Key IssuesPartnershipsRegionalSoutheast Asia

Cobra Gold exercise to surpass previous iterations

FORUM Staff

A robust Cobra Gold 2023 will get underway February 27 in Thailand with nearly 7,400 military personnel from 30 nations expected to participate in or observe the two-week engagement, restoring the exercise to its pre-pandemic scale. The exercise has historically reflected a shared commitment to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

“We’ve certainly returned to a ‘Cobra Gold of old’ in terms of scale,” Col. Kurt Leffler, the United States defense attaché in Thailand and chief of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group, said during a news conference at the Royal Thai Armed Forces headquarters, according to Benar News. “In terms of scope … the quantity and complexity of exercise events, this Cobra Gold will surpass what has come before.”

Now in its 42nd iteration, Cobra Gold, which is hosted annually by Thailand and the U.S., is one of the world’s largest and longest-running multilateral military exercises.

The 2023 exercise will feature space operations training for the first time, along with field training and command post exercises, cyber warfare, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR) training to include civic assistance projects in Thai communities, the online magazine The Diplomat reported.

Military personnel from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and the U.S. will participate in the exercise, which runs through March 10 in the Thai provinces of Lopburi, Chanthaburi, Sa Kaeo and Rayong. Australia and India are among those joining as observer nations.

Cobra Gold represents a key portion of regional engagement efforts to maintain readiness and increase the capability, capacity and interoperability of partner nations.

“Our effective responses to regional disasters in recent decades — from floods and storms to earthquakes and cave rescue — is the result of millions of personnel hours of training in Cobra Gold,” Leffler said, according to Bernama, the Malaysian national news agency.

The U.S. contingent of more than 6,000 personnel is “the largest U.S. participation in Cobra Gold in a decade,” according to Leffler. Roughly 1,000 Thai personnel will participate, Bernama reported. (Pictured: Thai Soldiers participate in the multilateral Cobra Gold exercise in February 2020.)

“To ensure that our partnership continues to be robust in decades to come, we have brought cooperation in the cyber and space domains into the exercise and are experimenting with new operating concepts to prepare for whatever novel threats the future holds,” Leffler said, according to Bernama.

Myanmar, which borders Thailand and also is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, once again will not participate in Cobra Gold. The nation has been mired in crisis since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup. “We have not invited Myanmar to participate in this exercise because we have a limited number of seats,” said Gen. Thitichai Tiantong,  Royal Thai Armed Forces chief of staff, Benar News reported.

Cobra Gold 2022, which was scaled back because of the pandemic, included 1,953 Thai Soldiers and 1,296 U.S. personnel, along with 50 from Singapore, 41 from South Korea, 36 from Malaysia, 35 from Japan and 16 from Indonesia, as well as 18 observers from Australia and five from India, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.

Thailand and the U.S., which have shared diplomatic ties for 190 years, conducted over 400 military engagements and exercises every year before COVID-19, according to the U.S. State Department.

During the pandemic, the U.S. facilitated joint military education and training with Thailand to enhance interoperability. In 2022, for example, the U.S. provided U.S. $25 million to Thailand for HADR, maritime domain awareness, and technical and professional training.

 

IMAGE CREDIT: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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