In various interactions questions are asked during the Q & A session. Starting a new series on compiling these valid and interesting questions with comments.
RECENT QUERRY AND MY TAKE ON IT
Question. What are various facets related to joint exercises with friendly foreign countries? What advantages accrue out of these exercises?
Comments. IAF conducts regular exercises with friendly foreign countries. These exercises involve lot of detailed planning and preparation. The preparations start almost six months prior or earlier.
These exercises are bilateral or multilateral, single service or multi service. The trend is changing from bilateral single service exercises earlier to multilateral multi service exercises now.
IAF has carried out exercises with Air Forces of many countries including USA, Russia, UK, France, Australia, South Africa, UAE, Singapore, Oman and Thailand etc.
The level of exercise (i.e. number of aerial assets, duration of exercise and type of air combat missions) depends from country to country. These vary from short duration exercises with few assets on themes like HADR to full fledged combat exercises with large number and variety of platforms carrying out complex LFE (large scale engagement) missions.
The frequency of carrying out exercises also varies from country to country. With some countries it is regular once every two or three years. With others it is less often, once in 3 to 5 years. Generally during transit for bigger exercises, some smaller exercises are carried out during the stop overs en route (Out bound or inbound leg). These are called hop exercises.
There are many advantages of these exercises. These exercises are part of defence diplomacy and political signaling in the larger scheme of international relations and engagements. At operating level, the participants learn about the best practices from each other and It broadens their horizon and prepares them for their future assignments. Further it improves interoperability between the participating forces. The advantages accrued out of these exercises far outweigh the effort and money spent on them.
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