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AFCENT brings together joint force, foreign partners to hone distributed air and missile defense skills

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  • By Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) Public Affairs
  • Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central)

Ninth Air Force (Air Forces Central) led Air and Missile Defense Exercise (AMDEX) 22-02, a joint, combined event that improves tactics, techniques and procedures in coordination with regional partners to defend against air and missile threats, May 2-13, 2022.

Approximately 1,800 U.S. military personnel and 200 foreign partner forces located at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, and multiple locations throughout the 21-nation U.S. Central Command theater participated in the semi-annual exercise.

“U.S., coalition and our partner forces across the Middle East are threatened every day from increasingly complex air attacks,” said Lt. Gen. Greg Guillot, 9 AF (AFCENT) commander. “Exercises like AMDEX allow us to come together to share information and innovate new approaches to countering these threats in support of regional security.” 

This latest iteration of AMDEX was the first time the exercise included two U.S. based operations centers, the 609th Air Operations Center at Shaw and the Ryan Center at Joint Base Langley-Eustis. Adding another U.S. location increased AFCENT’s readiness and resiliency.

“Training on complex scenarios from multiple locations from across the globe, displayed our members’ preparedness to execute operations in a joint and coalition environment,” said James Jackson, AMDEX Exercise Director. “Conducting operations for mission readiness includes being able to move, communicate and operate without losing awareness or control of the operation environment.”

Throughout the two-week exercise, members from AFCENT, U.S. Army Central and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command worked with long-standing partners to exercise key planning processes needed to defend and counter a major attack in the region.

Frequently exercising these processes helps the command identify any potential limitations or friction points, which could impact future operations. This allows joint and coalition service members to find innovative ways to improve policies for the benefit of the entire USCENTCOM region.    

Although AMDEX is a regularly scheduled exercise, every iteration is updated to reflect the current political environments and threats, which ensures timeliness and relevance of the training. AFCENT’s foreign liaison teams also work directly with participating partner nations to train on scenarios tailored to each partner nation’s specific needs.

The U.S. military regularly participates in exercises with joint, coalition and regional partners in the USCENTCOM area of responsibility each year to maintain regional partnerships and interoperability.