“This year, we’ve increased the US level of participation in Cobra Gold by over 2,000 from last year, [affecting] the scale and type of individual exercises,” he continued. Cobra Gold was scaled down after the 2014 military coup, but that has changed since Donald Trump took office last year. The presence of the US in the Indo-Pacific matters in the final resolution of the South China Sea dispute. The US Army holds more than 1,500 military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region each year. Significant joint, combined and other smaller military exercises take place annually with treaty allies in Asia Pacific Japan, Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Source: The Nation Bangkok February 23, 2018 03:45 UTC