HONOLULU – The marines from 26 nations will arrive at Hawaii this week tokick-start world’s largest maritime exercises.
The maritime drills named ‘the rim of the Pacific or RIMPAC’ will bringlargest vessels sailing on the Oahu coast along with the opportunities ofunique training for the participants under the command of United States.
The exercises will be held from June 27 to August 2nd in the Pacific Ocean.
The training is “designed to foster and sustain cooperative relationshipsthat are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on theworld’s interconnected oceans,” Navy officials say.
The marines of 26 nations with 47 surface ships, five submarines, more than200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel will participate in RIMPAC 2018, startingon Wednesday.
Participating countries include forces from Australia, Brazil, Brunei,Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan,Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, the Republic of Korea,the Republic of the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, theUnited Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.
Chinese marines were not invited for participation due to its ongoingmilitarization of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. TheU.S. Department of Defense rescinded an invitation for China to participatein the U.S.-led exercises this year.
Brazil, Israel, Sri Lanka and Vietnam are participating in the exercisesfor the first time.
This year marks the 26th exercise in the series since it began in 1971.
The combined live field training exercise will included tactical level andlimited operational level training and will feature live firing of a LongRange Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) from a US Air Force aircraft, surface toship missiles by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, and a Naval StrikeMissile (NSM) from a launcher on the back of a Palletized Load System (PLS)by the US Army