Talks are on to include them in the first tri-services exercise likely to take place in 2019

The first India-U.S. tri-services exercise is likely to take place in 2019, and talks are on to include the special forces of the two countries in the drill, a senior U.S. defence official has said.

The three forces of each country already take part in bilateral exercises separately — their Armies participate in an annual drill called Yudh Abyaas, whose latest edition took place in September, and the Air Forces take part in a bilateral drill called Cope India.

The Navies participate in an exercise in Malabar, involving Japan.

But this will be the first time, the three services of India and the U.S. will participate in a drill together.

All services

“The first one will be in India, and it will take place in 2019. It would include all our services, plus we are kind of scoping the exercise right now to include each of the services’ special operations forces. That is very exciting. This is under discussion right now ... essentially all our services, plus potentially the special operations forces,” Brigadier-General David E. Brigham said.

An initial planning conference will be held to discuss the scale of the exercise, he said.

No date has been fixed for the joint drill yet, Mr. Brigham said.

The drill may take place sometime in late August because U.S. naval ships could be in the region around that time.

UN scenario

The drill will focus on a United Nations-based scenario and the overarching mission of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief measure, the U.S. Brigadier-General said.

He said India was the “natural humanitarian disaster relief hub” in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Indian Army has Para SF, the Navy has Marcos while the Air Force has the Garud as their respective special forces.

Though the joint tri-services drill was formally announced after the first 2+2 dialogue between the principals of the External Affairs and Defence Ministries of the two countries last month, work on it had begun much before.