Deputy Commander, Joint Force Command Naples visits STRIKFORNATO

Lieutenant General Parent, Royal Canadian Air Force, Deputy Commander, Joint Force Command Naples (JFCNP), was welcomed to the headquarters of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO on 22 February. LTG Parent is visiting all the components working with JFCNP as part of the 2017 NATO Response Force (NRF) Rotation. As one of the Alliance's five rotational Maritime Compo-nent Commanders (MCC), Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO takes its turn as the on-call MCC for calendar year 2017. In preparation for the role, in the fall of 2016, STRIKFORNATO will re-certify as MCC during exercise NOBLE MARINER, and will then support JFCNP during exercise TRIDENT JUNCTURE 2016.

This is LTG Parent's first visit to the SFN HQ, and he welcomed the op-portunity to receive a command brief-ing, discuss exercise preparations and planning, and to discuss with SFN leadership the new strategic security challenges that the Alliance faces.

RADM McAlpine, SFN Deputy Com-mander, briefed LTG Parent on SFN's contribution to the present challenges outside of preparations for NRF Certication.

He stated during the briefing that "prior to our move to Lisbon in 2012, our two headquarters shared a geo-graphic home and worked side-by-side during Operation UNIFIED PRO-TECTOR. 2016 is a great opportuni-ty to renew those linkages. We are really looking forward to the chal-lenge of this year's certification process, which is an incredibly valuable training program for our headquarters."

In addition to the collaborative work on TRIDENT JUNCTURE 2016, JFC NAPLES and STRIKFOR-NATO have been exchanging liaison officers and planners for continued work on NATO's Graduated Response Plan (GRP) a Warsaw Summit (Summer 2016) deliverable that better prepares the Alli-ance to respond to threats along its eastern frontier.