What if a wall of sea mines halts international commerce across the Arabian Gulf, and the waterways throughout the Middle East? What if hostile forces attack international ports and sink ships carrying essential cargo? Are the U.S. and allies, especially regional partners, ready to respond to these potential threats?

Naval, civilian and maritime industry leaders from more than 30 countries are mulling these questions as part of the 2016 International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX), a defensive maritime exercise held in the international waterways of the Middle East.

IMCMEX prepares participating nations on neutralizing sea mines, conducting maritime security operations, protecting maritime infrastructure such as ports, mitigating mass casualties on sea, and conducting search and rescue, and visit, board, search and seizure operations such as counter-narcotic and illegal weapon cache seizures and anti-piracy operations.

IMCMEX has two major components: the fleet tactical exercise, which focuses on shipboard, air, and undersea training including hunting and neutralizing mines and conducting port and maritime security operations, and the command post exercise (CPX), centered on multinational headquarter-level staff planning, execution and review of operations against a fictitious non-state group bent on using mines to disrupt sea lanes and attack maritime infrastructure.

"CPX provides a platform for an all-encompassing planning, executing and reviewing methodology for a multi-national complex naval campaign designed to counter threats to navigation, maritime infrastructure and global security," said Lt. Cmdr. Tristan Wagner, one of the lead planners of IMCMEX.

The CPX is the intellectual hub for senior naval officers to plan for contingencies, to debate multiple courses of action based on intelligence using state of the art technologies, such as unmanned underwater vehicles, and to capture lessons learned once a current operation or crisis is over.

These scenarios are integrated in four phases: training command and control staff officers in an international environment, internal think tank-style discussions over strategy, a battle lab to test courses of action before implementation, and executing operations to safeguard sea lanes, ports and ships. The exercise will end in a lessons learned wrap up, commonly called a "hot wash."

"With 13 nations participating, and the U.S. Naval War College and the U.S. Joint Staff, the exercise has already produced great success as different navies learn to collaborate, debate and implement as a global force," said Wagner.

IMCMEX is focused on maritime security from the port of origin to the port of arrival, and demonstrates global resolve in maintaining freedom of navigation and the free of flow of maritime commerce. CPX ended April 21, but IMCMEX will continue through April 26.


For more news from Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/5th Fleet, visit www.cusnc.navy.mil/.