The mission of Joint Red Flag is to meet formal training objectives outlined by U.S. Joint Forces Command in the Joint National Training Capability initiative. The JNTC initiative is a military-wide effort to plan and coordinate joint military training under a shared timeline. In order to meet these objectives, planners have combined several existing service-specific exercises and created an overarching scenario to unify training efforts and provide a realistic battle space to challenge U.S. and coalition warfighters.

Joint Red Flag is an all-new exercise featuring the integration of live, virtual (linked simulators) and constructive (computer-based) elements into a seamless joint campaign to challenge warfighters and test command and control procedures, processes and architecture. The exercise incorporates almost every weapon system in the military arsenal: aircraft, ground vehicles, people, communications and computer systems.

The Combined Air Operations Center is at the heart of the massively complex Joint Red Flag exercises. Our Military Channel online correspondent has gained exclusive access to the CAOC.

Learn more about the largest military training exercise operated by the Department of Defense.