The Turkish Efes-2026 exercise marks the second instance in a short period in which Libya’s rival factions have participated in the same multinational exercise, an indication of accelerating rapprochement between the two sides.

Coordinated by the Aegean Army Command, the exercise’s Computer-Assisted Command Post Phase, conducted between 11–17 April, included Distinguished Observer Day activities in Istanbul and Izmir. The live phase of the exercise is scheduled to take place here between April 20 and May 21.

“The fact that eastern and western Libyan elements have, for the first time, come together under the same exercise framework is being viewed as a critical milestone for the vision of a ‘single and unified Libya,’” reads a defense ministry statement.

The MND said 331 personnel from eastern Libya and 177 personnel from western Libya, along with the fast-attack craft Shafak, are participating in the Efes-2026 drill.

“This development marks an important step not only in military cooperation, but also in strengthening unity, cohesion and institutional alignment in Libya,” the Turkish MND said.

Turkey continues to pursue its approach to Libya under “One Army, One Libya,” supporting the country’s unity, cohesion, peace and stability across both its eastern and western regions.

Both Libyan factions recently took part in the Flintlock-2026 Multinational Special Forces Exercise, held in the city of Sirte, Libya, and the exercise was successfully completed. Flintlock is U.S. Africa Command’s premier multinational training event.

Held April 13-30 in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, the this year’s iteration of the exercise saw participation from Turkey, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Chad, France, Italy, Libya, Hungary, Egypt and Tunisia.

In a statement, AFRICOM said that for the first time Libya was hosting an operating location with joint forces training alongside one another. These efforts are supported by a committee supporting Libyan joint forces efforts, known as the 3+3 Libyan Joint Military Committee.

This helps explain why Exercise Balikatan 2026, held in the Philippines from Apr. 20 to May 8, is the largest-ever drill in the series. It features troops from seven countries: the Philippines, United States, Australia, Canada, France, Japan and New Zealand.

The latter four nations have boots on the ground for the first time, marking a significant growth trajectory for Balikatan.

For Clark, who has headed USARPAC since Nov. 8, 2024, this 41st iteration of Balikatan represents a “full-circle event.” As a young 25th Infantry Division company commander, he attended the annual exercise series back in 1994.

The general told Defense News that it really underscores the growth of the relationship over many years. “It’s those touchpoints that allow us to build the relations that are necessary to strengthen our partnerships, because the partnerships are really the secret sauce. We never go into a conflict by ourselves.”

Real-world events

Clark said Balikatan “is an opportunity for us to train in a way [where] you’d simulate the kinds of tasks we’d perform together in combat at the invitation of the Philippine government on their sovereign soil.”

He also acknowledged Balikatan has changed focus over the years. Whereas counterinsurgency and counterterrorism once predominated, now the focus is “large-scale combat operations” and territorial defense. “It’s the willingness of the partner to train on the task that they think that they’re going to have to perform in crisis and conflict,” Clark noted.

Balikatan 2026 therefore featured two distinct counter-landing, live-fire exercises, as well as maritime key terrain seizure operations in far-flung islands in the Luzon Strait that sit south of Taiwan.

These types of operations would be critical to contain the Chinese navy in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. The U.S. military thus rehearsed rapidly moving HIMARS rocket launchers and NMESIS anti-ship missile systems to remote islands, for example.

Clark pointed out: “Everything we can do to build the trust that’s necessary, in times where we’re able to train together prior to any kind of crisis or conflict, is golden.” Further, “Building that kind of trust with one another right now, where we have the confidence in ourselves, our soldiers, our weapons and equipment, our leadership, our tactics – and we’re doing that along with our partners – it’s just invaluable.”

Asked to describe his command focus, Clark replied succinctly, “It’s always the same: it’s people and partnerships so that we can prevail in competition, crisis and conflict.” Balikatan contributes to such purposes, though it is just one of 50-plus exercises that USARPAC conducts annually under its Operation Pathways umbrella.

He said Operation Pathways “changes our mindset in terms of how we think about operationally deploying forces in the theater. … What it is is our ability to set conditions with our partners, allies and the joint force, and conduct rehearsals on key terrain inside the First and Second Island Chains.”

Transformation

One of the command’s assigned divisions is the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, one of two original Transformation in Contact formations. It is among the vanguard fielding new equipment like M7 rifles, M250 machine guns, drones and Infantry Squad Vehicles, for instance. Clark highlighted that 25th ID is the Army’s only infantry division to possess HIMARS too.

He added that Transformation in Contact also brings industry alongside and gives them direct feedback from soldiers.” The opportunity for soldiers to “take, shake and break” new equipment permits faster iteration.

Clark also noted 25th ID and 4th ID are piloting next-generation, command-and-control suites to enable headquarters to make decisions faster, communicate more securely and grant greater situational awareness.

“What you’re seeing is the Army’s most lethal and technologically advanced mobile infantry formation,” he said.

The Army has three Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTF), two of them in USARPAC. Clark said the next development will be putting these theater-level MDTF capabilities under a two-star multi-domain command. “That then allows us to be more responsive and plug into the higher headquarters of the joint force.”

Clark promised this will make MDTFs more responsive to the needs of combatant force commanders in time and space. The first of these, Multi-Domain Command Pacific, will be the 7th ID, set to be activated at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in June.

Complementary and challenging

Asked whether the Army is simply trying to replicate what the Marine Corps already does, Clark responded: “The Marine Corps, as part of the land power network in the theater, is a great partner, a great teammate, and we work hand in hand with the capabilities that are resident inside of our formations in order to really cause dilemmas for our adversaries.”

As an example of their complementary nature, Marines did not bring an air wing to Balikatan, so it relied upon the Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade. “What we’re going to try to do is bring the best of both of our capabilities to assist the joint force in the process of solving hard problems,” Clark said.

The Army brings strengths in robust sustainment formations and capabilities, but getting those supplies and sustainment forward in the theater is always challenging. “What we’re trying to do over the course of time is to continue identify places, not bases, where we can forward-locate the sustainment that’s necessary for our teammates to utilize in crises and conflicts,” Clark said. “Setting the theater is one of our primary responsibilities, and we try to do that through campaigning.”

Clark said leveraging new technologies “makes us more lethal, more survivable. If we can see first, sense first, strike first, protect always, sustain as required, then that’s really where we want to focus technology.”

Finishing off the foe’s stubborn resistance, a Kestrel first-person-view (FPV) drone carrying an explosive payload slammed into the enemy bunker. Afterwards, sweating profusely in the 97ºF heat, the Americans and Filipinos secured the area.

This jungle patrol in the thickly vegetated training area of Fort Magsaysay, located 75 miles north of Manila, was just one of many events taking place across the Philippines in Exercise Balikatan 2026.

More than 17,000 troops from seven countries are participating in this multilateral exercise being held from Apr. 20 to May 8.

The major U.S. Army contingent in Balikatan is the 3rd Mobile Brigade of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division. The soldiers conducting this realistic drill were from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, alongside troops from the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team.

This engagement integrating new tech underscored how the “Tropic Lightning” division is transforming and adopting new technologies as one of the Army’s two original Transformation in Contact divisions. It is required to do so by the changing nature of modern warfare.

Col. Adisa King, the 3rd Mobile Brigade commander, told Defense News that technology does help: “It reduces risk a little bit, but it allows you to see farther.”

“The challenge is how do you mass that? What if I had ten of those [drones]?” King asked. “They go up to disrupt or they go up to help me see, and we push them all the way down to lower levels. But sustainment is the issue.”

Indeed, the technology can be fickle, King pointed out: Drones can overheat in the tropical climate, soldiers have to lug extra equipment around, jungles are often too thick for FPVs, and recharging batteries is another challenge.

Yet King listed three things his brigade gains from participating in Balikatan: becoming familiar with an environment the soldiers might one day fight in; learning from partners; and rehearsing how to fight together.

Underscoring their modernization push, these Hawaii-based soldiers were carrying the latest M7 assault rifles, and new M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicles (ISV) provided them rapid maneuverability.

Lightning Lab innovation

Elsewhere, Lightning Labs illustrates how the 25th Infantry Division is prioritizing innovation and iteration. This cell was designed to accelerate the adoption of new technologies.

The Kestrel “killer” FPV quadcopter, measuring five inches across and capable of swarming, is one such fruit. CW3 Aaron Dunson, Operations Officer of Lightning Labs, said the Kestrel is designed for mass production. The aim is to get them into the hands of soldiers so they can identify their capabilities and limitations.

Lightning Labs is also developing a high-speed drone interceptor. In addition, the lab was testing a containerized solar-panel micro grid to generate electricity, a quieter alternative to diesel generators. Dunson described it as “a very viable solution” in the Philippines.

He shared that his cell is covering capability gaps while industry races to catch up. “Our piece of this pie is to identify the opportunity and then present it to the subject matter experts within the division and say, ‘Is this usable?’”

Forge ahead

Another innovation appeared last year – the Forge – an INDOPACOM initiative where a dozen Army and Marine personnel run an expeditionary manufacturing capability based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. It is armed with deployable equipment like industrial-grade 3D printers (polymer and metal), milling machines and 3D scanners.

The Forge comes up with rapid solutions. During Balikatan, for example, a road grader from an engineering unit was disabled due to broken bolts. Instead of waiting ten weeks for spares to arrive from the U.S., the Forge reverse-engineered and manufactured them in six hours.

Likewise, soldiers complained of broken bipods on their new M50 machine guns, so the unit came up with a 3D-printed solution to fix that too.

The Forge’s services have been in demand throughout Balikatan. It had 36 projects on the go, with twelve completed by halfway through the exercise. One of them was producing 300 Kestrel drone frames.

The Forge saves soldiers time and money. CW2 Kevin Ton, officer in charge of the Forge, said it had saved $23,000 and a cumulative 96 months in waiting time for spare parts in the first week of Balikatan alone.

With multiple security challenges in Asia-Pacific – high among them being Chinese belligerence – there is a need for the Army to adapt quickly and to speedily field the latest technologies.

The 25th Infantry Division epitomizes this rapid change that United States Army Pacific is undergoing. Another example is that it is the Army’s only infantry division to possess HIMARS rocket launchers.

The tropical location was the west coast of Palawan, an elongated Philippine island on the edge of the South China Sea.

As a notional enemy amphibious force edged closer to the beach, Australian, Kiwi, Philippine and American troops hiding in foxholes camouflaged by palm fronds unleashed a barrage of small-arms fire.

Afterwards, as the repulsed “enemy” withdrew in disorder, a coup de grace was delivered by an explosive-laden, first-person-view drone. As silence returned to the Aporawan beach in Palawan, disabled unmanned surface vessels – representing enemy landing craft – drifted in the waves or sat burning on the shore.

This counter-landing, live-fire exercise on Apr. 27 was a keystone event in Exercise Balikatan, an annual series of multilateral war games held in the Philippines.

On the day, more than 500 troops worked shoulder to shoulder – which is what “Balikatan” means – to repel the notional enemy amphibious assault.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, explained the event’s “real value is showcasing our resolve to work together to defend the Philippine archipelago and to uphold the rules-based international order. So that’s the more important aspect of all the exercises we’re doing here.”

Palawan is an important location, Brawner added, since it faces the West Philippine Sea and the country’s exclusive economic zone.

“It’s really very important that we defend this territory of the Philippines, and we’re very fortunate that we have with us partners from like-minded nations.”

Although nobody was naming aloud the threat, China with the world’s largest armed forces is the obvious focus of attention in these Balikatan drills.

The South China Sea is witnessing a ramp-up of tensions as Beijing claims maritime territory and builds up reclaimed islands that act as forward military bases.

Involving approximately 17,000 troops from seven countries, Balikatan 2026 is being held from Apr. 20 to May 8.

The primary U.S. Marine Corps participation in the counter-landing exercise was Marine Rotational Force - Darwin (MRF-D), currently comprising 1/5 Marines.

Col. George Flynn III, commander of MRF-D, told Defense News: “We have the ability to be a global force in readiness and in support of our allies.”

Flynn said the very fact that he was standing on that particular Palawan beach demonstrated the ability of the Marine Corps to show up when it is needed.

“We can talk about all the capabilities we have, but the integration of those capabilities is the cornerstone of how this is done right,” he said. “The friendships that we made being in the dirt in defensive positions alongside each other, that’s what really matters about this event.”

Maj. Gen. Thomas Savage, commander of the 1st Marine Division, was pleased with the conduct of the drill, which “was much more complex, with more countries integrated in the live-fire exercise.”

Asked whether the U.S. military is being sidetracked by the Iran war, Savage responded: “The United States has the capability to commit to all of our global commitments, and this alliance we have with the Philippines is rock solid.”

Nor did all this activity and other maritime drills go unnoticed by China.

The Southern Command of the People’s Liberation Army reported that a four-ship naval task force sailed near Luzon in response to “the current regional situation.”

Among the vessels was a Dongdiao-class intelligence gathering ship to soak up signals and electronic emissions.

Capt. Paul Michael Hechenova, commanding officer of the Philippine frigate BRP Miguel Malvar, said: “No confrontation, no radio challenges. They’re just here monitoring our activity.”

That’s a tall order. The political climate has changed since U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to make Canada an American state, take control of Greenland and withdraw from NATO, but the harsh realities of operating in Canada’s frozen north have not.

“There are Canadians up here defending (the country) at all times of the day,” said Travis Hanes, a commanding officer of the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group, a special unit of the Canadian Armed Forces’ reserve. “They’re stretching their abilities across some of the most inhospitable terrain and climate that you can possibly imagine.”

He spoke to Reuters while recovering from a frostbitten nose after weeks of being on the snowmobile patrol.

To Hanes and many of his fellow Rangers, the idea that any foreign power might challenge Canada’s sovereignty in a region that is about 40% the size of continental Europe is baffling. “We are the landowners and it’s hard to see how someone thinks it could be taken away,” he said.

NATO members Canada and the United States have worked together for decades in the Arctic. They officially formed NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, in 1958 because neither country could independently respond to a threat by the Soviet Union.

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Trump’s jibes about making Canada the 51st U.S. state and his growing tensions with NATO, only heightened by the U.S. war in Iran, have prompted Canadians to rethink their reliance on their southern neighbor.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has vowed to ensure that Canada can protect the Arctic without any outside help. As he unveiled a new plan last month detailing how Canada would spend C$35 billion reinforcing its military in the far north, Carney said Canada was now taking “full responsibility” for its Arctic sovereignty.

“We will no longer depend on any one nation,” he declared.

In interviews with nearly two dozen people including Canadian military leaders in the Arctic, government ministers, diplomats, analysts and serving members of the armed forces during a nine-day trip to the Arctic, Reuters found that despite the prime minister’s pledge, the deep ties between the Canadian and American militaries remain unchanged and the challenges to defending the Arctic are formidable. Not only is it highly unlikely that Canada could be completely self-reliant, but the U.S. too depends on Canada for its own security.

Skis, planes and snowmobiles

During the months-long exercises, approximately 1,300 members of the Canadian Armed Forces conducted patrols on skis, practiced landing planes on the frozen Arctic Ocean and transported artillery to the most northern point ever in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. It was the largest number of Canadian Armed Forces involved since the exercise began in 2007; the snowmobile patrol finished last week in Churchill, Manitoba.

A few observers and participants were present from the armed forces of the United States, Greenland, Belgium and France, but it was overwhelmingly a Canadian affair.

Canada’s foreign affairs minister Anita Anand told Reuters the government was moving as quickly as possible to make sure Canada can assume full responsibility for defending its Arctic, but did not offer a timeline.

“The gravest threat to Canada … comes from the increased movement of Russian infrastructure further and further north towards the Arctic Circle,” she said, adding that the entire geopolitical landscape has become “much more volatile.” She said working with the U.S. on the security and defense of North America via NORAD remains “fundamental.”

A senior White House official said the U.S. and its allies would continue to ensure the Arctic remains “free and open for peaceful purposes.”

“We welcome Canada’s efforts to take responsibility for securing its own territory,” the official said in an email.

The Russian foreign ministry has said repeatedly that Moscow is doing its best to maintain peace and stability in the region and has cast blame elsewhere for increased militarization in the Arctic.

“Western countries have transformed the Arctic into an area of geopolitical rivalry,” said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry in March. “This turn of events is not in Russia’s interests. We are open to mutually respectful dialogue with our foreign partners.”

Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Whitney Lackenbauer, an Arctic expert at Trent University in Peterborough, said neither the U.S. nor Canada have the capability alone to monitor the vast Canadian Arctic, which comprises roughly 4 million square kilometers and more than 36,000 islands.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Riviere, Commander of Canada’s Joint Task Force North, said this year’s military exercises proved the military has the ability to move specialized weapons and equipment that might be needed in the unlikely possibility of a land attack.

“We need to be prepared for the worst,” Riviere told Reuters from his base in Yellowknife, where Canada’s Arctic defenses are headquartered.

Still, Riviere emphasized that Canada’s military partnership with the U.S. is critical, saying Canadian Armed Forces stand “shoulder to shoulder” with American soldiers.

On the coastline, Canadian authorities have “far more presence in Arctic waters” compared to the Americans, according to Neil O’Rourke, Director General for Fleet and Maritime Services at Canada’s Coast Guard. He said Canadian icebreakers are regularly used to escort U.S. ships heading to the Arctic and pointed out that Canada has the world’s second-biggest fleet of icebreakers, after Russia.

In other areas, Canada lags. Across the country, there are 47 radar sites that form the North Warning System, a network from western Yukon to Labrador.

Pierre Leblanc, a former commander of the Canadian forces in the north, said the system is increasingly obsolete and questioned if Canada would have the ability to independently respond if any serious threats were picked up.

The sites are remotely monitored by NORAD and the Canadian military but are managed by Nasittuq, a private Canadian company that won a C$592 million government contract in 2022.

Nasittuq described the radar network as “a legacy system” in an email and acknowledged that it was “aging and limited against modern threats.”

At the Cambridge Bay site, which also serves as a logistics center, there are no military staff, but a gift store selling branded radar system merchandise.

“Canada and the U.S. need each other because there’s lots of gaps in the north,” said Troy Bouffard, a former Arctic adviser to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski who represents Alaska. Washington depends on Canada to provide intelligence about potential threats in the Arctic, and the strategically located region also serves as a buffer zone between the U.S. and adversaries like Russia, China and Iran, Bouffard said.

Much of the airport and radar infrastructure across the Canadian Arctic was conceived, built and paid for by the U.S. during the Cold War. After years of underfunding its defenses in the Arctic, and following numerous complaints by Trump, Canada hit the NATO target of spending 2% of its GDP on defense last year.

Bigger Problems

Evan Bloom, a former U.S. diplomat who focused on the Arctic, said that despite bellicose statements from Trump, the working relationship between Canada and the U.S. in the far north remains largely unchanged.

“Russia is carrying out this hybrid warfare that is a threat to Western democracies and China is now also cooperating more militarily with Russia,” he said. “Those are bigger threats than the relationship problems Canada and the U.S. are having.”

Last month, for example, NORAD scrambled a half dozen Canadian and U.S. fighters to intercept two Russian airplanes that nearly entered Canadian airspace, said Kevin Knight, head of intelligence for Canada’s Joint Task Force North.

Knight said the incident was notable for how close Russian aircraft came to Canadian airspace.

Maj. Matt Wookey, a pilot with the Canadian Air Force who practiced landing a Twin Otter plane on frozen Arctic sea ice, said flying there was different to almost anywhere else in the world.

“Everything is just snow and drifts, and it all looks the same, even the shoreline,” Wookey said. “Nothing is built to properly function when the thermometer goes below minus 40, including humans.”

Deep in Norwegian woods, some 400 kilometers away from the Russian border, an officer of the Norwegian Long Range Reconnaissance Squadron is hidden in a snow-made shelter, with only his light-grey firearm peeking out.

The officer, nicknamed Poster Boy, is part of the country’s elite Arctic task force, designed to operate far behind enemy lines to conduct surveillance missions. The snow cave serving as his concealment is known as a quinzhee, 1.5m high and 2m wide, built by piling snow together and allowing it to sinter, or harden, a task force specialty.

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“It’s a constant evolution of what works and what doesn’t for us – what worked four years ago might not work today due to all the technology developments of equipment designed to catch us, some years ago a tent and camouflage could’ve been sufficient but not anymore,” the officer, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity around the unit, told Defense News.

Training here alongside the Norwegian soldiers were several other nations’ elite unit, including U.K. Royal Marines and soldiers of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. Royal Marines told Defense News that, given the speed of modern combat, units that want to stay invisible often have to move every 15 minutes to avoid detection.

Besides hiding from enemy drones, the Norwegian reconnaissance soldiers carry their own unmanned craft to spy on adversaries.

The unit is experimenting with different types of winterized surveillance drones, including the American-made Skydio and first-person-view models, to provide eyes in the sky and enable operations from greater distances on the battlefield.

Poster Boy said those systems will be increasingly relevant, especially in the event of a potential conflict with Russia, where the battle space would consist of vast stretches of icy land.

The Norwegian Army chief, Maj. Gen. Lars Lervik, told Defense News that drones were playing an important role in NATO’s largest Arctic exercise, Cold Response 2026, organized across Norway from March 9-19. He noted that aside from surveillance-type ones, forces are also testing attack drones and several unmanned ground robots in ground-to-ground and air-to-ground roles.

The name of the game for the quinzhee connaisseurs is silence and invisibility, two objectives that are increasingly hard to achieve, as seen in the war in Ukraine, where troops and equipment remain perpetually vulnerable to being located.

One way to mitigate these risks is to focus on tracking avoidance in snow, which relies on minimizing a soldier’s visual, thermal or electronic signatures. The Norwegian Defense Materiel Agency announced last month that recent trials in Denmark confirmed the effectiveness of the Swedish-made Mobile Camouflage System. Developed by Saab, the cloak is intended to greatly reduce detectability by limiting visual, thermal and radar signatures, including in Arctic conditions.

However, amid new technologies, the Norwegian top-tier Arctic unit continues to return to proven basics: using natural camouflage, such as snow, as its best bet for staying hidden.

“Using snow is our absolute best concealment – we move in darkness, foggy conditions, snow falls, where our tracks can be rapidly filled and hard to follow, and in good weather we stay static and concealed,” the officer explained.

The navy is experimenting with its simulator drills to put crews in “increasingly stressful situations,” said Capt. Jérôme Henry, the head of training for the navy’s surface personnel, at the Paris Naval Conference this week. Henry said he’s drawing on past experience as commander of the frigate Alsace, which came under attack multiple times in the Red Sea, to “toughen up our crews.”

“What I saw in the Red Sea is that when you’re under intense stress, people react more or less well but in any case, you lose some of your composure, you get what’s called tunnel vision,” Henry told Defense News on the sidelines of the conference. “If we’re going to be in high-intensity combat, our crews need to be ready for that stress, and the question is, how are we going to prepare them?”

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Training tweaks include crews going for a run or doing push-ups right before stepping into weapon simulators to get heart rates up, creating sensory overload by adding noise, smoke and drone swarms to simulations, and adding weapon malfunctions in drills, said Henry, who took on his current role last year.

Henry says he adopted the idea of stress drills from the French Navy’s special forces, the Commandos Marine, and is seeking to find out how American and Israeli forces include stress in their training.

The goal for now is to dial up stress levels “as high as possible” to ensure that reflex actions are always the right ones, the training chief said. Henry said the challenge is the difficulty of putting people under such stress “that they feel like their final hour has come.”

The training division is trying to create the most disruptive environment possible in its simulators, so that personnel including gunners and missile operators “can mechanize their actions” to ensure they’ll be able to perform in combat whatever the situation, according to Henry.

“I know what it feels like to take a missile on the nose at four times the speed of sound,” Henry said. “So we know where we start to get stressed, we know we have to prepare for that.”

The most important lesson learned from the Red Sea is the need to be ready at all times, Adm. Harold Liebregs, commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy, told Defense News.

“The time when we could leave port, then build up and then see what mission we were going to do, that has changed,” Liebregs said. “It’s about training, but also about buildup. It’s about everything becoming more and more realistic, and it starts with having your war plans ready.”

Liebregs said the officer who commanded the support ship Karel Doorman during its deployment in the Red Sea, Paul Bijleveld, is now the navy’s commander for Sea Training, “so all the lessons we learned there, he’ll take onboard. Perhaps that is no coincidence.”

Western navies lack combat experiences in terms of high-intensity naval war, said Capt. Bryan McCavour, deputy assistant chief of staff for information warfare at the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy, who spoke on a panel with Henry. With fewer and fewer platforms in national fleets, ongoing problems with ship maintenance and availability, training is consistently getting compressed, he said.

“If we’re going to engender that war-fighting spirit and maintain it, and have that culture as a decisive factor in battle, we need to invest more time in high-end war-fighting training than I think we currently do,” McCavour said.

McCavour said it’s been longer since the Falklands War than between that conflict and World War II, and “combat-ready naval forces in that sense maybe don’t exist today in the way we think, because it’s been a very long time since we had a high-end conflict.”

He said Russia was reminded of that lesson with the sinking of the cruiser Moskva in the Black Sea, and Western forces need to take that into account when they look at responding in the South China Sea or the High North around the Kola Peninsula.

The Red Sea was also “a little bit the rediscovery” of low-end threats, with renewed focus on small-caliber weapons and cannons, and a pipeline of defensive layers including jamming, light missiles and laser-guided rockets, according to Henry, who directed the navy’s annual Wildfire drone exercise to focus on saturation as well as the risk of friendly fire in a busy environment.

“When you have a lot of things flying around you, and you open fire with other friendly units, we saw in the Red Sea that mistakes can be made,” Henry said. “So we’re working on that.”

The French Navy is furthermore training for combat while minimizing radio emissions, relying on adversary emissions to build situational awareness, according to Henry. The force is working to cut reliance on satellite positioning, helped by improved inertial-navigation systems as well as astral sights using the stars for positioning.

Henry mentioned the ‘Back to the ‘80s’ exercises by the French carrier strike group, which entails forgoing satellite communications and instead using HF and UHF radio for comms, “and above all, to be more frugal in our exchanges.”

Cyber warfare is the prime example of a threat likely to deprive naval forces of capabilities “at the worst possible moment,” according to Capt. Florian El-Ahdab, commanding officer of the French frigate Languedoc. He said preparing for eventualities such as loss of connectivity requires ‘Back to 80s’ type exercises and placing forces in situations of “great discomfort.”

“Today’s sailors reflect today’s society, so if I took your smartphone away today and told you to go somewhere, I’m not sure you’d feel very comfortable,” said El-Ahdab. He said “it’s the same thing” for the navy.

“If you take away all the tools available to the commander today, and all the amazing tools that are currently being developed, if I suddenly tell you that all of that is no longer available for one reason or another, how would you respond?” El-Ahdab asked. “That seems like a very, very good challenge to explore.”

Dubbed the Dataroom, the secure digital environment will allow Ukrainian defense companies to train and validate their algorithms by relying on real-world intelligence on Russian aerial threats collected by the country’s military.

The workspace has been envisioned with the goal of equipping interceptor drones with AI to enhance their target detection, classification and neutralization capabilities.

“In the future, we plan to expand the Dataroom’s abilities to other areas related to autonomy and AI – but for now, our focus is on the most urgent task: countering the threats that appear in our skies, Shahed-type drones,” Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense, wrote in a post on his LinkedIn page.

The official noted that while interceptor drones have been effective on the battlefield, defending against thousands of targets requires a high degree of autonomy and the ability for the systems to identify and counter targets independently.

The Dataroom is currently only accessible to Ukrainian industry, primarily due to the sensitivity of the information used for training.

Palantir Technologies, co-founded by libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, opened an office in Kyiv and has cooperated significantly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. The company’s MetaConstellation software is used by Ukraine to gather and visualize data of enemy positions and equipment via a network of commercial satellites, sensors, drones, and other systems.

Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said in an interview with online media outlet lb.ua this week that Russia can produce more than 400 different kinds of Shahed-type drones daily and that it plans to increase this number to 1,000.

The exercises take place amid heightened security concerns over China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea and regional developments involving Taiwan.

“We are looking at all possible scenarios and we are incorporating those into the exercises, so we are prepared for any eventuality,” Philippine military Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. told reporters during the launch of the exercise on Nov. 4.

The annual military drill, known as the Armed Forces of the Philippines Joint Exercise Dagat-Langit-Lupa (AJEX DAGIT-PA), will include training on integrated air and missile defense operations, defending gas and oil platforms, land defense, and amphibious exercises aimed at retaking islands, airfields and seaports.

Officials told Defense News that planners and strategists have studied hundreds of conflict scenarios, including potential missile attacks, and crafted the training program to assess troop response and spot defense gaps.

Like previous editions, the exercises will be conducted in the country’s northern and western borders.

A segment will be held in Thitu Island or Pag-asa Island, a Philippine-controlled territory in the South China Sea that is home to around 400 Filipinos. Experts and military officials have identified Thitu as a likely initial target in an invasion.

The country’s armed forces, dubbed AFP, have conducted special operations and civilian defense training there. The agenda for this year includes naval surface fire support drills, but the military declined to confirm if these will accompany amphibious landing exercises.

Unlike previous iterations, this year’s edition will engage fewer troops with only 2,000 compared to last year’s 3,000. Instead, the military reserve forces, the Philippine Coast Guard, and the Philippine National Police will participate to complement end strength, Brawner said.

The agenda will also include training on cyber, electronic, and space-related warfare.

“These are not just simulations,” Brawner said. “The exercises are strategic rehearsals for real-world contingencies, validating our concepts of operations … we will also test out the new unilateral defense plan,” he added.

Since 2023, the Philippine military has officially shifted to external defense and last year released a Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC) to guide its defense doctrine.

Details of the strategy remain sparse, however, and it’s uncertain how the military would operationalize this concept given its limited resources and capabilities.

The AFP revealed a shift toward a new “unilateral defense plan” called Bantay Kalayaan late last year to implement the defensive concept, which was tested under the previous AJEX DAGIT-PA training program.

The current module builds on lessons learned from last year, officials said, as it includes a more streamlined command-and-control unit solely for territorial defense – a significant move to reflect the expanding defense focus.

The AFP established its Strategic Command in late October, the lead participating unit in the ongoing exercise. The unit will be responsible for areas outside the purview of joint command units. This includes exclusive economic zones, occupied territories in the South China Sea, and the aerial domain.

Gen. Brawner suggested the AFP Strategic Command may become the principal commanding unit of the fighting forces in wartime.

“The battle staff in the GHQ (General Headquarters) cannot transform into a full-blown battle staff to fight the war,” Brawner said. “That is why I was convinced that we have to organize an AFP Strategic Command … and we rushed toward establishing it so they could be the main participant in this exercise,” he said.

While the Philippines has joined hundreds of joint military drills with allies, the internal military exercise is crucial in beefing up the country’s defense, as Filipino troops will be “fighting the war by ourselves in the first part,” Brawner said.

Brawner explained that, should war break out, the armed forces must hold out for at least a month before possible reinforcements from allies.

“This exercise is crucial so we can see the limit of our defense architecture. If war breaks out, we will be the first to defend ourselves,” Brawner said, adding that despite the scenario, the Philippines is “also expecting help from our ally under our mutual defense treaty.”

The Eastern Mediterranean drills suggest Ankara and Cairo are easing tensions, though their strategic interests remain far from aligned.

The exercise, dubbed Sea of Friendship-2025 (Bahr El Sadaka) held between Sept. 22 and 26, 2025, was the first such training after a 13-year hiatus.

According to the Turkish Navy, top brass present included Turkish Fleet Commander Adm. Kadir Yıldız and Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Navy Rear Adm. (UH) Mohamed Hassan El-Sherbeny.

The two countries had regularly held joint military exercises until 2012, when political relations deteriorated after the overthrow of the Egyptian government. Diplomatic ties remained strained for more than a decade, halting defense cooperation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s February 2024 visit to Cairo, his first in 12 years, marked a broader normalization effort spanning political, economic, and security domains, opening channels for political dialogue, trade and even for military cooperation.

Ret. Rear Adm. Cem Okyay framed the Turkey–Egypt naval exercise as both a symbolic and practical milestone. He stressed that while Turkish and Egyptian ships have long shared the same waters, conducting joint drills after more than a decade reflects a new diplomatic opening spearheaded by the navies themselves.

Beyond the military dimension, Okyay highlighted growing opportunities for defense industry cooperation, modernization projects and humanitarian missions. He argued that Ankara’s cautious rapprochement with Cairo is reinforced by economic investments and high-level political dialogue, showing the relationship runs deeper than a one-off exercise.

Serhat Güvenç, a professor of international relations, described the the event as a cautious but notable thaw in ties. He argued the drills marked the end of a long freeze, signaling that Ankara and Cairo have regained enough trust to cooperate militarily once again.

At the same time, he framed the exercise as a pointed message to Israel, whose aggressive moves in the Eastern Mediterranean have also unsettled Egypt.

Yet Güvenç warned against exaggerating the degree of rapprochement. That is because Egypt has not shifted on its core interests, as shown by its recent rejection of Turkey’s maritime boundary deal with Libya.

The joint exercise suggests the “bad old days” are behind the two countries, but it does not mean their strategic positions in the region fully align, Güvenç said.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force, or JASDF, has made small steps to begin turning around what experts have described as an obsolete training ecosystem. Officials have already selected Textron’s T-6JP Texan II as its basic trainer to replace the Fuji T-7, and a T-6 procurement contract should be signed before year’s end.

However, Japan next needs to think clearly about how to replace its Kawasaki T-4 intermediate jet trainers, more than 200 of which entered service from 1988. With the JASDF now flying fifth-generation F-35A/F-35B fighters, the T-4 is deemed unfit for the task of transitioning fighter pilots to such advanced aircraft.

Tokyo is currently mulling its options for new advanced jet trainers. It issued a request for information in October 2024, and the submission deadline closed on May 8, 2025.

Select domestic and foreign vendors attending DSEI Japan, held in Chiba from May 21-23, were touting their respective products.

Boeing was promoting the T-7A Red Hawk, while Leonardo believes the M-346 Block 20 is best suited. Elsewhere, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is even proffering a clean-sheet T-X design.

American advantage?

Responding to a Defense News question about the T-7A at DSEI Japan 2025, John Suding, Boeing’s Executive Director for Defense and Government Services in East Asia, said, “We believe the T-7 would be a fantastic fit.”

He continued, “The training that it will do for the United States Air Force is very similar to the training that Japan does for their air force, and particularly for their fighter fleet, so with F-35s and F-15s being upgraded, there’s a lot of commonality there within the training system.”

One thing in favor of an American platform being eventually selected was a U.S.-Japan leaders’ summit in April 2024. This saw the two countries announce exploration of joint development of a trainer aircraft to replace the T-4 fleet.

European edge

However, Leonardo believes it has a compelling offering with its M-346 Block 20, a new variant with improved avionics and cockpit display that will be delivered to first customer, Austria, in 2028.

The company had a cockpit simulator at DSEI Japan 2025, and Diego Siccardi, responsible for Leonardo’s international campaigns in the Far East and Oceania, highlighted several points in the platform’s favor.

One is that, since 2022, a handful of Japanese fighter pilots have been flying M-346s in advanced fighter training in the commercially run International Flight Training School (IFTS) in Sardinia, Italy. Siccardi said, “They’re really happy about the training level they’re getting there,” with plans to expand pilot numbers.

Another advantage is Japan’s rapidly expanding cooperation with Europe under the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). Creating synergy, this trilateral project involves Leonardo and Japan. It’s a landmark program for Tokyo, given that it traditionally cooperates so closely only with the United States.

Thirdly, Siccardi stressed Leonardo’s willingness to transfer technology to Japan and work with domestic Japanese partners. “We’re looking to maximize the indigenous content,” he acknowledged.

Japanese next-gen

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries displayed a scale model depicting a T-X trainer aircraft at DSEI Japan 2025. With work commencing last year, the project is still in its early stages, so officials could not provide too many clear details.

The twin-engine aircraft would feature an advanced cockpit system containing large touchscreens, as well as embedded simulator functions. Officials told Defense News that the T-X could also replace F-2B and F-15DJ trainer variants, which explains why the trainer’s size approaches that of an F-2.

However, the factor mitigating against the T-X is time. It would take multiple years to develop and be ready for procurement. Therefore, its future entirely depends on the JASDF’s schedule for retiring the T-4 and whether Japan’s Ministry of Defence wants to pursue a wholly indigenous design.

Training pipeline

As the JASDF updates its trainer aircraft platforms, there is an opportunity to simultaneously overhaul its training system. CAE is one company keen to help.

Marc-Olivier Sabourin, CAE’s Division President, Defence & Security International, told Defense News: “The current Japanese program is relying on assets that are becoming obsolete, so their training throughput is challenged. But also the training proficiency they get with their existing training system still creates a significant gap between the cadet knowledge and F-35 operations.”

CAE does not currently hold any JASDF contract for pilot training, but there is growing interest from Japan for an integrated learning environment. This appetite was whetted when CAE ran a study with 30 Japanese pilot cadets around one and a half years ago.

That study utilized virtual reality-based simulators to provide independent instruction and coaching. Gary Eves, CAE’s principal technology officer, said: “We completed the study, and we were able to show that within just one hour of AI-based coaching, I could make about a 20% improvement on their grade performance without an instructor.”

“I am glad to be working with Meta once again,” Luckey is quoted as saying in the post. “My mission has long been to turn warfighters into technomancers, and the products we are building with Meta do just that.”

This partnership stems from the Soldier Borne Mission Command (SBMC) Next program, formerly called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) Next. IVAS was a massive military contract, with a total $22 billion budget, originally awarded to Microsoft in 2018 intended to develop HoloLens-like AR glasses for soldiers.

But after endless problems, in February the Army stripped management of the program from Microsoft and awarded it to Anduril, with Microsoft staying on as a cloud provider. The intent is to eventually have multiple suppliers of mixed reality glasses for soldiers.

All of this meant that if Luckey’s former employer, Meta, wanted to tap into the potentially lucrative world of military VR/AR/XR headsets, it would need to go through Anduril.

The devices will be based on tech out of Meta’s AR/VR research center Reality Labs, the post says. They’ll use Meta’s Llama AI model, and they will tap into Anduril’s command and control software known as Lattice. The idea is to provide soldiers with a heads-up display of battlefield intelligence in real time.

Luckey is apparently feeling good about this reconciliation. He was, of course, famously fired from Facebook in 2017, about three years after Facebook bought his startup Oculus for $2 billion. This came after Luckey was embroiled in a brouhaha over his support for Donald Trump in his 2016 election. Luckey turned around and founded Anduril in 2017, with co-founders Brian Schimpf, Trae Stephens, and Matt Grimm.

An Anduril spokesperson tells TechCrunch that the product family Meta and Anduril are building is even called EagleEye, which will be an ecosystem of devices.

EagleEye is what Luckey named Anduril’s first imagined headset in Anduril’s pitch deck draft, before his investors convinced him to focus on building software first.

“All of them had worked with me for years via Oculus VR, and when they saw the EagleEye headset in our first Anduril pitch deck draft, they pointed out that it seemed like I was sequencing things irrationally. They believed, correctly, that I was too focused on winning a pissing contest over the future of AR/VR, on proving that I was right and the people who fired me were wrong,” Luckey tweeted in February after winning the IVAS contract.

After Thursday’s news, Luckey posted on X: “It is pretty cool to have everything at our fingertips for this joint effort – everything I made before Meta acquired Oculus, everything we made together, and everything we did on our own after I was fired.”

And to show that Luckey has really buried the hatchet, he said Anduril has even launched a Facebook page.