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Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, commander of Allied Air Command Ramstein, paid his first visit to the NATO Combined Air Operations Center Jan. 27 in Uedem, Germany.
The CAOC commander, Lt. Gen. Dieter Naskrent, and his team presented the CAOC’s mission and operational role to General Welsh. The CAOC at Uedem is one of two CAOCs in NATO’s Northern European region and NATO’s only deployable CAOC.
Together with the CAOC in Finderup, Denmark, the multinational control agency exercises the critical Alliance Air Policing mission, ensuring safety and security in the skies north of the Alps.
“I am impressed at the outstanding job the men and women perform here at Uedem 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, planning, directing and tasking alliance air operations,” said General Welsh, who arrived at his post in Ramstein last December. “Air policing and what it represents is the glue that binds this alliance together.”
General Naskrent greeted his superior commander saying, “I’m very pleased and it is an honour for me to welcome General Welsh here at CAOC Uedem while we demonstrate for the first time an interim capability for missile defence, which is unique to NATO.”
General Welsh’s visit coincided with a capability demonstration of NATO’s Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence programme at the CAOC.
The interim capability allows NATO commanders, for the first time, to conduct limited ballistic missile defence planning and exchange information with national ballistic missile defense assets.
After the demonstration, the head of the program office, Brig. Gen. Allessandro Pera, handed over a symbolic key to the operational user of the capability, represented by Maj. Gen. Mark F. Ramsay, deputy chief of staff operations
and intelligence from NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Belgium.
(Courtesy of HQ AC Ramstein)
