Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge 2007 has a big agenda, encompassing responses to everything from major natural disaster to a terrorist nuclear detonation and other assorted terrorists events. The US Northern Command sponsored exercise, running now through May 17, has scenarios that range from a hurricane in the New England area, to an improvised nuclear device explosion involving Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, and multiple homeland defense events throughout Alaska. NORTHCOM has engaged local, state, and federal agencies and non-governmental organizations to participate.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.