U.S. and Gulf Cooperation Council forces stormed Kuwait’s Shuwaikh Port in a demonstration of interoperability Sunday in the final event of exercise Eagle Resolve 2017.
The culminating event involved land, air, and maritime forces and included tactical demonstrations of search and seizure, countering a chemical threat, and border security.
Maj. Gen. Ralph H. Groover, III, U.S. Central Command’s director of exercises and training directorate, said the benefits of Eagle Resolve 2017 began over a year ago when the U.S. and GCC nations planned for the exercise.
“Working together, understanding one another, understanding each other’s tactics, techniques and procedures for responding to threats enhance all of our capabilities,” Groover said.
Since 1999, Eagle Resolve has become the leading engagement between the U.S. and GCC nations to collectively address the regional challenges associated with asymmetric warfare in a low-risk setting.
“We dealt with reality in accordance with the environment around us and countering terrorism,” said Lt. Gen. Mohammed Khaled Al-Khader, Kuwait’s military chief of general staff.
More than 3,000 forces from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the U.S. participated in the three-week exercise. This year’s scenarios ranged from air defense concepts, border security operations, counterterrorism operations and procedures to consequence management.
“We are concerned about defending our gulf, defending ourselves, our states and our nations,” Al-Khader said. “What is important for us is our continuous training so we can achieve the required level of fighting readiness.”
While participating nations may have varying reasons for supporting Eagle Resolve, one common theme unites them: regional security.
“This exercise is all about building capacity and capability of each of our nations that are participating,” Groover said. “We are stronger together as a group than we are individually. This was just another demonstration of how we can come together and act as a force of one.”
