International Crisis Management And National Tasks

This was NATO’s sixteenth international Crisis Management Exercise (CMX), in which Hungary has participated for the ninth time – Colonel Dr. József Tokovicz told honvedelem.hu. The director of region 2 of the MoD Defence Bureau added: the 28 NATO member states, and 10 member states of the PfP (Partnership for Peace) program and the Mediterranean Dialogue have participated in the exercise that was conducted between March 4–10 in every country. The main objective of the exercise was to practice, simulate and model the necessary procedures, measures and joint decision making in international crisis management and related national activities.

The fictitious scenario for the exercise was the following: an armed conflict broke out between two countries on an island thousands of kilometres away from Hungary, and the NATO Response Force’s (NRF) rotation on standby duty entered the island to control the situation. The aim of allied troops was to force peace and preserve peace. The fact that during the peace support mission there was a devastating earthquake that shattered the island has made the situation more difficult because in addition to their military tasks, allied countries had to participate in post-disaster recovery as well in order to mitigate disastrous humanitarian consequences.

– It was very similar to NATO’s current tasks, therefore the experiences we have gained during exercise CMX–09 will be very helpful in the planning of real military and humanitarian tasks as well – said Colonel Tokovicz, who also told us that according to the scenario, 88 Hungarian soldiers were sent to the aforementioned island, with the capabilities offered to the current rotation of the NRF and as a part of the follow-on force. They were supported by the 35-strong logistic component under national command. Naturally, this happened only ’on paper’, since the CMX is a command post exercise in the course of which there are no real troop movements.

Following the closure of the exercise, the representatives of the Hungarian organizations held the hot wash-up on March 12 – Col. Tokovicz told us. It was said at the meeting that compared to previous exercises, at this year’s exercise there has been some improvement in a few things. For example before the exercise there was an opportunity to conduct a central training for the participating personnel. Moreover, CMX was discussed at the meeting of state secretaries and the government session held in the implementation phase, in other words, responsible political leaders provided authentic information about the exercise in their planned, regular forums. This procedure – namely that information materials on the exercise have been distributed in the system – is unique even in the NATO – pointed out the regional director of the Defence Bureau.

In addition to that, Hungarian participating organizations could make significant progress in the preparation of planning documents as well, since the government decision and the signed implementation plan were passed 8-10 days before the start of the exercise, due to the fact that since the beginning of December, with the involvement of experts from every ministry concerned, officials have been focusing on the preparations of the exercise.

Unfortunately, there were some areas were there has been no progress compared to similar exercises in previous years. At the preliminary evaluation meeting it has been confirmed that national planning processes must be improved parallel to the NATO planning process. In addition to that, national events the Hungarian party would like to practice in during the implementation phase have to be included in the NATO scenario more straightforwardly.

Hungarians would like to improve in planning activities as well until exercise CMX–11, the planning of which will begin in late April in Brussels – Col. Tokovicz said – and the exact date will be decided at this first planning conference by consensus. This consensus was the reason for the fact that exercise CMX–09, planned for 2009, was conducted only in March 2010 – after it was postponed twice. According to the original plans, CMX-CME–10, the joint crisis management exercise of the NATO and the EU, would have taken place this autumn, but due to problems on strategic level, they could not organize it.

Col. Dr. József Tokovicz also told us that countries participating in exercise CMX–09 have to send their first reports to the NATO headquarters until April 5. The international evaluation based on these national learnings will be completed by the middle of April in Brussels. In addition to the report to be sent to NATO, the information pack on the implementation and learnings of the exercise has to be submitted to government until May 31.