TALLINN, Estonia – The Maryland National Guard participated in Crossed Swords, a comprehensive cyber defense exercise, with their Department of War National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program Estonian partners at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, or CCDCOE, last fall.
The exercise, held Oct. 27 through Nov. 7, 2025, hosted 240 participants from about 45 countries, including Airmen from the 175th Cyberspace Operations Group. Participants shared tactics and procedures to contribute towards a cohesive collective-defense strategy.
CCDCOE’s Crossed Swords is an annual cyber warfare training exercise that centers on operational-level military command elements and the enhancement of offensive and defensive cyber capabilities through simulated operations and crisis response. The exercise also focuses on advancing multi-domain operational competencies, including information warfare operations, legal perspectives and cooperation with Special Operations Forces.
This year, participants focused on two cyber headquarters, simulating fictional nations for the scenario.
“The combination of strategic decisionmaking, tactical AI‑assisted execution and immediate coordination with critical infrastructure owners created a drill that felt less like a training scenario and more like an actual national defense operation, something no previous exercise that we have participated in had ever achieved,” said Maryland Air National Guard Lt. Col. Bob DeLuca, flight commander for the 175th Cyberspace Operations Squadron.
The main goals of the exercise focused on five objectives tied to simulating the life cycle of a modern cyber conflict. These included strategic‑level command and control, tactical cyber operations, multi‑domain integration, public‑private partnership testing and technology validation.
“Exercises like this continue to build upon and expand the partnership of over 30 years,” DeLuca said. “The Estonian Defense Force led the Command Headquarters and led many of the team leader positions as well as staffing many technical roles, while our Guardsmen were participants on their teams.”
Maryland Airmen, alongside their Estonian counterparts, had the chance to step outside of their comfort zones by operating two emerging domains: information‑operations and AI‑driven cyber tools.
"We have to adapt to the reality of today's cyber threat landscape, where complex, multi-domain operations and hybrid tactics are the norm. It has become clear that in cyberspace, we need to adopt a wartime mentality, including strong offensive cyber capabilities," said Tõnis Saar, director of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
This year, teams had the opportunity to adapt in stressful scenarios where their capabilities were tested, ultimately elevating NATO's alliance's abilities from initial cyber threat detection to critical action and preserving crucial online services and functions.
“This exercise provided a means for our members to measurably improve their leadership, planning, detection, assessment and response to sophisticated cyber-attacks,” DeLuca said. “Participating in CrossedSwords2025 sharpened our unit’s mission‑readiness on every level, and the team performed amazingly."