Talk:List of U.S. Department of Defense and partner code names

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Use of the word Operation

I wonder, since the word "Operation" does not actually appear anywhere as a formal "codeword", should it be shown here in the list before some code word definitions and not before others? Big Safari is a code word for a project and an operation, for instance, but it does not have "Operation" as the prefix word. I'd vote for removing the word (and words like it) from this page. Thoughts from anyone? --TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 05:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Copied in from original draft userspace page

Needs to be added with proper attribution (note Globalsecurity.org routinely violates WP:COPYLINK) Source: Global Security.org

• Operation Steel Box/Golden Python 1990 – Supported withdrawal of chemical munitions from Germany and coordination of delivery/transport to Johnson Atoll.
• Operation Assured Lift 1997 – In support of Liberian cease-fire monitoring.
• Operation High Flight 1997 – Search and Rescue effort at Windhoek, Namibia.
• Operations Phoenix Scorpion I & II 1997–1998 – support to UN weapons inspectors in Iraq.
• Operation Auburn Endeavor 1998 – relocation of uranium fuel from Tbilisi, Georgia.
• Operation Determined Falcon 1998 – Show of Force over Albania near Kosovo.
• Operation Calm Support 1998–1999 – Support to Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission mission to Kosovo.
• Operation Flexible Anvil/Sky Anvil 1998 – Planning for Balkan/Kosovo operations. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

"Green Light Teams" - https://africa.businessinsider.com/how-green-berets-prepared-to-carry-backpack-nukes-on-top-secret-one-way-missions/3f39kqw Buckshot06 (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Long Look

I removed the following "programme", which appears to be a British Commonwealth code name.

• Exercise Long Look - long-established individual exchange programme between Commonwealth armies. For example, Captain Katie Hildred, Queens Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, was dispatched on Exercise Long Look in New Zealand in 2017, a four-month exchange programme that will see her deployed on various exercises and training packages with the New Zealand Army.

Lineagegeek (talk) 19:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

I reverted you. While the original guidelines were laid down by DOD, the same procedures etc are now in full use by NATO (Arrcade Guardian etc) and Norway & Sweden (Northern) and all close allies, including Aust, NZ (Northern Entry and the current designator, which I have not added) and a wide range of other allies/partners. It's an integrated multinational system now, under the overall direction of the JCS, in the same way as Joint task forces. Moving the page title now. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:36, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Fly Fast / Combat Pacer, MAC transits through Elmendorf AFB for SEA, from 1966

Dear Lineagegeek thank you for your additions. You may wish to edit the section I just added from Alaskan Air Command regarding Fly Fast/Combat Pacer. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 05:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Rivet Acorn, Duke and Kit

As soon as I can locate reliable sources, these 3 Rivet names should be added to the list. I believe they are mentioned in the book "History of Big Safari". I'll look, and add them after I find it. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 15:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I've also stumbled across a couple of other names

• Creek Flush
• Creek Victor
• Witch Doctor

I'm still digging

And, there's this… "Creek Defender is USAFE-AFAFRICA's only Ground Combat Readiness Training Center for deploying SF members." found on usafe.af.mil just now — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 04:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks Tadg!! Buckshot06 (talk) 10:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC) Try Arkin 2005, "Code Names," for the Rivet designations, or designation-systems. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:32, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Split this list?

William Arkin's book, referenced at the end of this list, has 608 pages with more than 3,000 code words and nicknames. Should we split this list into subpages? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 21:22, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Guidance for this is at WP:SIZERULE. In a word: probably not yet. When it grows over SIZERULE's guidance. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:01, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Copyright problem

@Diannaa, you left a note on my talk page that described a perceived problem with the material I added to this list under the heading of "Combat" names. All of my information came from William Arkin's book, "Code Names: Decyphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World" (2005) which is listed in the References section, second bullet. That book is highly referenced throughout this list, and is very much acceptable material for citations. I did not cite each individual entry because the heading to that section, where it says "Combat – Headquarters USAF First word code name programs" there is a reference to Arkin. If I referenced every entry to that book, the Notes section would grow exponentially and unnecessarily. How should we handle this? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 17:19, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you saying that you copied material from this book? Or that you used it as a citation? Or both? — Diannaa (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I see that the wording is very close to the Designation Systems site. I will completely rewrite the section and include page numbers on my own user page, and ask you to review it before adding those entries to this list. Is that agreeable? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 18:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

No. You are supposed to use the special temporary page to work on the amended version, not your own user page. This is the temporary page that you need to use. For your referencing questions, Help:Footnotes will show you referencing basics, including how to cite the same source multiple times in the same article. — Diannaa (talk) 18:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Right. Will use the temporary page you pointed out. Thank you. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 19:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, @Diannaa, I've added the Talk:List of U.S. Department of Defense and partner code names/Temp page with some of the Combat names and citations for each one. Can you take a look and let me know the next steps? (Thank you for your help and patience) — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 16:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The new version looks okay from a copyright point of view. I have copied it into the article and deleted the temp page and performed revision deletion on some of the article history. All finished! Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter. Cheers, — Diannaa (talk) 22:23, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you as well. You politely/professionally helped me understand the process. My apologies for introducing the problem to begin with. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 22:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Acronyms

Acronyms are used in great amounts throughout the list without any reflection of what they mean. I ran across CJTF, for instance, and had to "look it up" to find it refers to Combined Joint Task Force. I could not find it otherwise defined anywhere in this list, and it only appears once. Anyone have any idea how to easily alleviate this problem for readers? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹ (Tadg^Talk) 21:49, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I know all these acronyms by heart, and LG knows all his USAF acronyms as well. So we are specialists. But we should always unabbreviate and link on first use, which is the standard for books. So every time you encounter an acronym, you can either do:

1. CJTF changes to Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)

2. Mark it for my attention and I will fix it.

I will also start unabbreviating from the top. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:12, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Per MOS:ACRO (specifically MOS:ACRO1STUSE), an acronym should be written out in full for the first time, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, if it is used again in the article. - ZLEA _T\^C 22:19, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

But the acronym shouldn't be used at all if it only appears once in the article. Lineagegeek (talk) 19:22, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Buckshot06, when you added Open Spirit/Open Road today, you used acronyms ISO, PfP, and MCM. I must be dense, but I just don’t get the meanings. I wonder if a list should appear at the bottom of the article above references that describes acronyms used. Like I said, maybe I’m just dense. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 21:05, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, if you want instant answers, just plug them into the search box. Partnership for Peace is probably most notable. But I have unabbreviated the acronyms now. Buckshot06 (talk) 15:28, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 22:17, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

Split, revised

TadgStirkland401; Lineagegeek, Tadg was probably right: this list is now over 202 kB. I will split this A-M and N-Z (yay, yay, Aotearoa!!) unless anyone has another idea.. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:19, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Probably the simplest way to do it. Lineagegeek (talk) 19:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Lucky Sentinel

"LUCKY SENTINEL is ARCENT's premier battlestaff exercise. This exercise is conducted annually in the AOR and is designed to train the Coalition/Joint Task Force-Kuwait staff, Kuwait Armed Forces staff, Kuwait Ministry of Interior staff and selected support unit staffs at operational level of warfighting."

Source is U.S. Government not attributed at a globalsecurity page, so will put it here for now. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:20, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

• Sorry it took so long, but I just stumbled on your comment above. The first citation actually does refer (in part) back to GlobalSecurity. But the second citation is directly from the US Marine Corps' own website. I placed both in the list.— TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 02:47, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Citations used for Lucky Sentinel

Pave programs/projects

I just found a reliable source for many more program/project names that don't appear in this list. There are many at this source. But what struck me is the number of PAVE programs that don't appear in this Wikipedia list. They include: PAVE BLIND BAT, PAVE FIRE, PAVE GAT, PAVE LANCE, PAVE LIGHT, PAVE MACK, PAVE PHANTOM, PAVE POINTED, PAVE PRISM, PAVE SCOPE, PAVE SHIELD, PAVE STRIKE along with short descriptions of each. There are many other project names listed as well on that cite. I am too preoccupied with other tasks at the moment to do any of these justice in adding them to the list. Anyone else interested in doing it, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, maybe one day, I'll get back here to do it myself.— TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 20:00, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

 Done - I found some time and added most of these — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 06:29, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Pave programs source

Anchors?

I’ve seen other articles and lists making use of {{Anchor}} and {{Vanchor}} templates to allow other articles to link to the definition. It also allows easy creation of redirects where an {{R with possibilities}} can invite editors to build new articles. Does anyone else like the idea of adding anchors to this list? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 01:54, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Go ahead if you wish; remember they may decay if not carefully maintained. But we should not be encouraging the creation of articles titled according to DOD code names, which tend to perpetuate an POV establishment U.S. point of view (thus Iraq War, not Iraqi Freedom etc). Buckshot06 (talk) 12:23, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for making me think, and my apologies for the long wordy response.

I wonder how your (valid) POV thought applies to other code named article creation, and that led me to begin looking right at the beginning of our list. The first linked code named article targets Able Archer 83. I noted other links also using the year suffix, knowing it is an annually repeated operation/exercise. But in this case, the “83” article is related to the overarching Exercise Able Archer. Does WP’s policy for WP:NOTABILITY apply, where the “83” article really belongs within the “Exercise” article? (That’s a conversation for Talk:Able Archer 83 and only rhetorical here) And does that notability concern apply to this list where “Exercise” should probably replace “83”?

But more directly to your POV thought, where and how do we draw that line especially considering many many code names are slanted to sound upbeat, positive or overly powerful? Or does that only apply to U.S. code words? Here we have a NATO code word about a nuclear capability exercise proclaiming their “archer” is “able”. One could argue it implies a POV that NATO is somehow more “able” than others. It is just one possible example where in our list are hundreds. Does the POV concept apply to NATO? Does it apply to code words on the list from other allies equally? Or, is it specifically a U.S. thing (which would make the NPOV policy NPOV itself)?

Lastly (sorry again for the long response), I’m not real sure I understand about decay. My hope is, if we create an anchor to “Operation XYZ” here, someone finding that phrase in other articles would be able to wlink to the definition here. If found in multiple articles, there’s a possibly to create a redirect (single simple pathway) to the definition here. Then, someone finding notability could grow the redirect into a full article and the anchor here would be changed to a wlink back to that new(ish) article. So, me thinking “decay” is the opposite of all that, what kinds of things would lead to the anchor itself decaying? — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 16:25, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, whoops. We have an article for 1986 United States bombing of Libya, and the main article is not at "Operation El Dorado Canyon." For military events, we need to make sure as much as possible we do not use POV terms - whether U.S. or Operation Barbarossa for that matter; don't think the 22 June 1941 invasion article is at Barbarossa. But, but, for very specific technical terms, like Exercise Able Archer '83, we should use the correct technical term. Just Iraq War, not Iraqi Freedom; Gulf War, not Desert Storm; 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, not Special Military Operation.

Yes of course the anchor sequence of events you sketch is correct. But those anchors have to be maintained to make things work. See the top of Talk:Libyan National Army for problematic examples. Cheers and happy Christmas, Buckshot06 (talk) 22:01, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Lots of food for thought… I guess moving forward, I’ll add anchors sparingly and only if I stumble on an article mentioning the code word with a wlink to an active article. Thanks again. Merry Christmas! — TadgStirkland⁴⁰¹(Tadg^Talk-Email) 22:07, 23 December 2025 (UTC)