WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. military response to an attack on Japan will be practiced in the KEEN EDGE 2007 exercises that begin Thursday.
The exercise will lean heavily on the ability of U.S. and Japanese military and civilian officials to communicate and share situational awareness, and will include a demonstration of a prototype networking system developed by Raytheon.
The company's Bi-Lateral Joint Operations Coordination Center is designed to provide a complete operational picture to multiple users and improve the level of coordination among military and civilian organizations during rapidly changing emergency situations.
"Raytheon is working to spirally develop capabilities that will address current threats," Raytheon Vice President Pete Franklin said this week. "Our technology ... provides a critical capability with applications across missions and services."
The system was first demonstrated just last November in a networking exercise between U.S. commanders in Japan and Raytheon facilities in New England, Alabama and Virginia. It also leveraged experiences with three Joint Fires exercises involving theatre-wide missile-defense scenarios against both cruise and ballistic missiles.
The scenarios that the system will be involved in when KEEN EDGE gets under way include anti-terrorism, missile-defense and intelligence-gathering components.
KEEN EDGE has been run during even-number years but is now being switched to odd years.
