By Ann Roosevelt

Theater security cooperation is a major thrust at U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army to build relationships and help build partner capability, according to the commander.

“We are missioned by OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] to help build partner capacity–those are the exact words,” Gen. David McKiernan, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army, told the Defense Writers Group yesterday.

“My guidance to my leaders is always that we build tomorrow’s coalitions today,” he said. “You build them today so that five-10 years from now, when we operate together, there’s some interoperability there.”

This is in line with Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ Oct. 10 speech at the Association of the United States Army in Washington, D.C, expressing a vision of a future Army that does more training of foreign militaries.

All the nations reflect common themes: a desire to move away from the conscript armies of the past to professional and volunteer forces. All are interested in developing junior leaders, specifically non commissioned officers because they haven’t had them in the past, he said. The command trains and develops leaders by bringing them to train in Germany, or personnel go to the country involved.

Training as the United States conducts it is another area they are all interested in from training centers to professional observer/controllers and the after action review process.

An example of the process is the rotational training opportunity called Joint Task Force East (JTF-East), involving U.S. forces, with forces from NATO members Romania and Bulgaria.

“It’s been a great success so far,” McKiernan said.

“We want recurring training opportunities to go to those countries to train with their land forces and perhaps in the future train with other countries,” he said.

“It’s off to a good start this year,” he said, though it is on the low scale in terms of size. “Our plan has the potential where we can rotate up to a brigade combat team” with a possible training rotation of up to six months, involving U.S. Air Force Europe, Navy Europe, and possibly special operations forces in the future.

A “proof of principle” effort is going on in Romania right now, with a battalion task force, some Seabees and an artillery battalion task force. The exercise kicked off Aug. 17 and concludes Oct. 22 (Defense Daily, Aug. 13).

Romanian and Bulgarian forces are training with U.S. soldiers and holding cultural exchanges as well.

The command has also invested in infrastructure such as soldier housing at Forward Operating Site Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base (FOS MKAB), Romania.

The exercise, which ends Oct. 22, builds interoperability and military relationships with partners in the war on terror and NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. It is also testing command and control capabilities.

Terrorism is a threat to all, McKiernan said.

“My personal appreciation is that the threat of radical fundamentalism involves all of our coalition partners in the West,” he said, taking a snapshot in time of the war on terrorism. “It’s not an American problem. It’s a threat to the West.”

In September, Germany foiled a potential massive terrorist bomb plot. McKiernan said there is a very real threat “that can exist with any of the coalition partners that are engaged with us in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

“I think that the threat of terrorist activity is transnational, it’s networked…it’s well financed,” he said. “There are force providers, there are training camps–they don’t have a recruiting problem, nor a retention problem, and they have adaptive tactics.”

It is a persistent global problem, he said.