U.S. military and interagency planners finished designing the scenario for Exercise African Lion 23 at the Joint Staff Suffolk Complex Dec. 5-16, said the U.S. Army website.
The same source pointed out that “the group of nearly 50 experts across all joint functions and several interagency disciplines developed a robust scenario that they think will test the warfighting capabilities of U.S. Africa Command and its service components, principally the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF).”
The Joint Staff J7 Directorate for Joint Training hosted the planners in Suffolk, where they culminated months of collaboration on an exercise scenario to capture dozens of training objectives for AFRICOM and the joint force.
Exercise African Lion 23 starts in January in Stuttgart, Germany, when the AFRICOM staff will identify a fictional emerging crisis in Africa. Then in March, AFRICOM components will support the SETAF-AF-led JTF command post exercise. Finally, in June, African Lion will culminate with various field, maritime, air and medical training exercises in Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and Ghana.
“Exercise African Lion has no peer in Africa,” said Army Lt. Col. Bradley Vance, U.S. Africa Command lead African Lion 23 planner. According to Vance, four African countries will host African Lion exercise activities in 2023—Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and Ghana.
