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QUESTION: The annual Cobra Gold Thai‐U.S. military exercise will kick off tomorrow. Are
there any significant developments? Will China be participating?
Cobra Gold is usually held in April/May but has been brought forward to February this year.
The Thai announcement of the rescheduling was made at the same time as they announced
the holding of joint exercises with China. The Bangkok Post reported that Cobra Gold has
been rescheduled for 'more comfortable weather', this seems a bit bizarre. Has Cobra Gold
been rescheduled to accommodate the Thai-China joint naval exercise?
ANSWER: As for Cobra Gold, I doubt that a multilateral exercise involving six nations and
12‐14,000 soldiers, plus observers from fourteen plus countries, was rescheduled on
account of planned Chinese‐Thai naval exercises. Not only is Cobra Gold billed as the largest
multilateral military exercise in the Asia‐Pacific if not the world, the US Ambassador to
Thailand, Eric John, described Cobra Gold as “our premier training event in Thailand.” The
Thai Army Chief, General Anupong Paochinda, will be in Washington on an official visit
during the first week of Cobra Gold.
Thailand and China have already conducted joint naval exercises. The exercise date for this
year, focused on disaster mitigation training, has not been announced and is likely to involve
a limited number of personnel. The U.S. has been invited to observe a separate Thai‐China
joint naval exercise (to be held early in 2010). The key point here is that China has
discovered the utility of military‐to‐military defence cooperation as an adjunct to normal
diplomacy and it pressing regional states, such as Thailand, to participate in both bilateral
and multilateral exercises. The sub text is to undercut the role of the United States in
regional defence cooperation activities.
The Cobra Gold series has been running for 29 years and is a fixture on the calendar. The
change in scheduling from April/May the hottest time of the year (temperatures range from
103 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit) to February, when temperatures are markedly cooler (75
degrees), is an interesting development. It is not clear when the decision was made to
reschedule; the Bangkok Post quoted military officers on January 8th as announcing both the
rescheduling of Cobra Gold to February and future joint exercises with China (expected “to
take place within the next few months”).
The U.S. Pacific Command announced on January 12th that Cobra Gold would commence
February 1st without elaboration. Getting six nations together for a regularly scheduled
event is not something likely to have been changed at the last minute without some
indication why the change was made. US ship deployments to the region began in January.
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The key development this year is, of course, the involvement of South Korea as a full
participating member rather than observer, as was the case in previous years. The longer
term key development is the morphing of Cobra Gold from a more or less conventional
bilateral exercise to a multilateral one focusing on non‐traditional security issues
(peacekeeping, HADR – humanitarian assistance and disaster response). Cobra Gold has
changed with the times from the threat of a conventional military attack on Thailand to
addressing broader “human security” issues. It is all part of the U.S. Pacific Command’s
cooperative engagement plan.
Cobra Gold involves a mix of activities. One is a CPX or computer simulated command post
exercise involving Thai, U.S., Indonesian, Japanese Singaporean and South Korean military
personnel and observers from ten countries including China (Brunei, Chile, Germany, Laos,
Mongolia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam).
A second major component of Cobra Gold is a field training exercise based on the UN’s
multi‐national peace support operations model. The same six countries will participate in
this exercise along with UN staff. Finally all six nations will contribute to village‐level civic
action projects.