Speaking to Defense News from the Philippines, Bartholomees confirmed that, as an original Transformation in Contact division, four of his five brigades have changed significantly already. Following his mobile infantry, artillery and sustainment brigades, he revealed the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) is “next on the docket to do some transformation.”

“The Gray Eagle company that was in Alaska is going to move to Hawaii – and what we see over time is, as the Army determines what type of larger-class unmanned aerial systems it uses, that those will land in the CAB.”

The general said longer-range drones “are essential to support the ranges that we can now shoot out to, particularly with HIMARS.”

In fact, 25th ID was the first U.S. infantry division to receive HIMARS, a weapon that greatly extends the formation’s reach compared to incumbent M777 and M119 towed howitzers. Because of HIMARS, Bartholomees pointed out his “division artillery is really what transformed the most.”

He highlighted how the “Tropic Lightning” Division performed a number of HIMARS infiltrations to Luzon Strait islands during recent Philippine wargames. Indeed, Exercises Balikatan and Salaknib allowed 25th ID to test new tactics and technologies from April to June.

The Ranger-qualified general added that the Army wants maximum flexibility in “new technologies, drones, counter-drones, electronic warfare, software-enabled technologies, and less [reliance] on a program of record that, by the time you receive it, is obsolete and you’re stuck with it for too long.”

For example, Bartholomees praised the Infantry Squad Vehicle that makes his soldiers “more lethal, light and mobile.” By increasing the mobility of his two infantry brigades, it helped shed a lot of needless vehicles. “Infantry brigades had too much stuff, too many vehicles, they were too unwieldy,” he said.

Balikatan and Salaknib were valuable to 25th ID because “you don’t really know if [equipment] is going to work until you operate with it in these environments,” Bartholomees explained.

He also highlighted the democratization of electronic-warfare capabilities across units, in addition to the transformation of communication systems. “We’re one of two divisions in the U.S. Army that’s conducting what’s called Next-Generation Command and Control,” he explained. This entails moving to smaller form factors and software-enabled systems.

Pushing new capabilities into frontline units is vital for 25th ID, especially when so far from home in places like the Philippines. “Shipping capability costs really drive forward the need for us to innovate,” he said.

One response has been the Forge, an expeditionary capability that allows soldiers to manufacture spare parts using 3D printing, for example. Bartholomees said the Forge is important “because it’s helping to thicken our sustainment lines by creating capability, creating parts and manufacturing forward where we can”.

He said 25th ID’s fielding of new technologies will continue unabated: “We’re literally transforming all the time,” although “we do have to manage how we do this, and we have to be disciplined in this approach.”

One answer lies in Italy, where a growing number of nations are lining up to use an unlikely location built deep underground in the 1930s by the government of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Lurking under woodland in Fornovo Taro near Parma lies a system of five massive, drum-shaped cisterns which once held aviation fuel as well as 2km of connecting passageways, all designed to withstand enemy bombing.

“Gaza has accelerated the use of this place like this - despite their technology, the Israelis were not ready for fighting in tunnels,” said a manager at the site, who spoke to Defense News but declined to be named due to company policy.

Israel is among 17 national customers who have now trained at the privately run site known as La Carona, with other special forces units arriving from countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Poland, Greece and Turkey.

The U.S. Green Berets have also used the site as does a dedicated Italian army underground fighting unit created by the Italian army Folgore paratrooper brigade.

After resisting 150 bombing runs by the Allies in the Second World War, the cisterns continued to be used by the Italian Air Force to hold aviation fuel until 2000 when the site was abandoned and the fuel drained out.

In 2020 the La Carona was purchased and reopened for training by its current owners.

“We saw the site and decided it would be perfect for special forces training,” said the manager.

The cylindrical tanks, which are supported by concrete columns, measure around 20 meters in diameter by seven meters in height and are linked by tunnels which once channelled fuel between them. Another 1km long tunnel once carried fuel to a nearby train station.

Special forces entering the tunnels now engage in simulated combat.

The space recreates the limitations of real tunnel fighting - from darkness, to limited radio use to no GPS. A control room allows trainers to generate sound, including the noise of explosions, as well as smoke and lighting.

Robot canines and real dogs, as well as drones that can function without GPS can all be introduced.

“The key ability to learn here is how to map underground spaces,” said the manager.

Combat in tunnels grabbed the headlines as the Israel Defense Forces entered the so-called Gaza Metro - a system of tunnels thought to total hundreds of miles - when it sought out hostages taken during the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

A year earlier, Ukrainian forces held out for weeks against Russian attacks in the labyrinth of underground tunnels under the Azovstal iron and steel works in Mariupol, which was described as a ‘fortress within a city’.

“Most of the world’s population now lives in an urban setting and war is increasingly fought in cities. Underground combat can make the difference,” said the manager.

The annual exercise, held for more than five decades since 1971, brings together some 20 vessels from 15 nations with around 6,000 personnel - roughly half the size of last year’s drills - during a period of heightened tensions in the Baltic region.

Officials say the smaller footprint reflects operational realities rather than waning commitment, as Western navies remain tied up in other areas including the Middle East’s Strait of Hormuz and the Arctic.

The US BALTOPS naval exercise, which takes place from June 4 to June 20, will still be the biggest maneuver in the Baltic Sea this year, with Washington providing the flagship Mount Whitney vessel, despite months of fierce criticism of NATO by U.S. President Donald Trump and plans to cut U.S. commitments to the alliance.

While the U.S.-led exercise is not designed as a direct response to current events, German Rear Admiral Stephan Haisch said the timing inevitably amplifies its political relevance.

“In this period, it is a sign of the alliance’s strength, that a major exercise is being conducted, under U.S. leadership, with broad NATO participation”, he said. “It is a sign of the alliance’s unity and strength, and I am speaking of all allies here.”

As Commander Task Force Baltic, Haisch is in charge of a multinational naval headquarters for the Baltic Sea, established by Germany in the coastal city of Rostock in 2024 amid a growing focus on the area as tensions with Russia grew.

His headquarters is capable of leading NATO operations in the Baltic Sea during a conflict with Russia and will do so for the upcoming US BALTOPS drills which are traditionally planned by the U.S.

Securing vital sea routes

BALTOPS will begin with drills in the western Baltic before shifting eastward to rehearse resupply and protection of free sea routes around the Swedish island of Gotland - a core task for NATO as the region’s strategic importance has grown.

Open sea routes are seen as critical, particularly for supplying the Baltic states - linked only by a narrow land corridor to NATO’s mainland - in a crisis.

“Free sea lines of communication - that is central,” Haisch said, pointing to the need to safeguard military logistics as well as commercial shipping.

Asked about past incidents in the Baltics attributed to Russia by Western officials, Haisch said he did not expect Moscow to cross a threshold that would trigger NATO’s collective defense clause, known as Article 5, even as tensions remain elevated.

“I would assume Russia to stay below the Article 5 threshold if they seek to test us.”

Apart from their combat fatigues, the drone pilots with first-person view goggles and joystick controllers could have been hobbyist racers, maneuvering quadcopter drones through bright yellow gates and an abandoned building. But simulated strike missions added a distinctly military edge to the two-day competition, with bonus points for hitting targets including a moving Ford pickup truck.

“Even with the British Army we do racing events, because obviously that’s where FPV has always been,” Guardsman Mark, a drone pilot in the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, told Defense News. “It’s good to see that the events here are like almost a homage to FPV racing. It’s kind of, thank you, we will take over from here into the tactical side.”

As FPV drones have become an inescapable part of infantry operations on the frontline in Ukraine, NATO countries have started to apply the lessons, at their own pace. Some teams in the two-day competition, including from the United Kingdom and Denmark, had been using FPV drones in their units for only several months, while some from France had been flying them for more than a year.

For drone pilots from eight NATO members, the competition at the Chaumont-Semoutiers airbase was a chance to see allies at work, share tactics and technical tips, and study each other’s equipment. For instructors, the event provided ideas on how they might improve training to use FPV drones in combat.

“We saw some really interesting things because, and I won’t go into details, but each team had its own small innovations in how they managed their equipment,” said Sgt. Edgar, an FPV drone pilot in the French Army’s 61st Artillery Regiment, which hosted the event at its base on the former airfield near Chaumont.

Cheap consumer racing drones flown via FPV goggles and low-latency video links were turned into weapons of war by soldiers in Ukraine, who combined them with explosive charges such as rocket-propelled grenade warheads. FPV drones now inflict 60% of the losses on the Russian army, the National Security and Defense Council for Ukraine said in January.

For Gen. Pierre Schill, the commander of the French Army, the challenge was an occasion to take stock of where his forces stand compared to allies. He said drones have become an “unavoidable reality,” and also a way to push the land forces towards innovating in the lowest ranks.

“You can build, for not much money, your own drone,” Schill said. “It’s a way to unleash innovation.”

Nearly 50 teams, each comprising a pilot and a spotter, took part in the International Drone Challenge on May 19 and 20, scoring points over four courses testing speed, drone control and successful strikes. Teams brought their own drones, some custom-made, others issued by their units, with the rules limiting entries to FPV drones in the 5-inch rotor class.

While many teams used similar systems and components, some pilots on allied teams used “quite different” ways to approach targets, “so it’s really interesting to be able to talk with them,” said Chief Cpl. Jean-Baptiste of the French 82nd Infantry Regiment.

Allied teams came from Belgium, Denmark, Spain, the U.S., Italy, the U.K. and Poland, with Luxembourg joining as an observer.

Chief Sgt. Aymeric of the 7th Battalion of Chasseurs Alpins — “Alpine Hunters” — kept a hand on the shoulder of pilot Chief Cpl. Clément during one of the exercises, pointing his masked teammate in the direction of the drone for the best signal.

“When I put on the mask, I no longer exist in this reality,” Chief Cpl. Clément said after completing the course. “That’s actually why it’s important to have a partner. They’re not only there to help me with my mission, but also to keep me grounded in reality.”

Buddy interaction was an area where teams used different methods, with some spotters guiding their pilots with verbal instructions rather than remaining in physical contact.

“We see different things again from Ukraine, we still learn from how they do it,” said Lance Cpl. Martin, a drone pilot from the Danish Royal Life Guards. “But definitely I’m not a one-man operation when flying. Especially if I have goggles on, I’m going to need a guy or two to keep me covered.”

Ukraine will have the capacity to produce more than 8 million FPV drones in 2026, with more than 160 companies producing the systems in Ukraine, the NDSC said in January.

Skill levels ranged widely, with French sergeant Edgar noting strong teams from the U.K. and Belgium. “This raises everyone’s game, because at the end of a lap where someone posts an exceptional time, we saw several teams approach them to ask for advice or to take a look at the equipment they had.”

Two French teams took the top spots, with the 13th Parachute Dragoon Regiment of the French special forces the winner and the 61st Artillery Regiment that hosted the competition finishing second. One of the British teams took third place.

Sgt. Luke Crossley of the U.K.’s 3 Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment, reportedly the country’s fastest military drone pilot, said that what he found most impressive was how well some of the French teams were doing with only two to five months of flying FPV systems, compared to the Belgium team and U.K. teams with up to two years of experience.

“Clearly other armies, other nations, France, Belgium, they’re getting after all this FPV drone stuff,” Crossley said. “As united nations, we are going be stronger on that battle front. Which is reassuring.”

The 1st Battalion Scots Guards has two qualified pilots with FPV drone experience who are still exploring how to use their gear, according to Guardsman Mark. He said the competition allowed him to tap into experience and knowledge from allies, including on setting up drones and programming the Betaflight control software.

NATO militaries are still figuring out procurement for FPV drones, a newer category than larger intelligence and targeting drone systems with established suppliers and procurement processes. Guardsman Mark said that while his unit receives fully assembled bigger drones, he built the smaller model used in the competition from parts.

Seeing how other forces deal with procurement was instructive, according to Staff Sgt. Shay Burnett of the U.S. Marine Corps, who teaches an attack-drone operator course at the service’s School of Infantry.

The Marines are tied to a contract for a single model of FPV drone, the Neros Archer, according to Burnett. With FPV drones so interchangeable “we shouldn’t have to be stuck to one system,” and being able to build them in-house and branch out to other models would reduce costs and make the force more effective overall, he said.

The biggest takeaway was learning where allies stand on FPV drones “and seeing how we can make ourselves better overall,” according to Burnett, who said the Marines started using the systems about 15 months ago. “It’s so new across the board. Everyone’s relatively in the same boat.”

Burnett also took home lessons from how organizers set up the trials. “We’re never going to try to get to the racing side, but we do think that the way that they had some of the things, with obstacles to get to the main target, is something we can bring back and actually start implementing.”

An officer of the Danish armed forces was keen to observe how the French organized the competition. While Denmark has previously held military competitions for snipers, infantry-fighting vehicles and battle tanks, the country wouldn’t be able to set up an event like the one near Chaumont just yet, said Lt. Col. Nicolai, head of the training department for the Danish forces.

Drone pilots also discussed training, with most agreeing that pilots need to fly regularly to keep their skills sharp. The French require potential drone pilots to train at least 20 hours in a simulator before they start flying small drones and then work their way up, said Sgt. Edgar.

Younger pilots, especially those with experience flying model aircraft or in video games, tend to take more naturally to FPV drones, though some personnel in their forties are “very quick” learners, according to the French sergeant. But the main variable remains training time, he said.

Training time for the competing teams varied greatly, said Danish Lance Cpl. Martin, who said he is one of the first in his unit to train with FPV drones, and had been flying them for only about one-and-a-half months. He said after discussing training regimes, one lesson he’s bringing home is to train intensely at the start, then allow pilots to build flying experience at a more casual pace.

“It’s been fun talking to the others to see how they’ve been doing,” Lance Cpl. Martin said. “Most of them have had FPVs for a longer time, so they had more training compared to myself. I’m bringing home how we can train, all the success and all the failures. No need to reinvent the wheel.”

The live-fire phase of EFES-2026 ran through May 21 along the Aegean coast near İzmir, making it one of Turkey’s largest combined and joint exercises to date. Conducted under the Aegean Army Command, the drill spanned two phases — a computer-assisted command post phase in April and the live-fire field phase — drawing over 10,000 personnel from 50 nations to the İzmir Gulf and Doğanbey training ranges.

The Libyan participation carries particular symbolic weight. A total of 502 Libyan troops — 331 from the country’s eastern forces and 171 from the west — are training side by side under a single Libyan flag. It is the first time the two rival factions have jointly deployed abroad.

Turkish defense officials described the event as a concrete step toward Ankara’s long-stated “One Libya, One Army” goal. Libyan personnel have received training in amphibious operations, special forces tactics, combat diving, mine and IED awareness, and combat search and rescue.

Besides the land forces, the Libyan Combattante II G class patrol craft Shafak also participated in the naval phase of the exercise.

Syria’s participation is smaller but arguably more important diplomatically. Approximately 50 Syrian military personnel took part, making the newly reconstituted Syrian army’s first-ever exercise outside Syrian territory.

Ankara framed both nations’ attendance as part of its broader military-restructuring and advisory programs in each country, with officials saying that training and advisory cooperation with both nations will continue and expand.

Reeves said the shift towards what he described as “tactical credibility” has meant establishing forward locations and stationing troops near Latvia’s eastern border, in the terrain where they would actually fight in the event of a conflict, the Canadian commander told Defense News.

“Right now I have a brigade, there is nothing on the other side of the border that can take out this brigade,” Reeves said in an interview at the Sēlija training range in central Latvia this week. “And when there’s something that can take out this brigade, NATO’s going to put more forces here, I’m confident in that.”

Canada has about 2,000 troops in Latvia, and its contribution to the NATO Multinational Brigade there represents its largest overseas deployment. Alliance doctrine on the eastern flank defended by Canadian troops has shifted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while the tripwire logic still exists, it’s now backed militarily by forces expected to actively hold ground rather than just trigger a response and await reinforcements.

NATO agreed in 2016 to establish multinational battlegroups in the Baltic countries and Poland as part of what it called enhanced forward presence, with Canada the framework nation for Latvia. After the invasion of Ukraine, Canada in June 2022 agreed to scale up the battlegroup to a brigade.

From a single garrison in a training area, the Canadian forces are now based in four different areas, with forward locations along the eastern flank providing familiarity with the terrain and improved readiness, according to Reeves.

“And even more important than that, the local population out there is now beginning to trust us and understand us, because they’re going to support us when we fight,” Reeves said. “We are, to use your term, still the tripwire force, but we’ll be even more effective by being out there quicker and understanding the terrain out there even more, and having more support.”

The brigade operates under NATO’s Multinational Division North alongside Latvia’s Mechanized Infantry Brigade.

“I want to see, and I see, signs of the Canadian Army understanding NATO better,” Reeves said. “We haven’t operated in an operational theater with NATO since Afghanistan. Now we’re here, working again in an operational theater with our NATO partners, and we can see where we’re interoperable and where we’re not, and we’re working on that.”

With the brigade actively operating and training every single day, Reeves said soldiers bring lessons identified in Ukraine back to Canada and other NATO countries. “When soldiers leave an operational theater, one of their first tasks is to teach. So now they’re teaching, after having six months or a year of experience trying to learn from the Ukrainian theater.”

The multinational brigade includes troops from 14 nations, and while Reeves said the goal is to have fewer nations at the unit level “because it’s very hard to be perfectly seamlessly interoperable at the lowest level,” he said there’s value in NATO diversity at the brigade headquarters, “because we see problems differently and we see different solutions.”

Lt. Col. Dan Richel, the Canadian deputy commander of Latvia’s Mechanized Infantry Brigade, likewise highlighted the value of different perspectives, in a separate interview. He said the six Canadians embedded in the national formation “definitely learn just as much from the Latvian side that we’re able to bring back home as well.”

He said that the approach of the Latvian brigade as a relatively small formation tends to be practical and time-efficient, able to integrate new equipment and techniques “without worrying about waiting for somebody else to develop that doctrine.”

“The Latvians are definitely very proactive and take a lot of initiative,” Richel said.

Held from Apr. 20 to May 8, Balikatan was a good testing ground for the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, or 3rd MLR.

This agile Hawaii-based unit possesses more than 2,000 personnel. Designed to operate at the tip of the Marine Corps, the MLR was created in March 2022.

1st Lt. Duncan Stoner, the unit’s director for communication strategy and, said his formation “is unlike any traditional infantry regiment in the Marine Corps. The key difference lies in our focus and our toolkit.”

To permit it to operate in dispersed locations, 3rd MLR’s headquarters oversees three subordinate elements.

The first is the 3rd Littoral Combat Team that fires Naval Strike Missiles from NMESIS (standing for Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System) missile launchers. These assets are accompanied by infantry companies for security, and this year they received attack drones for the first time.

Next up is the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion that handles air domain awareness and air defense utilizing TPS-80 radars and counter-drone systems.

Finally, the regiment possesses the 3rd Littoral Logistics Battalion to sustain operations in distributed, littoral environments.

This year’s exercise was the fourth time the regiment has participated in Balikatan, and Stoner told Defense News: “As the regiment continues to evolve, this exercise is where we validate our tactics alongside our highly capable regional allies and partners.”

Securing maritime straits

One of those tactics was maritime key terrain security operations, where the Marine Corps helped seize remote Philippine islands in the Luzon Strait. This included deployment of NMESIS sections with anti-ship missiles.

Yes, 3rd MLR deployed the NMESIS to the Batanes Islands in last year’s Balikatan, but this year that expanded dramatically to three separate islands. They inserted with the aid of Air Force C-130Js and Army LCU-2000 landing craft.

On May 2, Defense News visited one of those locations in Basco in the Batane Islands, which is closer to Taiwan than it is to the Philippine mainland.

A section comprising a single NMESIS launcher, command vehicle and leader vehicle – all based on the JLTV chassis – deployed to Basco for 72 hours and conducted simulated fire missions against warships attempting to pass through the Luzon Strait.

Staff Sergeant Darren Gibbs, a section chief in the MLR’s Medium-Range Missile Battery, described NMESIS “as an autonomous missile system that’s essentially used for protection of our straits and sea lines.”

He said “training in Batanes allows us a different environment than what we normally operate in, so it gives us unique opportunities to actually utilize the system.”

However, the NMESIS is yet to fire an actual missile in the Philippines.

Stoner explained that Balikatan is “a phenomenal opportunity to strengthen our partnerships, get reps in employing systems like NMESIS, MADIS and our sensing systems, and really exercise our ability to execute distributed command and control.”

Threats from the air

MADIS is short for Marine Air Defense Integrated System. Fielded by the Marine Corps last year, it comprises JLTVs fitted with various soft-kill and hard-kill counter-drone systems.

At an integrated air defense demonstration in Zambales on Apr. 28, Defense News saw a battery of MADIS vehicles take down various kinds of quad-copters and fixed-wing drones.

In that engagement, countermeasure seemed to miss more drone targets than it hit. However, Defense News learned that crews were deliberately practicing tracking the drones and perfecting tactics, techniques and procedures, rather than simply trying to blow them up.

Staff Sergeant Noah Konien, a platoon sergeant in the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion, praised his crews: “They did an excellent job, focused on what they had to do and did the job very well.”

Being based on Oahu, MADIS crews face limitations when live-firing at home, so Konien was enthusiastic about the opportunity to fire rounds and missiles in the Philippines.

Regionally relevant

There are two MLRs in the Asia-Pacific region, the other being the 12th MLR stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

Stoner explained, “We’re a purpose-built, informed formation designed to operate and persist in contested littoral environments in tandem with regional forces. In real-world terms, our function is to enable and deliver multi-domain effects that expand the decision space for the broader combined and joint force in the region.”

Asked what direction MLRs will go next, Stoner responded that the Marine Corp is constantly evolving. “The MLR is truly an example of modernization in action.”

He added, “Regardless of specific systems, we’re continually experimenting with advanced sensing capabilities, exploring more survivable command-and-control tactics, and pushing the envelope on multi-domain operations to ensure we remain effective and ready in any situation with our allies and partners in the region.”

This missile firing of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s Type 88 surface-to-ship system from sand dunes near Laoag in northwest Luzon on May 6 was significant for several reasons.

Firstly, this was the maiden deployment of Japanese combat troops on Philippine soil since the end of World War II. Abetted by a reciprocal access agreement ratified by Manila and Tokyo on Sep. 11, 2025, approximately 1,400 Japanese soldiers exercised in the Philippines.

Secondly, the firing of anti-ship missiles presages growing cooperation between Japan and the Philippines, especially as both nations grapple with the specter of an aggressive China in waters around both countries.

If an imaginary curved line is drawn north to south from the Japanese mainland, it would first pass through Taiwan and then continue on to the Philippines. These land masses, plus their archipelagic territories, form a key part of what military planners call the First Island Chain.

Anti-ship missiles positioned on Japanese islands north of Taiwan, and on Philippine islands south of it, have the ability to control who passes through the maritime straits near this democratically governed country that Beijing covets for itself.

In a time of conflict, if the People’s Liberation Army ever invaded Taiwan, the race would be on for either China or the United States and its allies to control these maritime chokepoints.

This is why the deployment and firing of two Japanese Type 88 anti-ship missiles was so important. Such weapons could target any Chinese invasion fleet, or help prevent the passage of Chinese warships into the Western Pacific.

Although only two missiles were fired, as well as a GMLRS rocket from a U.S. Army HIMARS, other anti-ship missile systems such as a U.S. Marine Corps NMESIS and a ship-based Philippine Navy C-Star simulated attacks, too.

The first Type 88 missile hit its target – a former minesweeper dating from WWII – 47 miles away after a six-minute flight.

The Philippines possesses a similar anti-ship missile system – the BrahMos acquired from India – but it did not join in the firing on this occasion.

Meanwhile, the Hawaii-based 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps oversaw command and control of this maritime strike exercise.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, attended the missile firing, a day after they met in Manila. One topic of their discussion was Tokyo’s recently relaxed policy on selling lethal weapons.

The Philippines is already planning to buy second-hand equipment like Beechcraft King Air light aircraft and Abukuma-class destroyers from Japan.

Highlighting the bilateral friendship, Teodoro said, “No one country can do deterrence, and the more partners that are converged … the stronger we are.”

Exercise Balikatan took place from Apr. 20 to May 8. It involved approximately 17,000 troops from seven countries.

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.