U.S. Fleet Forces (USFF) Command and the U.S Coast Guard joined Canadian Armed Forces' Joint Task Force Atlantic for the 2018 Tri-Party Staff Talks and Frontier Sentinel tabletop exercise at Canadian Armed Forces Base Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 19-21.

USFF Reserve Deputy Maritime Operations Rear Adm. Brian S. Hurley joined Commander, First Coast Guard District Rear Adm. Andrew J. Tiongson and Commander of the Canadian Fleet Atlantic Commodore C.T. Skjerpen to discuss current and future maritime operations between their forces.

The talks evaluated the joint organizations' ability to conduct inter-organizational communications at the operational and tactical levels, achieve and maintain shared maritime domain awareness, and conduct collaborative operational planning. All groups will be required to identify any problems, considerations, constraints and restraints they are likely to encounter within this scenario.

"It's these kind of exercises and staff talks that enhance and build upon our joint interagency and international relationships," said Hurley. "They directly strengthen our ability to respond to any kind of crises and lay the groundwork for protecting the collective maritime interests of the U.S., its allies and partners."

Frontier Sentinel is an annual exercise between all three organizations that serves as the cornerstone activity for validating the interoperability of the tri-party commands and tactical assets, highlighting challenges to interoperability and identifying solutions. The series was conducted as a live exercise running three to five days from 2006 to 2016. In 2017, the exercise changed to a facilitated discussion and table-top exercises.

"As an operator I am fully in support of the idea of a record of discussion," explained Tiongson. "We are sharing intelligence and information, which we have to do to continue to be successful."

This year's exercise focused on nefarious and suspicious activities in the vicinity of the undersea cable networks of the two countries, expanding on last year's iteration of the exercise and focusing on the face-to-face collaborative planning process with the operations, intelligence, communication and public affairs working groups.

"We have lots of details coming from the working groups about how we can better communicate in the future and share in our collaboration to accomplish the mission," concluded Skjerpen.

USFF, originally established as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet in 1906, supports both the chief of naval operations (CNO) and combatant commanders worldwide by providing responsive, relevant and sustainable naval forces ready-for-tasking. The command provides operational and planning support to combatant commanders and integrated warfighter capability requirements to the CNO.

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