International Military Cooperation – Croatia – 2024

While the Croatian MoD does not respond to FOI requests, the open-source search led to the compilation of data through the Croatian MoD’s website and relied on the plan of military exercises that the Croatian government adopted in early 2023. Based on these two sources of data, it was established that Croatia had 66 military exercises in 2023. Most of these were multilateral exercises, totalling 57 of which 47 were with NATO or multilateral exercises led by major NATO powers to boost interoperability with NATO and the application of NATO standards. Two exercises were held with the EU. There were also eight regional exercises done under the auspices of various regional initiatives, including three with the Regional Multinational Division Centre, one with the Adriatic Charter (A-5), two with the Adriatic-Ionian Initiative (ADRION), one with the Defence Cooperation Initiative (DECI) and one with the Central European Defence Cooperation. Bilaterally, there were nine international military exercises, including the US (5 exercises), France (2 exercises), the UK (1 exercise) and Italy (1 exercise). These exercises were diverse in scope and nature as the individual exercises involved regular troops, special forces, the navy, air force, military police, cyber defence and computer-assisted exercises, among others.