{"id":360831,"date":"2026-04-15T15:11:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/?p=360831"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:11:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:41:31","slug":"balikatan-combat-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/balikatan-combat-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"Balikatan Combat Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>News:<\/strong> Japan will deploy combat units to participate in the Balikatan exercises for the first time, marking a historic shift in its security engagement with Southeast Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>About Balikatan Combat Exercise<\/h2>\n<figure style=\"width: 466px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thediplomat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/sizes\/td-story-s-1\/thediplomat_2026-03-26-215116.jpg?resize=466%2C233&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\" Balikatan combat Exercises \" width=\"466\" height=\"233\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: The Diplomat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the<strong> largest bilateral military exercise<\/strong> conducted between the<strong> Armed Forces of the Philippines and the U.S.A.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also known as <\/span><b>\u00a0\u201cshoulder-to-shoulder,\u201d an exercise <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">reflecting the <strong>spirit<\/strong> of the exercise and symbolizing the <strong>strong alliance between the Philippines and the United States.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Frequency:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is held<\/span><b> annually.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Aim:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is <strong>d<\/strong><\/span><b>esigned to strengthen regional security<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> through combined operations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>First Edition: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The first Balikatan Exercises took place in <\/span><b>2001.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>2026 edition is the 41st iteration of the exercise.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Duration: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It will start from<\/span><b> 20th April to 8th May 2026.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Participating nations:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> More than <strong>17,000 soldiers<\/strong> from <strong>seven<\/strong> participating nations will be taking part in the exercise.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The troops will come from the<\/span><b> Philippines, U.S.A, Australia, Japan, Canada, France, and New Zealand.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This would be the <strong>first time since World War II<\/strong> that <strong>Japanese combat troops will be on Philippine soil.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Also for the <\/span><b>first time, Japan will fire a Type 88 ground-to-surface missile during the drills.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>Activities conducted: <\/b>\n<ul>\n<li>The drills will cover <b>land, sea, air and cyberspace domains.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The drills typically involve a wide range of activities, including maritime security, amphibious operations, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News: Japan will deploy combat units to participate in the Balikatan exercises for the first time, marking a historic shift in its security engagement with Southeast Asia. About Balikatan Combat Exercise It is the largest bilateral military exercise conducted between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the U.S.A. It is also known as \u00a0\u201cshoulder-to-shoulder,\u201d&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/balikatan-combat-exercise\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Balikatan Combat Exercise<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10366,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,11204,12039],"tags":[11872,12185],"class_list":["post-360831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-defence-exercises","category-knolls","tag-9pm-daily-factly","tag-ap-news","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10366"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}