Ship ahoy as Israeli navy signs up for maritime warfare exercise

Israel has been invited to take part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), which is the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise.

Held biennially during June and July, it is administered by the United State’s Navy’s Pacific Fleet, in conjunction with the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard and Hawaii National Guard.

Beginning off the coast of Hawaii and Southern California, this year’s event begins on 27 June and will see 26 nations take part, Israel joining other first-time participants Brazil, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The event will see more than 25,000 personnel take part, with more than 200 aircraft, 47 surface ships, five submarines, and 18 national land forces.

This year’s theme is “Capable Adaptive Partners”, with the US Navy saying the RIMPAC will focus on a wide range of capabilities “critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans” with drills ranging from disaster relief to counter-piracy, mine clearance operations, air defense exercises to complex maritime warfare.

While this will be the first time Israel is participating in the RIMPAC, it does take part in naval exercises with the US, while US Marines military exercise in the Negev Desert.

The likes of the UK, Australian, France, Germany, Japan and Netherlands are also all taking part, but China was uninvited from participating due to its ongoing militarisation of the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.