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?”

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.”

“Energy is the weakest element in Taiwan’s resilience against coercion,” warned the report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The overwhelming preponderance of energy must be imported and is thus vulnerable to a blockade.”

China could supplement a blockade with attacks on Taiwan’s electrical grid, as Russia has done with some success in Ukraine.

“Total electricity production might be reduced to 20 percent of pre-blockade electricity levels,” CSIS said. At that level, all manufacturing ceases – including computer chips vital to the U.S. and the global economy.

These conclusions came from a series of 26 war games run by CSIS to test a blockade of Taiwan, an attractive option for Beijing that offers the prospect of Taiwan agreeing to “reunify” with China, without the need for a bloody and risky Chinese amphibious invasion.

CSIS researchers matched up various combinations of variables in each scenario, with the scenarios simulating 20 weeks of game time.

For example, the severity of China’s blockade ranged from a mere China Coast Guard stop-and-search operation to an all-out military effort that launched missiles at U.S. and Japanese bases.

Other variables included hardening Taiwanese infrastructure and anti-invasion defenses, procuring additional cargo ships for convoys, more lethal Chinese missiles, whether Japan chose to defend Taiwan, and whether the fighting extended beyond the local blockade zone.

The CSIS report admitted that some of these scenarios “are uninteresting because of the force mismatch: No one could doubt that a China willing to embark on a wider war against a constrained Taiwan could completely cut off imports to Taiwan.” Yet assuming various changes in U.S., Taiwanese and Chinese policy, strategy and forces had a major impact on scenario outcomes.

For example, a nightmare scenario depicted attacks on Taiwan’s electric grid and strikes on American airbases in Japan and Guam, while the U.S. refrained from hitting airbases on the Chinese mainland.

Chinese air forces “were able to crowd into forward coastal air bases without risk of being hit by air strikes,” while “the escalation level greatly improved the survivability of Chinese warships and submarines, which took shelter as needed in ports or other areas immediately offshore,” the report said.

In that game, the U.S. and Taiwan lost 33 surface warships – including two aircraft carriers – and 153 merchant ships. With Taiwan’s electrical generation meeting just 24 percent of demand, the result would be “not just economic collapse but also the failure to meet even minimal health and safety activities for the population.”

But in another scenario, Taiwan hardened its electrical infrastructure, the U.S. took a more aggressive posture, and large numbers of merchant ships were available to carry supplies to Taiwan. In this iteration, Chinese air and naval losses rose sharply, more cargo ships successfully ran the gauntlet to reach Taiwan, and there was sufficient electricity to meet most of the island’s demand.

Interestingly, five of the 26 scenarios were “free play” games where players could choose to escalate, deescalate, or negotiate an “off ramp” to end the conflict, rather than being locked into a course of action.

Most players seemed reluctant to escalate, CSIS noted. Yet they often made “small escalations” to signal the opposition, who responded with counter-escalations. In all five games, naval forces fired upon each other and suffered losses.

While a blockade would be grim for Taiwan, it is not hopeless. For example, the capability to assemble large numbers of merchant ships – and the necessary crews – would be the most important preparation that Taiwan and the U.S. can make, according to CSIS.

This includes sufficient liquified natural gas tankers crucial to meeting Taiwan’s energy needs, as well as providing governmental insurance to replace commercial insurers who avoid war zones. Transshipment will be key: most merchant ships won’t run a blockade, but their cargo can be unloaded in Japanese ports, and then reloaded aboard vessels that will make the Taiwan run.

Taiwan can also reduce its dependence on imported energy. This could include boosting its reserves of oil, natural gas and coal, and even reopening its last nuclear plant, which shut down in May. Meanwhile, the island’s electrical grid could be hardened, including stockpiles of spare parts such as transformers and turbines.

For its part, the U.S. could increase its air transport capacity for a Berlin 1948-style airlift. While insufficient to meet all of Taiwan’s needs, “in some circumstances, an airlift could have a powerful moral effect and provide some breathing room,” CSIS said. In addition, the U.S. Navy will need to improve its capability for convoy escort.

Ultimately, perhaps the most crucial step is to ensure that diplomacy is always an option. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan – and retaliation by the U.S. and its allies – could devastate the global economy, and not least the economies of China and America.

“Creative offers by the United States and Taiwan might allow China to declare victory and lift the blockade at an acceptable cost to the coalition (e.g., Taiwan agreeing to international observers in customs houses; reiterating the 1992 Consensus verbatim),” CSIS concluded.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for European Policy Analysis. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The Army on Monday clarified comments made by its top enlisted soldier at last week’s Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition about the service’s approved PT uniform.

“We’re redesigning the Army PTs,” Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer said last week. “We’re not going to get locked into the same T-shirt, [where] everybody is just going out and buying a new T-shirt anyway for their unit.”

But on Monday, Weimer told reporters he was referring to the Army providing additional options for soldier workout clothing, not a wholesale revamp of the iconic soldier PT gear.

Instead, the Army wants to give soldiers more comfortable options if they need them without spending Army money redesigning or issuing a new PT uniform, he said.

Those options will be presented to Army senior leaders by the end of 2025, the service clarified.

Either way, Weimer said, the black and gold design is here to stay.

Weimer said the goal of providing additional options emerged after frequent soldier feedback regarding the comfort and fit of the existing PT clothing.

“It really comes down to fit,” Weimer said. “It’s about performance and functionality.”

Sgt. Maj. Rob Haynie, senior enlisted soldier at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, began leading the service’s review of options about two months ago and will continue that through next year.

So far, Weimer and Haynie said, some of the biggest complaints are about how the shorts fit, including problems with fabric bunching.

Small features also mean a lot, and soldiers griped about a lack of shorts pockets for stowing ID cards.

As Haynie gathers soldier feedback, his team will review existing, available options from the clothing industry, he said. A finalized list of types of PT clothing that meet the Army’s regulations and standards and maintain uniformity among the troops will then be delivered to Army senior leaders for review.

Soldiers will still get their PT uniforms issued at basic training and use that clothing through their Advanced Individual Training, Weimer said. But once they join their unit, they could have the option to get some different gear.

The 2025 review could wind up giving soldiers additional options for each of their basic PT gear clothing items, officials said.

The current basic gear includes short-sleeve and long-sleeve T-shirts, shorts, pants and a jacket, all in the black and gold color scheme, according to Army regulations.

Additionally, soldiers may wear calf or ankle-length socks, athletic shoes, a fleece watch cap, a compression shirt, shorts and a reflective belt for inclement weather conditions.

The service previously changed the PT uniform in 2017 when it switched from the black and gray design it had used for years to the current black and gold color scheme, among other changes.

Whatever gear gets approved for soldiers to add to their training wardrobe should provide options that better-fit soldiers’ comfort and performance needs while maintaining a uniform appearance, Weimer said.

The potential workout clothing options fall in line with several non-issue items that are approved for wear. The Army allows soldiers to select from an approved list of protective eyewear, and to choose between different types of combat boots to find the best fit.

Some units also allow soldiers to wear unit-specific, command-approved T-shirts that showcase the specific unit for their PT uniform.

The Master Combat Badge indicates that the soldier wearing the new device has had both a combat award and achieved expert qualification in their military occupational specialty, Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer during a panel Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition.

A distinct feature of the new badge is a gold wreath, instead of silver.

Currently, soldiers may not wear both their combat badge and their expert badge for their job field at the same time on their uniform. They had to choose.

But with the combined device, both efforts are recognized.

For example, the Combat Infantry Badge is awarded to infantry soldiers and Army Special Forces who’ve experienced direct action against an enemy. While the Expert Infantry Badge is awarded after a soldier passes a litany of tests that measure their effectiveness in infantry skills.

The service also awards expert badges to medics and the expert soldier badge to non-infantry soldiers.

The Army plans to award the Master Combat Infantryman Badge, the Master Combat Medical Badge and the Master Combat Action Badge.

Weimer also said that the service is redesigning a Mountaineering Badge that will no longer feature the ram’s head image that the old badge used.

The top enlisted soldier also said he recommended the Mariner’s Badge for approval for Army mariners, such as those who manned the floating pier off the coast of Gaza this past year.

Guardsmen are generally restricted to serving 39 days each year, and in that time, soldiers must practice everything from physical training and small arms marksmanship to knocking down aerial threats or planning how to move a brigade across the globe.

Stubbs challenged his leaders to find new ways to approach collective training.

“If we are ready for combat as a large organization, we will be ready for anything,” Stubbs said.

Stubbs painted a picture, noting that 84 years ago, the Army watched as the German military swept across Europe, Italian troops marched through Africa and Japan took island after island in the Pacific.

Then, the following year, the Japanese military struck Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the United States entered World War II.

“In some ways, we are where our nation was in October 1940,” Stubbs said.

While noting that war is avoidable and work that the Guard is doing in its overseas deployments and training is helping to deter such an event, Stubbs said the state of the world gives the limited training time that the Guard uses a greater sense of urgency.

Stubbs said that Guard and active Army leadership are weighing ways to change training to fit the needs of the Guard as it transforms while continuing its homeland defense and disaster response missions.

One concept, which has not yet been approved, could involve a 15-day combat training center rotation instead of a 30-day rotation. Those exercises are culminating events that stress test battalions, brigades and, recently, divisions, alongside their support units and enablers.

Finding new ways to deploy some personnel early to a training center such as the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California or the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana would mean a portion of a Guard unit’s staff working alongside an active Army unit at the center for the end of their rotation as the Guard unit arrives to begin their stint.

Then, other parts of the Guard unit would fall in later in the rotation so that the unit gets exposure to all aspects of building and deploying a combat unit.

That type of training is also very limited for the Guard as it gets two training center rotations allotted to them each year, one for NTC and one for JRTC.

The Guard has 27 brigade combat teams. At that rate, a brigade might not return to the training centers for a full rotation for more than a decade.

This past year the Army conducted its first division headquarters rotations to the training centers with in-person support from enabler units such as logistics and medical formations.

The Guard will soon be doing that type of training both at home station and at the training centers.

Stubbs dubbed the effort part of the Guard’s larger work of campaigning while also modernizing. A big component of both efforts is training the leaders of such units.

Much of that is done in a live setting, as the Guard has done for years in its Sinai support mission, which sends U.S. troops to serve in the Sinai Peninsula between Israel and Egypt.

The Guard also leads the Joint Multinational Training Group – Ukraine, which supports combat training for Ukrainian partners as they fight in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Those rotations alleviate the strain on the deployed active Army forces while also giving Guard leaders real-world responsibilities, Stubbs said.

The decades-long State Partnership Program also exposes most Guard units to partner training and overseas missions by pairing certain Guard units in their state with a partner nation. The two train and visit each other routinely each year as part of their regular annual duties.

“It’s micro-campaigning but it delivers macro-type results,” Stubbs said.

But leaders aren’t learning from scratch. Many of the operational and strategic-level leaders, such as those in the rank of colonel and above, cut their operational teeth on the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions of the Global War on Terror, said Maj. Gen. Dale Lyles, the adjutant general for the Indiana National Guard.

Lyles said the Guard has spent the past two decades “projecting power, mobilizing soldiers, building formations and sending them into contested environments.”

Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general for the Iowa National Guard, said a specific feature that’s going to be important for the Guard is understanding the employment of these larger units.

“Time is probably the biggest constraint,” Osborn said. “So how do we focus on how to change how we train for large-scale combat?”

The Marine Corps expects to sling more rounds of all kinds downrange in any future conflict, which means Leathernecks need to fire more mortars, rockets and bullets in training to stay proficient.

But recent research suggests that such repetitive blast exposure is causing long-term damage to troops.

To keep Jarheads safe from excessive blasts while making sure they remain trained at a high volume, The Corps announced Thursday that Marines will be able to use a simulator for certain weapons systems, including the 81mm mortar and shoulder-fired rockets, sparing them excessive blast exposure.

Such simulators are already used for rifles and machine guns, and officials said the simulators would not replace live-fire training.

“The fact that using these virtual systems does not introduce additional blast overpressure, or other safety hazards, is a positive by-product of the technology used,” according to a statement from Marine Corps Systems Command. “The system was developed to supplement and enhance a Marine’s skills before conducting live training.”

The Marines have fielded the simulators to all their major installations, including Camp Pendleton, California, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Camp Hansen, Okinawa and Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California.

The trainer also lets users fire weapons with night vision goggles and conduct annual rifle qualification courses of fire to prepare Marines for the individual weapons range qualification without firing live rounds.

The goal is to provide Marines with ample repetitions to maintain and sharpen their skills in a safer way. The simulated weapons are designed to closely replicate real ones, allowing for multiple repetitions and the firing of rounds without the cost of live ammunition, according to Todd Butler, a project officer who oversees such trainers.

At the same time, the reduced exposure to live rounds also limits the potential for deadly mistakes.

“From a safety perspective, we are committed to preventing negligent discharges,” said Tripp Elliott, head of safety for Marine Corps Systems Command.

The Marine Corps’ move follow a Pentagon memo released earlier this month outlining plans to reduce blast overpressure injuries to troops.

The policy update came after concerns raised in recent years that repeated exposure to blast overpressure, created by the high pressures of various munitions, can contribute to traumatic brain injury among exposure recipients.

Blast injuries are caused by waves of air pressure pushed out by exploding or ignited munitions. The more powerful the wave, the more it can affect organs in the body. Repeated pressure exposure to the brain can cause additional damage.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks acknowledged in the recent announcement that weapons firing “is one of many factors that can negatively affect warfighter brain health.”

The memo also noted the number of jobs per service that held a higher risk of blast exposure.

The Marine Corps had the second highest of all the services with 40 jobs. Only the Navy had more, with 41.

In a statement Wednesday, American, Danish and Dutch leaders said the “transfer process” for the fourth-generation fighters is “underway.”

“Those jets will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself from the Russian aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a NATO event in Washington.

However, Justin Bronk, an air power analyst at the London-based Royal United Services Institute think tank, cautioned the statement may simply suggest a change of ownership rather than a state of combat readiness. The Ukrainian Air Forces may now go from training on jets held and operated by the Netherlands and Denmark to having custody of some.

“I highly doubt they would make a public statement about it” if the F-16s were immediately moving onto Ukrainian airfields, Bronk said.

The reason for that could be safety. In the last week, Bronk noted, Russia has targeted four Ukrainian airfields with ballistic missiles — guided by aerial drones that Ukrainian forces apparently lacked the interceptors to take down. It’s unclear how many actual planes, as opposed to decoys, Kyiv lost.

But the attacks are a reminder of a much larger challenge for Ukraine, Bronk said: Without enough air defense, its military can’t use F-16s anywhere near their full potential.

To wit, U.S. President Joe Biden opened the NATO summit on Tuesday by announcing an agreement with four other countries to send Ukraine more air defense batteries.

The U.S., the Netherlands and Denmark lead a group of countries that helps provide Ukraine with air power. The Danish and Dutch governments first agreed to send Ukraine the jets last year, and other countries, including Norway and Belgium, have since joined. The number thus far pledged to Ukraine is about 65.

Norwegian officials on Wednesday clarified that Oslo’s contribution would cover six F-16s. “We plan to start delivering the aircraft in the course of 2024,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said earlier this year his country would donate 30 planes. The Netherlands has promised 24.

It was at last year’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where countries initially agreed to start training Ukrainian pilots to fly the fighters. One of the most difficult challenges has been a language barrier, since the jargon used by pilots and crews is highly technical and there’s no time to clarify a word mid-flight.

According to the Pentagon, there are just over 12 Ukrainian pilots training to fly the jets between Denmark and the U.S. right now. While a handful graduated from the course in late May, the number in the pipeline is too small, some Ukrainian officials argue.

“If we’re expected to have up to 20 machines by the end of the year, we need pilots,” Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview. “We are asking now [from] all of our partners for two things: to increase the number of places for training, because currently it is not enough, and secondly to optimize the period of training” — essentially speed it up.

One of the main issues with increasing that capacity is the long queue of countries already waiting for the U.S. Air Force to train their pilots. Yehor Cherniev, who leads Ukraine’s parliamentary delegation to NATO, told Defense News that he and other lawmakers asked Congress for a list of those nations so Ukraine can negotiate with them to swap spots.

American lawmakers didn’t agree to do so, he said.

The F-16s have long been a priority for Ukraine. Receiving them may help with morale and the country’s actual defense.

In the medium term, they could also pair well with two airborne surveillance planes Sweden pledged for Ukraine at the start of the summer. These can help the Ukrainian Air Forces with targeting as well as command-and-control, Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson said in an interview.

“That’s the difference between a third-generation fighter, which the Ukrainians are operating, and the fourth-generation fighter,” he said.

For his part, Bronk questions how Ukraine will train on and then operate these surveillance planes. They will need experienced Ukrainian crews and then must pair them with pilots who have expertise on the F-16 before there is a positive effect for the embattled country, Bronk said.

“Where are they going to fly from? Who’s going to maintain them? And are they going to fly and operate inside Ukraine, or are they going to fly around the borders?” he added.

The training event, dubbed Noble Exercise 2024, was scheduled to run from July 25 to Aug. 6, and normally takes place at Vaziani and Camp Norio Training Areas outside the capital city of Tbilisi. The Pentagon said the Georgian government has spread misinformation that the United States and other allies had pressured the country to open a second front on its border with Russia.

Officials in Georgia also accused U.S. officials of attempting two coups against the country’s ruling party.

“The United States government has determined that this is an inappropriate time to hold a large-scale military exercise in Georgia,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

In 2022 during a military exercise in Georgia, some 2,400 service members from the United States and 19 other nations participated. This year, a combination of approximately 3,000 U.S. and allied troops were scheduled to participate in the drills, U.S. Army Europe and Africa spokesman Terry Welch told Military Times in an email.

On May 30, the U.S. government announced a “comprehensive” review of its relationship with the small country in the South Caucasus.

The change of plans came as Georgia faced accusations that the country is trending toward authoritarianism and growing its relationship with Russia.

The country’s parliament passed a controversial “foreign agents” bill into law, overriding the president’s veto of the legislation. The legislation, which critics say mimics a similar law in Russia, requires media and other non-governmental organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as a foreign agent, according to the Associated Press.

Critics said the legislation would impact Tbilisi’s efforts to join NATO and integrate with the European Union.

In April 2008, then-President George Bush tried to rally members of NATO to allow both Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance at NATO’s yearly summit. Other members of the alliance, however, rejected the proposition.

While Noble Exercise 2024 has been postponed, the Pentagon said in the statement it looks forward to working with allies in the Agile Spirit 2025 military exercise, which traditionally takes place in both Turkey and Georgia.

Units from V Corps, as well as the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, the 4th Security Forces Assistance Brigade, Georgia Army National Guard, and the Navy’s Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 11, were all slated to participate.

The Pitch Black exercise is the latest in a biennial series that began 43 years ago as a unilateral drill, before becoming a joint Australia-U.S. training event in 1983. Since then it has grown in step with the increasing geopolitical importance of the Indo-Pacific region.

The three-week exercise will run July 12-Aug. 2. This year, Pitch Black will see 20 nations taking part. Of these, 16 are contributing combat jets to the exercise, which will see more than 140 aircraft and over 4,000 personnel participate.

The actively participating nations this year are Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In addition, Brunei, Canada, Fiji and New Zealand will have personnel embedded in the exercise.

Countries attending this series for the first time include Italy, Spain, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. And in a first for the exercise itself, an aircraft carrier will dedicate its time to the event, in the form of the Italian Navy’s ITS Cavour.

European presence

A pan-European force made up of the French, German and Spanish air forces is deploying first to Alaska under an overarching deployment effort, dubbed Pacific Skies, before making its way into the Pacific. Under that umbrella operation, those nations will participate in the Alaska-based exercise Arctic Defender, then continue into the Pacific where they will join the Rim of the Pacific drills off Hawaii, the exercise Nippon Skies in Japan, Pitch Black in Australia, and Tarang Shakti drills in India.

The strong European presence in the Indo-Pacific comes amid regional tension, as noted in the Australian government’s National Defence Strategy released in April.

“Entrenched and increasing strategic competition between the United States (US) and China is a primary feature of our security environment,” the document stated. “It is being accompanied by an unprecedented conventional and non-conventional military build-up in our region, taking place without strategic reassurance or transparency.”

Commenting on the Pacific Skies deployment, the chief of staff of Germany’s air force, the Luftwaffe, said the goal is to increase operational capability, strengthen military cooperation with countries in the Indo-Pacific, and demonstrate air power and dedication to the region.

“By participating in Pacific Skies 24, we as Europeans are showing presence in a part of the world that is of great importance to us all,” Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz said.

Air Commodore Pete Robinson, who commands the Royal Australian Air Force’s Air Combat Group and will lead Pitch Black, told Defense News the events are an opportunity for the country’s NATO partners “to validate true global reach and build interoperability in the region.”

“The quality of training we can provide down here and the air space we have, the weapons ranges we have, and the engagements we have forged across multiple nations is a shining example of how we build interoperability amongst our air forces — and more importantly it’s how we build our partnerships across countries,” Robinson added. “Exercise Pitch Black demonstrates the value of sustaining stability across the region.”

The goals are similar to those of Asian air forces, with a spokesperson for the Japan Air-Self Defense Force saying its participation will contribute to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.

“The purpose [of the Japan Air-Self Defense Force’s involvement) is to improve the tactical skills of participating units, enhance interoperability with the RAAF and U.S. forces, and deepen mutual understanding with the participating countries in [a] practical environment,” the spokesperson said.

While these supplies are traditionally delivered to Navy vessels via manned aircraft, such assets are expensive and facing manning shortages — causing delays that drones could remedy, according to Navy officials.

The Curtis Wilbur conducted flight tests using the Skyways V2.6 Unmanned Aerial System and PteroDynamics X-P4 Unmanned Aerial System, launching and recovering six drones between from June 19 to June 24 as part of the Just In Time Delivery logistics effort with the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division.

“The Navy continues to drive rapid experimentation and implementation of new technologies,” Cmdr. Yilei Liu, commanding officer of the Curtis Wilbur, said in a statement. “While easy to configure and ready to deploy, it is vital to evaluate these technologies in different environmental conditions to define and scope the operating envelopes of these highly capable platforms.”

In 2021, Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division awarded PteroDynamics a contract to deliver three vertical take-off and landing drone prototypes to the Navy to assist delivering repair cargo.

“Embedding autonomous platforms into our already-existing systems will define the nature of combat operations in the future,” Liu said. “Once tested, autonomous systems can provide independent defensive and offensive capabilities in a contested environment. These systems can perform potentially dangerous, high-risk evolutions with maximum efficiency and minimal risk to personnel.”

Exercise Rim of the Pacific, known as RIMPAC, is a biennial exercise held near the Hawaiian Islands and involves nearly 30 nations and more than 25,000 personnel.

The exercise concludes on Aug. 1.