“On a hot July afternoon at Fakhrabad military training center near Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a line of hills and fruit orchards in the distance, a squad of Tajik peacekeeping troops was ambushed by violent extremists.             

The Tajik patrol maneuvered through brittle fields of brush to kill or capture the attackers. The soldiers cleared a building used as an enemy stronghold and evacuated wounded comrades and prisoners.           

The Tajik troops had spent four days conducting a joint field exercise with U.S. soldiers from the Virginia Army National Guard, learning how to detect improvised explosive devices and stanch bullet wounds, among other skills.

It served as a demonstration of what was taking place about 50 kilometers away at the Tajik Ministry of Defense: a multinational command post exercise called Regional Cooperation 17...”

Excerpt from per Concordiam Staff, “Cooperative Training,” per Concordiam: Journal of European Security Defense Issues  8, No. 4, 2018: 62-64.

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