Estonia's Hoppe further spoke specifically on his nation's armed forces working with U.S. Marines:
"They will learn survival skills from us, as we have a special climate, wetland landscape, which cannot be found everywhere. In return, we will learn from them patrolling, an ability that we do have, but which they are extremely skilled at."
"The common denominator is [the] receiving of allies, cooperation between units, combined effort of civilian authorities and [the] private sector. All this strengthens Baltic cooperation with America and [other] allies. Naturally it also strengthens regional partnership in the northern region of the Baltic Sea and allows cooperation procedures to be tested."
The integrated U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Strike Group Two website stated this year's BALTOPS was "designed to promote regional cooperation and foster multinational interoperability to train for joint combat of regional and transnational threats."
Vice Admiral Frank Pandolfe, commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet and of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO ("a rapidly deployable Maritime Headquarters to plan, command and control maritime operations including if necessary a Maritime Expanded Task Force for larger scale operations"), stated:
"BALTOPS has one common goal -- to improve maritime security in the Baltic Sea through increased interoperability and collaboration among regional allies.
"As in past years, our sailors and Marines will be working side-by-side with their colleagues from partner nations, both on land and at sea, becoming familiar with each other's military operating procedures and practices. That partnership -- that collaboration -- leads to increased understanding and increased interoperability."
On June 28 the Baltic Host 12 NATO Host Nation Support exercise began simultaneously in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with the involvement of military personnel from Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, U.S. European Command and Naval Striking and Support Force NATO.
The fourth annual Baltic Host exercise is providing the U.S. and NATO the opportunity to increase military interoperability with the armed forces of the three Baltic nations and to prepare those nations for hosting NATO forces for assorted missions, including armed conflicts. That is, war. War close to home is the most likely prospect.
This year's exercise will prepare for a NATO Response Force exercise codenamed Steadfast Jazz to be conducted in 2013.
The Baltic Sea region is an expanding theater for Pentagon and NATO operations. From regular ground, air and sea exercises to the training of multinational forces for deployment to Afghanistan and the beginning of the Northern Distribution Network to move supplies and equipment to that nation. From the eight-year-old NATO Baltic air patrol to the opening of a NATO cyber warfare center of excellence in Estonia and the upgrading of air bases in Estonia and Lithuania. From the deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles to Poland two years ago to the scheduled stationing of Standard Missile-3 interceptors there in 2018.
USS Normandy, which participated in this year's BALTOPS, is equipped to fire Standard Missile-3s, and may well join other American guided missile cruisers and destroyers in the Baltic Sea as part of the U.S.'s global missile interception system.
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