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The U.S. and the Philippines began their largest joint combat exercises in decades Tuesday, making a show of force on land as well as in the disputed South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. It’s a clear message to the Chinese as Washington has repeatedly warned the CCP over its aggressive actions in the area.From ABC News:The annual drills by the longtime treaty allies called Balikatan — Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder” — will run up to April 28 and involve more than 17,600 military personnel. It will be the latest display of American firepower in Asia, as the Biden administration strengthens...

....The exercise included US, German, and British soldiers.

The night a torpedo-armed North Korean submarine allegedly sank a South Korean patrol ship, the U.S. and South Korea were engaged in joint anti-submarine warfare exercises just 75 miles away, military officials told The Associated Press. The blast that sank the Cheonan, the worst South Korean military disaster since the 1950-53 Korean War, showed how impoverished nations such as North Korea can still inflict heavy casualties on far better equipped and trained forces, even those backed by the might of the U.S. military. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that plans for more joint U.S.-South Korea anti-submarine exercises, announced after...

The Royal Navy’s new supercarrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and her battle group met the U.S. Navy’s carrier USS George H.W. Bush in the North Atlantic for an exercise beginning on Aug. 1, 2017. The 10-day exercise Saxon Warrior 2017 “allows both U.S. and U.K. naval forces a chance to hone our interoperability skills,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth Whitesell, commander of Bush‘s Carrier Strike Group 2. “Particularly important is the alignment of U.S. carrier strike groups and the U.K. carrier strike group.” Both navies — and one NATO ally — sent ships and crews to the exercise. But one key component...

China and Pakistan will conduct a joint anti-terrorism military exercise here this summer, the third such operation between the two countries, the Ministry of National Defence has said. Top military officials of the two countries have already started discussions for the anti-terror exercise code-named "Friendship-2010," the ministry said on Sunday. The training was not targeted at any third party, but aimed at "deepening the friendly and cooperative relationship between the two armies" while "enhancing their capabilities in coping with terrorism and safeguarding regional peace and stability," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying, without giving further details of...

Pakistani air force joins U.S. counterparts in joint maneuvers over North America using the F-16 Fighting Falcon in late 2010, sources said Monday. Sources to the Pakistani newspaper The National said U.S. and Pakistani teams would participate in defense maneuvers in the United States. "The joint exercises have been planned in the wake of the quality performance of the Pakistani air force in air raids in the tribal areas as part of the war on terror as well as the recognition of its air power in South Asia," the source said on condition of anonymity. Pakistani military officials said air...

A joint military exercise that Israel, the US, NATO, Turkey and Italy were scheduled to conduct this week, was taken off the table because of American disappointment with Ankara's decision to withdraw from the maneuver due to Israel's planned participation, Israeli defense officials said Sunday. Turkey informed Israel of the cancellation of the Anatolian Eagle exercise last week, saying this was because the planes that Israel was going to send likely bombed Hamas targets during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. According to officials quoted by Israel Radio, the cancellation of the exercise came after both...

TOWNSVILLE has been forced to turn away a US warship and its 3600-strong crew, which would have brought more than $1 million a day to the port city. The USS Essex, a 258m-long amphibious assault vessel, has been diverted to Cairns for an eight-day shore leave, including the popular Fourth of July celebrations. Outraged Townsville tour operators are facing millions in losses, empty hotel rooms, cancelled tours and more than 400 seats booked for the North Queensland Cowboys home game as a result of the embarrassing backdown. Cairns officials yesterday welcomed the big-spending US seamen and the predicted $10 million...

The U.S. Navy extended an open invitation this week to the Russian Federation Navy to join forces for missions on the world’s high seas. Both marine forces have increased their presence around the globe. The U.S. Navy asked the Russians to join the Navy’s new maritime initiative, a plan much different from the sea-combat strategies of yesteryear — those of fighting in deep blue water to sink other navies or deliver missiles inland from the oceans. Now, focus is placed on maintaining safe seas, delivering humanitarian aid, disaster response and countering terrorism. "The point that we brought out in discussions...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU — Working with Iraqi civilian and U.S. military medical personnel, Coalition forces in Busayefi hosted a Combined Medical Engagement March 29. “We just came into this area and we’re trying to build a relationship with the people,” said 2nd Lt. Josh Duke, medical platoon leader, 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment. More than 260 Busayefi residents, including 115 children, were treated at the makeshift health clinic for aches, pains, rashes, nausea and other minor illnesses. They were seen by two Iraqi civilian doctors or one of two U.S. Army doctors. Busayefi is an area once dominated by...

SEOUL — An F-16 squadron from South Carolina led a combined large-force exercise at Kunsan Air Base earlier this month, the first time a squadron stationed outside South Korea has completed the task with American and South Korean jets. Twenty F-16s, including two South Korean jets, flew in the 1½ hour nighttime mission in early March. Ten of the American jets were from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and eight were from Kunsan. More than 300 airmen from Shaw arrived at Kunsan in January as part of an Air and Space Expeditionary Force deployment, which typically lasts four months. “It...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The Defense Department's chief weapons buyer said Thursday that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program could continue without its international partners, if current disputes over export controls and engine makers escalated to a point of no return. Ken Krieg, the Pentagon's undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said such a showdown was hardly imminent. "I don't think we're at that stage," Krieg said at a House Armed Services Committee panel hearing. But when pressed, Krieg acknowledged that continuing the program without the U.K. was possible. Britain is the lead partner on the $256 billion program headed by...

In a step up of service-to-service engagement, India and US will conduct the biggest-ever Army level exercises near Ranikhet in Uttaranchal in January as American officials on Friday indicated that Washington was working to open doors to high-technology transfers. A company force of the US army will conduct joint exercises with a thrust towards anti-insurgency operations in the mountainous terrain near Choubhatia, US officials said adding that in the coming year, armed forces of the two countries would participate in "more complex, patterned" war games. "US Pacific Command wants to expand its military-level interaction with India over a broad front...

Indian, Russian troops to hold military exercise www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-10 22:32:48 NEW DELHI, Oct. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- India and Russia Monday began preparing for a joint military exercise to counter terrorists, Indo-Asian News Service reported Monday. The week-long exercise, codenamed Indra 2005, is the largest such air and land maneuvers by the armed forces of the two countries and will feature the special forces of the two sides and comes close on the heels of a massive Russia-China war game. This will be the first time the militaries of India and Russia will train jointly to counter terrorists. Three Russian Il-76...

Tuesday July 5, 7:27 PM ASDF to have 1st airstrike drill with live bomb on island off Guam(Kyodo) _ The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is set to perform its first ever airstrike drill with live ammunition, scheduled to take place on an uninhabited island off Guam, ASDF officials said Tuesday. The drill, in which an ASDF combat aircraft will drop a 500-pound bomb on a ground target on the island some 350 kilometers north-northeast of Guam, will be conducted on the sidelines of a joint exercise between the ASDF and the U.S. Air Force in Guam to begin Monday. The...

THE United States is seeking Russian help to launch military action against the bases of the wanted Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden and other extremist groups in Afghanistan. According to counter-terrorist experts in Washington, the Clinton administration has determined that he was behind the bombing of the destroyer Cole last month in Aden, in which 17 American sailors died. A counter-terrorism expert in Washington said America was seeking help from Russia and a number of central Asian states in launching reprisal raids against Bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan. Intense diplomatic activity was also under way around the region to garner...

LEH: Admitting that Chinese patrols do come across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh region, a top army official has ruled out any "turbulence" on the India-China border in Jammu and Kashmir. "The Chinese Army is indeed under- taking patrols across Line of Actual Control in Ladakh due to difference of perception of real LAC in the past," Lt Gen Arvind Sharma GOC of the Leh-based strategic 14 Corps told reporters here yesterday. Sharma, who heads the world's most sensitive corps sharing bor- ders with China and Pakistan strategically, said "there are certain areas of difference the way...

<p>The Pentagon has quietly canceled an upcoming military exercise with Israel. Some senior officials say he move signals part of an effort to distance the U.S. military from the Israeli armed forces during the current crisis in the Middle East.</p>