INNSWORTH, United Kingdom - Headquarters, Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) executed Exercise ARRCADE Lionheart 2018 at Imjin Barracks here today, which featured a number of senior officers from across the NATO force structure and defence academics as guest speakers.

ARRCADE Lionheart is a conference hosted by the ARRC that focuses on defence-related matters of the day pertaining to warfighting at the operational level. This year's conference title was '21st Century Warfighting at Scale in the Land Environment'.

General Sir Nick Carter, the British Army's Chief of the General Staff, presented first and set the tone. "Conferences such as this will help to advance us," said Carter. "It is vital to protect our population and, longer term, we need to address the causes of the threats [to it]."

Deterring such threats is precisely what newly retired US Army Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe, focused on during his remarks.

"Deterrence means that you've got to have real capability," Hodges said. "You have to demonstrate that capability with exercises and then you have to demonstrate the will to use that capability."

As ARRCADE Lionheart progressed the common thread of multinationality in everything that NATO force structure formations do became apparent and salient. To be sure, the closing comments of British Army Lieutenant General Tim Radford, the commander of HQ ARRC, drove the point home.

 

"NATO has become more and more important in recent years and we are a NATO headquarters," said Radford. "If you're on Operation Elgin, on Toral, on Orbital or on Cabrit you are already working with NATO and it will become more and more relevant over the next few years."

Also presenting at this year's ARRCADE Lionheart were British Army General Sir James Everard, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe; US Army Lieutenant General Darryl Williams, commander of Allied Land Command; British Army Major General Nick Borton, commander of the 3rd (United Kingdom) Division; Dr Igor Sutyagin, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies and Mr James Sherr, associate fellow at Chatham House.

Story by Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Public Affairs Office