Cobra Gold 2018 exercise.

Cobra Gold is an annual exercise conducted in the Kingdom of Thailand. The 2018 iteration (the 37th one) runs from February 13-23 with seven full participating nations. Exercise Cobra Gold is designed to advance regional security and ensure effective responses to regional crises by bringing together a robust multinational force to address shared goals and security commitments in the Indo-Pacific region.

Cobra Gold 2018 involves forces from seven nations (Picture source: USMC)

Exercise Cobra Gold is one of the largest military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. This training provides a venue for both United States and partner nations to advance interoperability and increase partner capacity in planning and executing complex and realistic multinational force and combined task force operations. 7,000 US soldiers are taking part to the current exercise, a higher figure than in 2017, which shows a higher US preoccupation about the situation in the ASEAN region.

This year, seven countries participate to Exercise Cobra Gold: United States, Thailand, Indonesia Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. It focuses on three major components: a Command Post Exercise (CPX), a Field Training Exercise (FTX), and a Humanitarian Civic Assistance exercise (HCA).

Among the classic military exercises that include landing, air, navy, and airborne operations, U.S., Thai, Malaysian and Japanese armed forces conducted a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation and Rescue of Japanese Nationals Overseas Exercise at the Utapao International Airport in Rayong, Kingdom of Thailand, on February 17. 

On Monday 19 February, Thai and US soldiers drunk cobra blood directly from the animal to "strenghten" ties between both armies. The soldiers also ate geckos, tarantulas and live scorpions after learning from Thai officers how to remove their venom.