16th Air Force Leads U.S. Participation in NATO Cyber Coalition 2025

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  • By 16th Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) Public Affairs
Tallinn – ESTONIA --  Sixteenth Air Force (Air Forces Cyber) participates as the U.S. representative in NATO’s flagship annual Cyber Coalition exercise Nov. 28 – Dec. 4.

Cyber Coalition 2025 brings together 29 NATO Allies, seven partner countries, the EU, more than 1,300 participants, and collaborators from academia and industry to exercise and test the integration of cyberspace into Allied operations and missions.

For the seventh consecutive year, 16th Air Force will participate as the Allied cyber Air Component Command, supporting exercise operations across four time zones. The command will also continue its cyber operator swap initiative, integrating U.S. cyber operators with Romanian and Georgian teams to further deepen interoperability, readiness and strengthen collective cyber defense and resilience in cyberspace.

“Exercises strengthen our competitive edge, increase interoperability and readiness so we can better defend the homeland,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas Hensley, 16th Air Force commander. “What our cyber warriors do here during Cyber Coalition further underscores our network of Allies and partners is an asymmetric advantage that our adversaries can never hope to match.”

Cyber Coalition 2025 focuses on NATO, Allied nation and partners’ ability to deter, defend against, and counter threats in and through cyberspace. The exercise tests cyber operator’s skill at conducting collective cyber operations, mechanisms for information-sharing, incident response and the integration of cyberspace into multi-domain operations.

“Cyber Coalition allows us to train side-by-side with our NATO Allies and partners to detect, deter, and defeat threats before they reach our homelands,” said Candace Sanchez, 16th Air Force lead exercise planner. “When we collaborate, share, and defend forward together, we secure our collective future.”

The exercise challenges participating teams with complex, realistic scenarios - including attacks against critical infrastructure, cloud services, government networks, military operations and cyberattacks on space-based systems and supporting infrastructure-which will require synchronized responses across the Alliance.