World sees more complicated trends in joint military exercises in 2023

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Huang Panyue
Time
2023-01-29 17:56:48

By Li Gongmiao, Xia Yanfei

The past year of 2022 has seen an eventful world shrouded in dark clouds of conflicts, with joint military exercises being staged one after another across the world against the background of the yearlong Russia-Ukraine conflict. As confrontation is growing in intensity, military exercises have become more tech-oriented - new technologies are tested, new equipment keeps emerging, and new forces are coming to the fore. As the highest form of military training, military exercise is somewhat like a wind vane for the development of geopolitical hotspots. All signs show that the year of 2023 is going to witness more complicated dynamics in joint military exercises.

(I)Exercises for verification become the new normal.

While conducting massive joint live-fire exercises in large quantities every year, countries have also organized numerous exercises for research and verification, which, although of a smaller scale, may represent the future direction and priority of war preparedness and the future trend of warfare. What the US has done in this regard is worth special attention. For instance, the US Army initiated the “Project Convergence 2022” that offered a platform for the industrial sector to exhibit and verify their cutting-edge technologies and prove whether they are mature enough for military application. The Test Flag Enterprise represented by Emerald Flag and Black Flag is tasked with testing how UAVs, maneuvering command and control, and other technologies can be applied in the troops, while the US Marines’ Exercise Steel Knight 2023 is to validate the Pacific combat concept. Clearly the US military has shifted the purpose of some of its military exercises from practicing tactics, as is the tradition, to verifying technologies. Such systematic verification will facilitate the quicker completion of emerging technologies’ development cycle from proposing the needs, experimenting and demonstrating, application in exercise (real combat) to proposing new needs, and minimize the time needed to move high and new technologies from concept to combat.

 (II)Japan’s multiple breaches in 2022 call for grave concerns.

In recent years, Japan, with America’s backing and abetting, has tried hard to break away from the Pacifist Constitution on the excuse of revising the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology, with the aim of completely “normalizing” its military development. In 2022, the JMSDF led the ANNUALEX joint maritime exercise involving the American, Canadian, Australian, and German navies to enhance their collective war preparedness, maritime superiority and troop projection capability in the Indo-Pacific region. While Japanese troops have participated in multilateral military exercises before, it was rare for Tokyo to lead in one. In fact, Japan has taken many other steps in 2022 to “normalize” its military forces step by step. In March, it hosted a multilateral cyber warfare exercise; in August, it participated in NATO’s “Noble Partner 2022” exercise in Georgia; from the end of November to early December, it deployed fixed-wing warplanes in the Philippines and dispatched two F-15 fighter jets to their joint military exercise; in November; it escorted American and Australian troops at the same time; in late November, it signed the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) with the UK - the first such agreement with a European country - that simplified the procedures needed for their troops to enter the other country. All these moves are firsts for Japan. Experts said the JSDF has become increasingly like a formidable, powerful defense force, and the country’s military exercises in 2023 are worth special attention.

(III)Humanity is facing unprecedented nuclear threats.

The US-led NATO and Russia would carry out nuclear exercises annually to demonstrate their nuclear strengths, and the situation in 2022 was obviously more complex and severe owing to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia staged the “Grom” or “Thunder” strategic nuclear exercise even before the conflict broke out. After it did break out, Moscow was faced with a dire situation at home and internationally under the all-round sanctions by western countries, and put its nuclear forces in a state of special combat readiness three days through the conflict. Later as the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, the largest in Europe, was under constant attacks, senior Russian officials made “ambiguous” remarks about the use of nuclear weapons several times, and their warnings about the use of “dirty bomb” captured intense attention, causing some world-renowned politicians to repeatedly warn of an imminent threat of a nuclear war. On December 29, Russian President Putin attended the launch ceremony of nuclear-powered strategic submarines Generalissimo Suvorov and Emperor Alexander III via video link. Every move it takes concerning nuclear forces pulls at the nerve of the world. At the same time, the US-led NATO has staged multiple strategic nuclear exercises such as the “Steadfast Noon”, and America will hold the keel laying ceremony for its first Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarine this year. DPRK has already test-fired a slew of new strategic nuclear weapons this year, while senior Israeli officials have said multiple times that they may attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the future. Compared with 2022 featuring the Russia-Ukraine conflict, one can hardly imagine a year imbued with more unsettling nuclear risks than 2023.

Editor's note: Originally published on gmw.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.

 

Related News

back