BANGKOK (AP) – Thai and United States (US) officials officially opened annual Cobra Gold multinational military exercises on Tuesday, now restored to one of the world’s largest following three years of sharp pandemic cutbacks, reinforcing the security alliances of the US and six Asian nations.
Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia are full participants in the two-week planning and field exercises, which are co-hosted by the Royal Thai Armed Forces and the US Indo-Pacific Command.
More than 3,800 US troops and 3,000 Thai personnel will participate.
Twenty-three other countries are joining as exercise partners or observers for a total of 7,394 personnel participating in a variety of security and humanitarian drills.
“Today, Cobra Gold is an exercise focussed on the future. It brings together 30 countries from around the world to solve complex challenges that no single country can solve alone,” US Ambassador to Thailand Robert F Godec said at the opening ceremony at a Thai navy base in the eastern province of Rayong.
“Only through cooperation can we rise to these challenges and keep our people safe.”
Cobra Gold began as a joint Thai-US maritime exercise in 1982 and has evolved into a much larger operation. It consists of three parts – field training, a “command post” staff exercise, and disaster relief and humanitarian exercises.
For the first time this year, the command post exercise will include training on possible space disasters to “foster understanding of the impacts of aerial phenomenon, such as solar storms, on military operations, communication systems, and satellites, which in turn will help the staff to prepare for these phenomena”, organisers said.
