Eilat, Israel, traditionally a vacation hub located close to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, is now hosting the amphibious transport dock Portland, which in October transited the Strait of Hormuz with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

A Marine logistics battalion, rifle company, light armored reconnaissance company and a high mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS, platoon arrived with the group. The Marines will train with Israeli counterterrorism and other elite units, including the Maglan commando unit.

The Marines, assigned to Light Armored Reconnaissance Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/1, offloaded an LAV-25 from the Portland on Monday.

The drill is dubbed Israel Interoperability Exercise 21, and is led by the Israeli Defense Forces ground forces, involving around 500 personnel from the 11th MEU.

The U.S. described it as “a robust demonstration of both nations’ commitment to stability in the region.”

The exercise comes after the shift to CENTCOM area of operations from European Command ― and after increased joint F-35 drills, called Enduring Lightning, took place in 2020.

It was made possible in part by Israel’s new normalization and peace deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, where key U.S. forces are based for CENTCOM. This includes the Fifth fleet and air base at Al-Dhafra.

US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, said the forces were from U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and are participating in the amphibious exercise.

The drill involves urban terrain operations and HIMARS alongside rapid maneuvering training, “as well as professional exchanges on various topics including engineering, medical and explosive ordinance disposal,” NAVCENT said in a statement.

NAVCENT said that the Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade is leading U.S. participation in the three-week exercise.

“This exercise is part of the next chapter in the U.S. Navy’s and Marine Corps’ longstanding relationship with Israel that is so vital to stability and security in the region,” said Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, commanding general of the task force.

An important time for Israel

The training comes at an important time for Israel, as the country has been increasing the number of joint drills it has with foreign countries.

During the Blue Flag exercise in the second half of October, air force assets from the U.K., U.S., Germany, Italy, Greece, France and India participated.

Photographs in Germany also appeared to show Jordan participating without public acknowledgement.

The commander of the United Arab Emirates Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Nasser Mohammed Al Alawi, also came to the Blue Flag training. Along with Israel’s Air Force head Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, the commanders discussed developing cooperation and strengthening relations between the two air forces.

In early October, U.S. Fifth Fleet commander of Vice Admiral Brad Cooper also visited Israel. He met Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, as well as Vice Admiral David Saar Salama.

It was his second visit to Israel since May 2020. At the same time the U.S. destroyer O’Kane docked in Haifa, Israel.

In August, Israel and the U.S. Fifth Fleet conducted the first Noble Waters exercise in the Red Sea.

“During the exercise, the two navies practiced a variety of scenarios including defense and rescue operations,” Israel’s IDF said on Aug. 31. ”The exercise saw the two navies working side by side, learning together and strengthening the connection and familiarity of the two nations’ fleets.”

Two days after the announcement of the Noble Waters drill, Israel’s Kohavi spoke with CENTCOM head Gen. Frank McKenzie about Israel’s realignment to the new command.

The August maritime patrol included the Israeli navy corvette INS Eilat and the U.S. guided-missile cruiser Monterey.

They patrolled in the Gulf of Aqaba in what CENTCOM called a “milestone” in cooperation at the time.

This also comes at a time of increasing tensions in the region between Israel and Iran, and frequent discussions between Israel and the U.S. regarding Iran and other regional issues.

For instance, Israel and the U.S. have been working more closely with Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean.

On Nov. 2 Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz spoke with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“I had an important discussion with my friend and partner Secretary of Defense Austin about US-Israel coordination vis-à-vis Iranian regional entrenchment and its nuclear aspirations,” Gantz said. “We agreed to meet soon to deepen our discussion on strategic issues and military cooperation.”

The Iran tensions were revealed Wednesday when Iran said it had prevented “piracy” against a fuel tanker, and claimed the U.S. had tried to interdict its oil exports.

Several days earlier, a U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer had conducted a “presence patrol” with escorts from Israel, Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This came after the U.S. garrison at al-Tanf in Syria was targeted by Iranian drones.

Israel often uses airstrikes to target Iranian weapon shipments via Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

As the Marines arrived in Eilat, Israel was also holding a nationwide drill focused on preparation for possible multifront war.

This could include facing off against thousands of rockets fired by Hezbollah.

The joint drill, which lasted until Thursday, included elements of Israel’s National Emergency Management Authority and the Home Front Command, together with the Israel police, fire and rescue authority and all government ministries.

The Maglan commando unit in Israel, known as unit 212, is an elite unit that conducts reconnaissance behind enemy lines.

It is part of Israel’s Commando Brigade, along with other elite units.

In 2018 more than 600 Marines trained with Israelis in Juniper Cobra on close urban combat and tunnel warfare operations.

“Obviously, having a revanchist Russia and a surging China concentrates the mind,” said Col. Dan Sullivan, chief of staff for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory.

This April, the Navy and Marine Corps will hold an exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, that will test more than 100 proposed technologies to help Marines find and exploit gaps in enemy defenses as part of amphibious operations, which will include drones, communications equipment and remote-control amphibious vehicles, officials said at a media roundtable on Thursday.

When Sullivan joined the Marine Corps, he said, the U.S. military had a monopoly on precision-guided munitions and unmanned aircraft and it took both air and sea supremacy for granted. 

But as the U.S. fought lengthy counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, its adversaries surged ahead technologically.

“Certainly, there was no deliberate negligence on our part,” Sullivan said. “It’s just that we kind of had our hands full there for a while. When the Soviet Union collapsed, China was still poor, that was an anomaly of history in the 1990s. History is back.”

A joint Navy-Marine Corps task force will determine which technologies the Marines will further test during a military exercise this fall at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, officials said.

Modern weapons can destroy ships and landing craft hundreds of miles from shore, and now even non-state actors such as Houthi rebels in Yemen have access to anti-ship missiles, remote control boats and other weaponry that could pose a major threat to any Marine amphibious operation.

The Marine Corps Operating Concept released in September indicates how the Corps plans to challenge such weapons. The concept includes a vignette to show what an amphibious operation would look like in 2025.

In the vignette, the Marine aviation commander says he knew that the Marines could not destroy all of the enemy’s coastal and air defenses, “But we could create ‘bubbles’ for small periods.”

The intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology being tested in April is meant to help create such bubbles by finding gaps in enemy defenses where Marines can send manned and unmanned forces, said Maj. Jim Foley, with the Ellis Group, the Marine Corps’ think tank that explores future warfighting scenarios. 

Another tactic would be to use a “swarm” of unmanned aircraft, submarines and vehicles as decoys to tie up the enemy’s resources in a diversion while Marines land elsewhere, Foley said.

With the types of unmanned systems and sensors being tested, the Marines can greatly increase the number of places where they can come ashore, said Doug King, director of the Ellis Group. Swarms of unmanned aircraft can also protect Marines as they land on enemy beaches, he said.

“Think about it this way: I’m maneuvering ashore, potentially in a boat,” he said. “What’s flying overhead is an unmanned swarm, that as soon as somebody radiates, gives off a signature, that swarm is just going right after them.”

The Marine Corps plans to field 144 utility task vehicles to infantry regiments between February and April 2017, said Emanuel “Manny” Pacheco, a spokesman and congressional liaison for PEO Land Systems Marine Corps.

Until now, forward deployed infantry Marines have had to carry all of their gear on their backs while operating in remote locations, but the utility transport vehicle fits onto the MV-22B Osprey so it can go into the field with infantry units, Pacheco told Marine Corps Times.

“The vehicle will provide logistics support to ground combat units that are operating independently across dispersed areas, while conducting distributed helicopter-borne and tiltrotor operations,” Pacheco said.

The Marines are fielding 144 utility task vehicles to infantry units.

Marine expeditionary units and Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Forces will use the vehicles when deploying in austere environments, he said. Each infantry regiment will have 18 of the four-seat vehicles, which can be driven by a single Marine.

This is the first such vehicle designed specifically for infantry Marines, Pacheco said. The Marine Corps has another all-terrain vehicle, but it is for specialized tasks, such as towing howitzers.

The fact that one utility task vehicle can fit on an MV-22B Osprey is critical because the Marine Corps can use Ospreys to launch a unit more than 100 miles from shore to avoid enemy cruise missiles and other defenses that can destroy ships and landing craft.

Ospreys can fly at 240 knots and they are able to refuel in midair, allowing them to carry Marines up to 6,000 miles in 24 hours, compared with most helicopters, which typically have a maximum range of 200 miles.

The Marine Corps has used Ospreys to rapidly move humanitarian relief supplies, such as in April following two earthquakes in Japan. It’s also used to respond to crises quickly, such as when a quick reaction force deployed from Sigonella, Italy, in July 2014 for the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli.