How in your role are you assisting with Calian’s rapid expansion across Europe?

I am based in Europe, and I assumed the role of Senior Director, Global Defence and Security for Calian UK, Calian Belgium, Mabway and Calian Europe in 2021. Calian had no presence in Europe or the UK before 2020. Now, in just over three years, we have operations in the UK and Europe. Our military training with NATO continues to expand to meet the demand.  

How is Calian expanding in the UK and Europe?

Calian is expanding across Europe through a number of strategic acquisitions. Most recently in the UK we acquired Mabway, a leader in the management of large-scale defence role-playing environments that simulate real-world operational environments, which also provides technical engineering education for naval and maritime communities. Mabway has been a prime supplier to the British Army since 2012, with several offices across Great Britain and a workforce of more than 1,000 ex-military and civilian permanent staff and contractors. With the UK looking to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, Calian is well positioned as a strategic partner supporting operational readiness for the British Army. 

How do Calian’s military training solutions support NATO’s increased focus on readiness in Europe?

The content of training is changing to reflect the new threats facing the alliance. Calian continues to play a leading role in NATO exercise support as a mission partner for the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), located in Stavanger, Norway. JWC is a hub for collective training at both the operational and strategic levels of warfare which supports NATO readiness.  

Calian has been providing training to NATO for 15 years, delivering over 75 large-scale exercises. Calian has supported diverse exercises, including high-intensity, counterinsurgency and peace support operations, wargames and nuclear deterrence.  

Calian supports complex NATO exercises with subject matter experts, role players, scenario developers and exercise control staffs. Given NATO’s increased focus on readiness, these exercises are crucial for joint and multinational training. 

Calian has continuously expanded its offerings to meet NATO’s evolving training needs. This is exemplified in a new contract to supply specialist training for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear exercise programmes that lead to high readiness. 

Using NATO-standard methods and approaches for training development and delivery, Calian integrates subject matter experts with deep military experience and industry-leading modelling and simulation technologies to design, develop and deliver realistic and immersive training experiences. The Calian team also incorporates VR and AR for an immersive 360-degree experience, including voice recognition. This approach provides a cost-effective alternative to live training but does not replace it. Final confirmation will always be national and NATO live exercises. 

As mission partners, the Calian team develops and delivers realistic, relevant and immersive military to NATO and member states who require integrated end-to-end training solutions. In times of international crisis, Calian has responded to short-notice requirements by providing surge capabilities in support of NATO high-readiness forces. The understanding of NATO requirements and the ability to provide innovative solutions and multinational experts have been key to the success of NATO. Military customers trust Calian when they can’t fail. 

How does Calian’s wargaming support enable NATO to critically reflect on complex military challenges in a safe environment?

The alliance requires armed forces with warfighting capability so that it can respond to various threat situations. The leaders of our armed forces and security organizations must be creative, agile and flexible in their thinking in order to have a cognitive advantage over their opponents. Calian supports the NATO JWC wargaming program, enabling critical reflection on complex military challenges, while also exercising the underlying command, control and decision-making processes. These experiences accelerate decision-making processes, increase adaptability and, therefore, help prepare for emergencies and contribute to high readiness. 

Does Calian have trainers in all of NATO’s European member countries?

The Calian trainers are primarily ex-military but not exclusively, because we also provide training in governance, policing and NGOs. We have a team of around 300 SMEs from 17 NATO nations which enables us to provide cohesive multi-domain training exercises for total-force readiness. We deliver training solutions across the spectrum of conflict—from non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO) and peace support operations, to counterinsurgency, high-intensity conventional operations, nuclear deterrence exercises and wargame—to support senior-level decision-making about capability planning and force posture. Our subject matter experts span the full range of the combined arms and joint-force team, including manoeuvre, air defence, aviation, ISR, logistics, civilian policing and more.  

What multilingual training solutions does Calian provide to meet NATO’s diverse European requirements?

Appropriate training technology supports and complements our training delivery. We are constantly expanding the capability of our solutions to meet the evolving needs of NATO and its member countries.  

For joint and multinational exercises, Calian delivers an interoperability solution that allows any exercise participant to be integrated into a common synthetic environment. Many NATO members have proprietary simulation and operational systems, making interoperability a challenge—and even more challenging as the number of participants increases. The Calian Virtual Command and Control Interface (VCCI) enables interoperability and the delivery of a single synthetic environment for training. VCCI was purpose built and is continuously updated to meet the changing needs of NATO and NATO members. VCCI is already fully interoperable with many simulation systems used in NATO and is used to connect operational communications and ISR systems into large headquarters. 

Communications interoperability presents challenges for joint and multinational operations. With different field radios that are not always interoperable, interoperability across NATO can be an obstacle to effectively training together and working together on operations. The Audio Distribution Service (ADS) provides system-agnostic connectivity of field radios, allowing for the integration of disparate radio systems into a common communication network. This means leaders can see the entire radio network and contact any callsign in the network, no matter what frequency they are operating on or radio system they are using.  

With voice-to-text capability, ADS turns voice radio calls into text on a chat screen. With translation capability, language barriers can be minimized by turning any radio call into text. This reduces the overall volume in a busy multinational headquarters, providing text for operators in the headquarters to read. This facilitates clear communication and passage of information, enabling faster overall decision-making.  

How does Calian support NATO’s mission-critical evolving training requirements?

Calian continues to expand into new areas of work for NATO. In March 2024, Calian won contracts with NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) to provide comprehensive support to the development of Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s (SACEUR) Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) exercise program. This work will include development, delivery, evaluation and training support for a holistic exercise training program to evaluate staff across a range of CBRN mission-essential tasks.  

This work relies on Calian’s decades-long legacy of delivering nuclear and CBRN exercise planning and delivery through our subject matter experts. It also builds on our record of supporting NATO training delivery through the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC), Allied Command Transformation and Allied Command Operations, representing a meaningful addition to our overall solutions. 

How is Calian supporting training for Canadian Armed Forces in Latvia?

Training is essential for building and sustaining readiness for military units. With decades of experience delivering military training for the Canadian Armed Forces and NATO partners, Calian is continuing its training legacy with a new contract for delivering training in Latvia.  

Calian will be providing direct support to exercise development and delivery for Canadian and NATO forces deployed to Latvia. Calian will deliver exercise scripting and exercise control (EXCON) support to design, develop, and deliver multinational division and brigade command post exercises as part of EX KNIGHT NAMEJS 2024. Calian will also provide interoperability with Canada’s partners with VCCI. The KNIGHT exercises focus on interoperability between NATO partners, operating as one team as part of NATO’s deterrence priorities, with NAMEJS taking place in Latvia. Calian’s delivery team will be working across five different functional areas to develop and deliver a cross-domain training experience that reflects the complexity of the Baltic operating environment.  

With land borders, maritime and littoral components, air corridors, and cyber and informational aspects, the Baltic operating environment provides many challenges and opportunities to exercise the multinational team. Calian’s subject matter expert delivery team is working with NATO-standard exercise development tools for this exercise. Deterrence in the Baltics is important for NATO, guarding against hostile acts on the Baltic flank. The training delivered through this project will build and sustain the readiness of the NATO-assigned Canadian Battle Group in Latvia.