The incessant hum of the generator outside the Alaska tent was like a lullaby to the exhausted staff within, the seemingly endless shift in a twenty-four-hour JOC—the joint operations center—blurring the lines between day and night. The air conditioner’s groan reminded us of the battle against the Thai heat, a losing war against the humidity of the sweltering jungle. The scent of stale coffee and the ubiquitous corkboards and whiteboards, littered with half-hearted scribbles and outdated CONOPs, added to the sense of weary boredom. It was a scene familiar to any JOC veteran of the post-9/11 wars. Yet, the irony of replicating it here, amid the tropical foliage of Cobra Gold, wasn’t lost on anyone. The two of us were there as observers. But as we observed the activities taking place in the JOC, we wondered: Were we, the US military, preparing for the future where being stationary is death, or simply reliving the past in a different locale? The question echoed in the silence between yawns as the exhausted staff trudged through another monotonous hour. A look around the JOC evoked a famous ancient Roman adage, “Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum” (“If you want peace, prepare for war”)—cliché or profound? We both looked at each other and shook our heads in frustration—soon to be another exercise in the books.
One way that the United States and its allies prepare for war is through multinational exercises—like Cobra Gold in Thailand. Due to their size and expense, these exercises represent a significant investment in an increasingly constrained fiscal environment. They have immense value—but how might they be improved? If the lights go out in the next crisis or the first shot is fired in a future conflict, the question we present is: Will the United States and its allies enact the focused operations iterated during these multinational joint and combined exercises? If not, where are there opportunities to focus these exercises on preparation to enable the United States and our allies to project such deterrence?
We argue that an overemphasis on exercises as merely relationship–building activities is an increasingly inefficient legacy of the bygone era of US hegemony. The unquestioned American power in the Pacific and participation in military exercises sacrificed the practice of realistic warfighting activities to maintain favorable relations through the repetitive display of comfortably easy, slam-dunk activities. In a 2022 article, Shannon Houck and Douglas Borer emphasized what the United States should be focused on in the Indo-Pacific; but how we go about US military activities in the region also warrants greater attention. These exercises should be reoriented toward more challenging activities that build confidence in relevant and real-world tasks, experiment around new technology, and display actual capabilities to adversaries. This reorientation is intended to evolve these major exercises into the emerging strategic competition landscape and, in doing so, provide a significantly more substantial return on investment given their significant cost.
Cobra Gold: Yesterday’s History and Tomorrow’s Opportunity
The United States’ integrated deterrent strategy in the Indo-Pacific region has recently emphasized Operation Pathways, featuring over forty army-to-army and Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises. This multinational collaboration showcases preparedness through exercises such as Talisman Sabre, Super Garuda Shield, and Cobra Gold. The Department of Defense boasts of an effective deterrence initiative by displaying a credible combat force through these exercises. The significance of partner relations in integrated deterrence is undeniable. However, merely repeating US-centered relationship-building activities in the event of a future crisis would be futile. We can now use the multinational joint and combined exercises to stress-test the hard stuff. US fighting forces overlook a valuable opportunity by not concentrating multinational joint exercises on large-scale campaigns and twenty-first-century threats, aggregating joint efforts and iterating future capabilities with one goal in mind: to learn by failure.
Cobra Gold, an annual, multiservice, multinational event, has been held in Thailand since 1982 and has a rich history focused on relationships. As part of a Pacific exchange program cohort of Naval Postgraduate School students, sponsored by the US Army’s I Corps and its commanding general, Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson, our team aimed to pinpoint strategic and tactical recommendations. As observers, during Exercise Cobra Gold 2024, we were intentionally removed from the organizational rigidity or bias sometimes inherent when operating as part of units preparing for or conducting the exercise.
The complexity and multinational involvement aim toward relationship development, yet therefore, training is often notional, theoretical, or scripted due to varying participants, countries, and capabilities. This results in a lack of cohesion in achieving the exercise’s goals. For instance, I Corps leads many exercises in the Indo-Pacific region, yet they do not have a common theme or interconnected scenario. Additionally, there is a risk that these exercises do not focus enough on crucial iterative training opportunities associated with future regional crises and conflicts. Warfighters have echoed this concern. After taking part in the 2015 iteration of Cobra Gold as a Marine Corps rifle platoon leader, Travis Onischuk voiced his concern for the exercise’s logistic support, which he described as “quite literally, prioritizing WiFi over water.” Regrettably, some exercises are based on outdated capabilities and need a realistic scenario, such as those we may face against a peer adversary in the Indo-Pacific region. This is often referred to as antiaccess / area-denial (A2AD). In short, our future battles will differ significantly from those of the past two decades, in which we enjoyed air, munition, and technological superiority. The concept of A2AD suggests that we may be the inferior force in specific environments, and the survivability of our most critical infrastructure is in question against a highly sophisticated and capable enemy. If we do not incorporate this complexity into our exercises, we do ourselves a significant disservice.
The crux of these exercises lies in fostering partner relationships while avoiding pushing training to take a back seat. Given the current focus on integrated deterrence, this approach is vital. US Rear Admiral Christopher Stone, leading the Expeditionary Strike Force in Cobra Gold 2024, highlights the significance of these exercises in nurturing bonds. And this is undoubtedly important. But when establishing proficiency in training becomes a clear second in the order of priorities, it is worth revisiting our objectives. In a perfect scenario, we strive to achieve the best of both worlds by maximizing the return on investment in both relationships and training value.
The Enemy Gets a Vote: How Do We Adjust?
Drone and counterdrone capabilities provide one example of many surrounding the relevance of implementing current technology in an exercise for one goal: determining if these technologies and the tactics used to employ them are effective. Drones, include those that employ a growing degree of autonomous functionality, are significantly impacting modern warfare, as seen in the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Both nations recognize the tactical advantages offered by these technologies in offensive and defensive strategies. If Ukrainian leaders could turn back time, they would likely invest more heavily in developing such technologies and tactics. Given this relevance, pacific adversaries, such as China’s People’s Liberation Army, aim to leverage drones to enhance their military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. Ukraine’s use of kamikaze drones exemplifies how these technologies are transforming battlefields. Acknowledging that these threats could play a significant role in future conflicts, particularly in this region, is crucial. Therefore, it is essential to utilize military exercises for US and joint forces to challenge and deter potential threats posed by these evolving technologies.
While works like Kill Chain by Chris Brose and Ghost Fleet by August Cole and P. W. Singer have alerted the United States to the importance of implementing future technologies, our ability to do so is another matter. For instance, the US Marine Corps emphasizes small, scalable drone capabilities, but a sluggish procurement process hinders execution. A possible solution could be contracting out training aids and scenario support to companies that aim to create scalable red-force training models with drone capabilities. These unmanned aerial and surface vessels can simulate payloads and swarming tactics in training scenarios, allowing us to test our responses to future challenges. For example, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a part of Rear Admiral Stone’s Expeditionary Strike Force, conducted a collection of events such as an amphibious assault and noncombatant evacuation exercises. However, these exercises are scripted mainly. A noncombatant evacuation operation exercise is primarily meant to demonstrate how a force would evacuate noncombatants or civilians from a hostile situation in extremis. Now imagine such an exercise was unscripted, and rescue forces encountered a swarm of two hundred drones as an opposition force. The point is that such exercises are meant to project capability yet are absent of the most critical element for genuinely testing new tactics and developing future capability: the fundamental reality that the enemy gets a vote.
Assurance, Not Secrecy
A possible counterargument to our perspective is that US military leaders may hesitate to include realistic scenarios in large-scale exercises due to concerns about secrecy. However, we argue that integrated deterrence is best achieved by demonstrating capability to potential adversaries rather than hiding it. This capability is not based on secret technology but on an integrated and synergized joint effort developed through complex exercises. The goal is to deter through assurance—or as Lieutenant General Brunson would say, “integrated assurance,” which is grounded in convincing future competitors and allies of our genuine capabilities and the line we intend to defend. Moreover, we believe prioritizing secrecy could also shield a realistic understanding and assessment of our capability from the most vital recipient: ourselves.
Undoubtedly, additional criticism may be suggested while building or continuing partnered relationships; adding complex scenarios that promote short-term failure to achieve long-term success may have a deleterious impact on the relationships with allies, many of whom have grown accustomed to exercises’ emphasis on those relationships. However, we suggest there is something significantly worse: being unprepared for a fight you didn’t expect.
“Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances,” admonished Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Our tactics, which we have established over more than two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and global counterterrorism operations, undeniably influence our training. Continuing to foster key allied relationships through Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises is undoubtedly critical to our readiness for any future conflict or crisis, and exercises like Cobra Gold further strengthen this bedrock. But the US joint force must also develop tactics, techniques, and procedures interconnected with future technology to leverage advantage in increasingly denied or multidomain environments. Furthermore, we must test these concepts, integrate them to gain efficiency, and continue to assess their effectiveness—in realistic scenarios and against a capable opposition force. As the future battlefield evolves, one thing is clear: what we expect to happen and what will happen are different. Our goal, in the end, is to bridge the gap.
The authors are graduate students in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. They are also active members of the special operations community, with a combined twenty-nine years of experience exclusively within special operations and participation in several multinational exercises.
Editor’s note: Due to operational security and the sensitivity of the authors’ work in the special operations community, MWI has elected to publish this article under pseudonyms rather than their true names.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: Spc. Elizabeth MacPherson, US Army
From the concluding paragraph of our article above:
" … But the US joint force must also develop tactics, techniques, and procedures interconnected with future technology to leverage advantage in increasingly denied or multidomain environments. Furthermore, we must test these concepts, integrate them to gain efficiency, and continue to assess their effectiveness—in realistic scenarios and against a capable opposition force … ."
In addition to developing realistic tactics, techniques and procedures — which reflect the problems presented by current and future technologies — should we not also be developing and conducting joint exercises today which reflect the U.S./the West's recent loss of many of our previously available "weapons of irregular warfare," such as, our undying belief (now substantially gone/now fatally compromised?) in such things as religious pluralism, democracy, human rights, diversity and helping unfortunate population groups who seek alternatives to a life of fear, oppression, and injustice?
In this regard, should not our U.S./Western and allied and partner forces be required to develop, conduct and participate in joint exercises in which:
a. These such Western ideas — which constituted OUR irregular warfare "weapons of war" in the past (see the above) — are now in steep decline/are now substantially gone? And in which:
b. Our opponents ideas — which constitute THEIR irregular warfare "weapons of war" currently (a singular, "national" religion; authoritarianism; the denial of obstructing human rights; the rejection of obstructing diversity; the appeal of dictators, and the harming and/or exploiting of those who seek seek alternatives to a life of fear, oppression, and injustice) are significantly on the rise?
(Go to the recent Modern War Institute thread entitled "Wrestling with the Future of U.S. China Competition." There to see — at my "B.C. on 07.09.24 at 3:16 pm" comment — GEN (ret.) Votel and LTG (ret.) Cleveland (et. al's) articulation of the U.S./Western "weapons of irregular warfare" that I describe above — but which now are substantially gone. Thus, the desperate need to develop, conduct and participate in joint exercises which reflect this such reality — and which reflect the rise of our opponents opposite/alternative ideas?)
The concluding paragraph from our article above:
" 'Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances,' admonished Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Our tactics, which we have established over more than two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and global counterterrorism operations, undeniably influence our training. Continuing to foster key allied relationships through Joint Chiefs of Staff exercises is undoubtedly critical to our readiness for any future conflict or crisis, and exercises like Cobra Gold further strengthen this bedrock. But the US joint force must also develop tactics, techniques, and procedures interconnected with future technology to leverage advantage in increasingly denied or multidomain environments. Furthermore, we must test these concepts, integrate them to gain efficiency, and continue to assess their effectiveness—in realistic scenarios and against a capable opposition force. As the future battlefield evolves, one thing is clear: what we expect to happen and what will happen are different. Our goal, in the end, is to bridge the gap."
While the above article addresses "how" various enemies/opponents/competitors might choose to fight against us today and in the near future — for example, by using such new technologies as drones — it does not address the equally important (and related?) question of "why" various enemies/opponents/competitors would choose to fight against us today and in the near future — in many cases, regardless of risk and cost that these such enemies/opponents/competitors might incur in this such fight.
As to this such "why" question, might we consider that, (a) re: the "war on terrorism" conflict, various lesser states and non-state actors are fighting — to prevent their states and societies from being transformed more along contemporary/ultra-modern U.S./Western political, economic, social and value lines — (b) re: the "great power competition," various larger states and societies are fighting — to prevent their states and societies from being transformed more along contemporary/ultra-modern U.S./Western political, economic, social and value lines — and (c) re: the conflict ongoing within the U.S./the West itself today, these folks, also, are fighting — to prevent their/our states and societies from being transformed more along contemporary/ultra-modern U.S./Western political, economic, social and value lines.
(Note that, in ALL of the conflicts that I describe above, the opponent fights to preserve the status quo, or to retrieve and reinstate a previous enjoyed status quo ante, this in the face of the "transformational" threat posed by U.S./the Western governments seeking to achieve international ultra-modernity?)
Thus, given the commonality — and the worldwide/both here at home and there abroad" nature/character/"kind of war we are embarked upon" above — should not this such overall "why they fight" information — in addition to the "how they fight" information provided by the author of our article above — be incorporated into our joint military concepts, operations and exercises?
(Thus, both "how they will fight" understanding — and "why they will fight" understanding — both being as important — or more important for conflict preparation, success and victory purposes — this, rather than simply doing "relationship building?")
Gentlemen,
Having just completed a tour on the I Corps staff as an exercise planner, I was interested to read your article. I appreciate your line of argument as I have also been chewing on the apparent tension between my understanding of “integrated deterrence” (which communicates to potential adversaries) and your article’s term, “integrated assurance” (which seems to communicate to current and potential allies and partners).
At first glance, these two efforts seem to be at odds, though I suspect that is too simplistic.
Do you think there might also be a third effort that comports with your apparent concern for more direct preparation to engage in crisis or conflict (call it, perhaps, “integrated readiness”)?
I would be interested in discussing these ideas with you further. Thanks for the article and for your participation in the PEP program.