Air force, army and navy assets from across Italy were engaged in Joint Stars, the country’s largest national joint exercise of 2017. Giovanni Colla and Remo Guidi investigate.
Joint Stars 2017
Joint Stars 2017 (JS17) was organised by the Comando Operativo di vertice Interforze (COI, Joint Operations Command) of the Italian defence ministry. The exercise consisted of interconnected manoeuvres (Lampo, led by the army; the navy’s Mare Aperto; and the air force’s Vega). JS17 was conducted between June and October in Sicily, Sardinia and southern-central Italy. Throughout it, a single fictitious scenario presented the players with a crisis context between two countries. A NATO component also took part in Joint Stars, the alliance providing assets dedicated to cyber warfare training, among them radar and communications jammers.
