Massive Military Exercise Underway in Interior Alaska - shadows of a foreign power

While many North Americans are relaxing on vacation,the US and Canadian Armed Forces have been participating in Arctic Anvil 2016,a joint multinational exercise by troops from US Army Alaska's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team;25th Infantry Division and UATF;196th Infantry Brigade's Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Capability;133rd Infantry Regiment,Iowa National Guard;and 1st Battalion,Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.The drills,running from June to August,are being held in Alaska for the first time,with more than 8,000 soldiers and support personnel highlighting the importance of the Arctic lands to both nations.*
At the Donnelly Training Area near Fort Greely,Alaska,soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry Regiment,which is named for the daughter of a Governor General of Canada and is one of the three Regular infantry regiments in the Canadian Army,blended into the boreal forest landscape with heavily painted faces,branches and twigs disguising their helmets and Coyote light armoured vehicles,giving them an edge in reconnaissance collection.Later,PPCLI staged a sneak morning attack on the Iowa National Guard opposing force role-players.*
Live fire training added welcome authenticity to the wargames in the Yukon Training Area near Fort Wainwright.*
We get kind of the standard friction with information flow,communication,trying to get a good understanding of what's happening out in the battlefield,explained Lieutenant Colonel Bill Taylor,commander of the 1-52 Aviation Battalion.We have to see ourselves,what's going on with our aircraft,how to maintain them-we have friction with that.When you get out in the real world,things don't always work the way you would hope,Col.Taylor said.*
Members of the US Air Force's 41st Airlift Squadron,the Black Cats,out of Little Rock Air Force Base,Arkansas,delivered combat airlift for the exercise as part of their pre-deployment training.They landed a C-130J transport on a dirt landing strip at Ladd Army Airfield,getting prepared for the terrain of austere locations and navigating mountainous terrain;while at the same time appreciating the uncontested airspace of Interior Alaska and the more effective training it provides without the clutter of commercial flight patterns to deal with.*
The Iowa National Guard skillfully portrayed the enemy forces in the drills,as well as the scenario's host nation security forces and civilians.*
The size and complexity of this exercise is partly a response to the growing and unprecedented scale and sophistication of recent Russian drills in their own arctic environment.