U.S. Army and Indian Army forces conducted a brigade-level Command Post Exercise as part of Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2026 near Auli, India, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command announced on Sept. 22.
The CPX tests combined planning, communication and command decision-making between U.S. and Indian forces at brigade scale — the largest exercise formation in the event and the most complex level of combined military planning training conducted between the two nations in this format, INDOPACOM said.
U.S. forces from the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 11th Airborne Division participated in the exercise. Yudh Abhyas is an annual bilateral exercise between the U.S. and Indian armies focused on building interoperability.
U.S.-India military interoperability is a cornerstone of the Indo-Pacific strategy. The two nations have deepened their defense partnership significantly in recent years, driven by shared concerns about Chinese military expansion and regional stability.
A brigade-level command post exercise requires both armies to integrate their planning processes, communications systems and decision-making structures — skills that would be essential in any combined operation, according to INDOPACOM.
The exercise coincides with a weapons and equipment display component in which soldiers from both armies familiarize themselves with each other’s military hardware, further deepening mutual operational understanding.
The 11th Airborne Division, headquartered in Alaska, is the Army’s newest division and is specifically configured for Arctic and Indo-Pacific operations. Its participation in Yudh Abhyas reflects the unit’s regional mission focus.
India is a member of the Quad — the four-nation strategic grouping that also includes the United States, Australia and Japan — and bilateral military exercises like Yudh Abhyas are a key mechanism for translating strategic partnership into operational capability.
The exercise ran Sept. 15-22 near Auli, a mountainous area in northern India.