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Equally significant is a shift in the type of training Marines are engaging in with European allies as highlighted by a shift in the long-standing cooperation with Georgian forces. Marines trained Georgians in counter insurgency operations for the better part of a decade as they routinely deployed to Afghanistan in support of U.S. efforts there.
This year, however, during a two-week multinational exercise called Agile Spirit, Marines focused on large-scale, conventional, defensive and offensive operations that included not just Georgian troops, but also Romanian, Bulgarian, Latvian and Lithuanian soldiers.
"We were getting them to transition more toward a conventional force where they can provide for their own sovereignty and security," Fallon said.
The Marines with Black Sea Rotational Force can learn a lot from those engagements as well, he said, because the militaries in the region are highly skilled.
"The level of training and professionalism these European Union nations possess is not rudimentary," he said. "…We are working to know their [tactics, techniques and procedures] and they need to know ours if we ever have to operate side by side."
The latest iteration of BSRF also differed in its emphasis on shipboard operations, with Marines training aboard allies' vessels. Against the backdrop of shortage of amphibious assault ships, Marine leaders have said Marines could train and operate aboard NATO ships.
BSRF seized the opportunity to develop that concept, Fallon said. During Exercise Baltic Operations 2015, a training event held in June, Marines partnered with the British, Swedish, Polish, Latvian, Danish and Finnish troops to conduct ship-to-shore assaults off of allied vessels.
Marine were based on the British amphibious assault ship Ocean, from which they conducted a number of amphibious operations.
There was nothing in particular that was easier or more challenging in operating off a British ship, Fallon said, but the experience did provide the service with insight into its foreign ship basing initiative.
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