The Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland and Norway have found a way to optimize their daily training to include scenarios with and against squadrons from different nations, without any of them having to deploy
HAVING AIR BASES in close proximity — Bodø in Norway to the west, Kallax in Sweden in the center, and Rovaniemi in Finland to the east — has proved benificial for the three Nordic countries. It gives their air forces a low-cost and efficient way of training with dissimilar airframes from other nations on a daily basis.
Lt Col Peter ‘Restless’ Greberg, commander of 211 Fighter Squadron of the Swedish Air Force at Norrbottens flygflottilj F 21, explains, ‘From an economic point of view, it’s very efficient and very good. It is based on the NORDEFCO [Nordic Defence Cooperation], where all the Nordic countries want to co-operate, and we just wanted to take this a bit further. That’s how crossborder training [CBT] started.’
CBT began as a bilateral training program between Finland and Sweden, using the large amounts of airspace in the north. At the same time, the NATO alliance began not only looking for new full members, but furthering the Partnership for Peace (PfP), a program aimed at creating trus…
