Cyprus National Guard: Joint training with US Armed Forces and the New Jersey National Guard

Cyprus’s National Guard has recently held a series of joint training courses with personnel of the United States Armed Forces and the National Guard of the US state of New Jersey. According to an announcement by the National Guard General Staff (GEEF), the joint training took place as part of the strengthening of the National Guard’s bilateral cooperation with the American armed forces.

Four training subjects

GEEF lists four areas in which personnel from the two countries trained together:

• Military intelligence, with the Intelligence Fundamentals Course.
• Training of permanent NCO instructors, with the Common Faculty Development Instructor Course (CFDIC).
• Leadership for permanent NCOs, with the Basic Leadership Course.
• First aid on the battlefield, with Tactical Combat Casualty Care Tier 1 (TCCC).

The courses cover skills that bear directly on a unit’s work: intelligence analysis, the training of those who will in turn train younger soldiers, leadership at NCO level, and the treatment of casualties under combat conditions. TCCC is the standard US Armed Forces apply for the first response to wounded personnel in the field, and Tier 1 is its basic level, aimed at all personnel and not only at medics.

Investing in training

“The National Guard invests in the training and continuous upgrading of the knowledge and skills of its personnel, at both national and international level, recognising that this is a key pillar for maintaining operational readiness and effective response to modern security challenges,” GEEF states. The photographs it published show, among other things, casualty-care exercises and personnel wearing the insignia of the State Partnership Program, through which Cyprus cooperates with the New Jersey National Guard.

The framework of cooperation with the US

The National Guard’s cooperation with the New Jersey National Guard falls under the US State Partnership Program, in which Cyprus has taken part since 2024. The programme pairs the armed forces of partner countries with the National Guard of a US state and relies on regular personnel exchanges, training and joint exercises. Defence cooperation between Cyprus and the US has widened in recent years, following the lifting of the US restrictions on arms sales to the Republic of Cyprus, which Washington renews every year.

The joint training comes at a busy time for the National Guard. In recent days it announced four days of live-fire drills at Kalo Chorio for exercise IRIS-2026, while it is also moving ahead with the recruitment of 400 contract NCOs. At the October 1 parade, new weapon systems were presented and an allied presence was recorded.