By Li Chun
ORENBURG, Russia, Sept. 23 -- The SCO Peace Mission-2021 anti-terrorism military exercise entered the anti-terror operations planning stage from September 20 to 22. In the joint directing department and the joint anti-terrorist group headquarters, commanding officers from participating countries were mixed in different groups of comprehensive operational planning, combat commanding, information and firepower strike for joint operation planning. They gathered around the maps and tables, exchanging views and negotiating with each other from time to time.
According to Major General Liu Ping, deputy commander of the joint anti-terror groups in the exercise and commander of Chinese participating troops, the mixed grouping has been realized at the commanding level, which is conducive to deepening mutual trust and intensifying coordinating capabilities among the troops, and meanwhile boosting their mutual understanding and friendship.
According to Cui Haibo from the Chinese participating troops, who is also head of the operations division under the joint anti-terror group headquarters, the "combination" of the exercise has been embodied in three dimensions. The first is the combination of armed forces from participating countries working together to fight against terrorist forces. The second is the combination of the SCO member states from the legal perspective to solve problems within the SCO framework through mutual support ", said Cui.
In addition, the Agreement between Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Holding Joint Military Exercises also makes legal restraints to the incoming troops, stipulating that all troops involved in exercises must respect the sovereignty, laws and customs of the host nation, not interfere in its internal affairs, nor engage in the political activities on its territory. The document has provided legal guarantees for holding joint military exercises by the armed forces of the SCO members.
The third is the combination of operational commanding. Li Shuyin, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences of the Chinese PLA, pointed out that one of the key subjects of the joint exercises held by the SCO member states is the joint planning of operations. Given the diversity of armed forces of the participating countries in terms of commanding system, communication mechanism and force composition, it is not easy to achieve real joint actions in the exercise. Hence, it is quite necessary to hold such joint exercises to find out the problems in coordination and cooperation among the participating sides, and list them out and search for solutions in a targeted manner.
Cui believed that the mechanism featuring a list of problems leading to solutions in the phase of joint operational planning is an outcome achieved in this year’s joint exercise, which will be of great referential significance to the holding of live-fire operations in the next phase of the exercise.