunssum, JFC Naples and JFC Norfolk) train together as part of 1 coordinated training system. For 8 days (until 29 October), each command will fulfil its regular duties, while working in demanding, 24-hour combat mode to test joint planning, coordination and implementation of activities in different regions and environments.
This is the first training in which the collective defence script will be reworked to trigger Article 5 Washington Treaty throughout the Alliance's command structure. The “Steadfast Duel ‘25” is attended by representatives of all 32 States of the Alliance, a full of about 7,000 soldiers and military staff. The script takes place in many places in Europe and the United States to reflect the real distribution of allied forces.
– This is simply a very realistic, multi-domain exercise conducted in a simulated environment to strengthen our collective deterrence and defense," says Gen. Dyw. Ruprecht von Butler, Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) commander, who is liable for organizing the project. "It is an perfect chance to practice NATO's strategical and operational command strategy and the integration of associate States. This allows us to integrate real regional planning and state-of-the-art technologies – adds the general. It stresses that “Steadfast Duel ‘25” will besides contribute to the improvement of war art and will aid measure a number of allied doctrines and procedures.
During the exercise, soldiers usage the 360-Degree Multi-Domain Setting system, which allows you to prepare the script so as to render realistic events as accurately as possible. This allows them to train planning and command in a situation where there are attacks from different directions and in different forms (e.g. drones, cyber attack, sabotage, disinformation, maneuvering missiles). NATO Commands thus learn to coordinate the operations of air, land, sea, space and cyber forces in a single C2 strategy (Command & Control – command and control). This is crucial due to the fact that global threats are scattered today, hybrid and non-linear, and NATO can decision from regional consequence to global integrated defence.
The Steadfast Duel series is related to training ‘Avenger Triad’, led by the command of the United States Army component in Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF), in which the 5th US Army Corps participates. ‘Steadfast Duel ‘25’ are besides associated with ‘Steadfast Deterrence’, carried out early in the year and ‘Steadfast Wolf ‘26’, which is scheduled for next year. Their main subject will be to address CBRN threats (chemical, biological, radiological and atomic weapons).
