Enhancing Multilateral Ties in Exercise Cobra Gold

The headline of a Pacific Stars and Stripes news story in the Feb. 11 edition, regarding Exercise Cobra Gold, highlighted a key objective of the joint, multinational exercise currently taking place in Thailand – the building of trust.

While Cobra Gold offers a variety of training and an opportunity to advance expertise in skill sets as diverse as firing weapons and planning for United Nations peacekeeping operations, the one parallel is partnership between the participating nations.

Working together in an exercise scenario provides the individual exercise participant an opportunity to become familiar with how their counterparts from other nations operate. Along the way they have an opportunity to develop understanding, respect and relationships, all of which contribute to the building of trust – a real dividend when militaries are asked to work together in a contingency.

Exercise Cobra Gold supports many elements of the U.S. Pacific Command strategy. Chief among them is developing strong partnerships as the best approach or solution to facing common challenges.

More than 11,500 participants in total from the United States, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore are taking part Cobra Gold, Feb. 4-17.