Updates

Fact Sheet: TOPOFF 3 Exercising International Preparedness

New Page 1 Press Releases Global terrorism knows no boundaries. To prevent terrorism, and to respond effectively if an incident does occur, international cooperation is essential. Recognizing this important need, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are participating in interrelated exercises that develop an internationally streamlined and coordinated response to a series of simulated terrorist incidents.

The three interrelated exercises will all take place during the first week of April: TOPOFF 3 in the United States, ATLANTIC BLUE in the United Kingdom, and TRIPLE PLAY in Canada. Together, the exercises offer a realistic test of the three nations' framework for collaboration and communication.

Working Toward Shared Objectives

The United States, Canada, and the UK have worked together throughout a two-year planning process to achieve shared objectives in four key areas:

  • Incident management: To test the full range of existing procedures for domestic incident management of a terrorist event and improve, through practice, top officials' capabilities in affected countries to respond in partnership.
  • Intelligence/investigation: To test the handling and flow of operational and time-critical intelligence.
  • Public information: To practice strategic coordination of media relations and public information issues in response to linked terrorist incidents.
  • Evaluation: Toentify lessons learned and promote best practices.

United Kingdom Participation: ATLANTIC BLUE

The United Kingdom will be involved in TOPOFF 3 through exercise 'ATLANTIC BLUE', which will be played at command post exercise (CPX) level only. This will allow the United Kingdom to focus specifically on communication across international borders at a strategic level and test simultaneous responses to linked terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada.

The Metropolitan Police Service is the host force for the United Kingdom working closely with the Home Office and other government departments and London agencies on planning and delivery. ATLANTIC BLUE provides the United Kingdom an invaluable opportunity to enhance their well-established domestic exercise program by working with their United States and Canadian counterparts to test their capability to respond to the specific challenges of an international terrorist incident.

Training exercises are a vital part of counterterrorism, as they ensure preparedness for response to any kind of terrorist attack and confirm counterterrorism arrangements are tried and tested. As with all exercises, the lessons learned from ATLANTIC BLUE will be incorporated into future contingency planning. It is important to emphasize that this exercise has been planned and designed to enhance international emergency preparedness and in no way reflects a specific threat to any of the participating nations.

Canada Participation: Triple Play

Canada will be involved with TOPOFF 3 through TRIPLE PLAY, which will exercise, test, and validate protocols and procedures that support and are used by select Federal and Provincial top officials in response to a terrorist event. Spanning a timetable of several months, TRIPLE PLAY involves a series of training sessions, seminars and tabletop exercises of increasing complexity to build and gauge participants' growing knowledge and experience. It begins with the command post exercise that will assess Canada's ability to put the National Emergency Response System into effect to act quickly and decisively in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency. Following the exercise in April, Canada will conclude the TRIPLE PLAY exercise with Canada's first Large Scale Game to review response actions and their relationship to after-action initiatives and recovery policy development.

The Government of Canada is committed to working closely with other countries to strengthen their ability to deal with any form of terrorism and its consequences. Canada's National Security Policyentifies the development of an exercise program as a priority, committing the government to "regular national and international exercises involving civilian and military resources to assess the adequacy of the national system against various emergency scenarios." In addition, Canada has made commitments under the 1999 Canada-U.S. Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Guidelines and Smart Border Accord to engage with the U.S. in joint counter-terrorism training activities, including exercises.

In keeping with its mandate to demonstrate leadership in national security and emergency preparedness, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada is leading the planning for TRIPLE PLAY. This effort is being supported by a working group with representatives from 18 federal departments and agencies.

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