The 22nd edition of the flagship India-US joint military exercise Yudh Abhyas opened on Monday, 15 September 2026, with the opening ceremony held at the Auli Foreign Training Node in Uttarakhand. Major General Amaresh Gunjan, General Officer Commanding of the 14 Infantry Division, and Colonel Benjamin Jackman, Commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the US Army's 11th Airborne Division, addressed the participating contingents comprising 600 personnel from each side. The exercise runs simultaneously at Auli in Uttarakhand and at the Mahajan Field Firing Range in Rajasthan — a first-of-its-kind two-theatre format in the exercise's history. Yudh Abhyas 2026 concludes on 28 September 2026.

What the exercise aims to achieve

Yudh Abhyas 2026 is designed to enhance the joint military capability of both armies for the employment of Integrated Battle Groups in mountainous and semi-mountainous terrain, with primary emphasis on infantry-dominated operations. Beyond the tactical dimension, the exercise strengthens interoperability between the two armies, facilitates the exchange of best operational practices, and progressively strengthens joint planning and execution capabilities.

Two theatres, two mission environments

The choice of two operational theatres is itself the substantive story of Yudh Abhyas 2026. At Auli, situated at high altitude near India's northern border, contingents will train in combat operations across mountainous and semi-mountainous terrain, air mobility, and high-altitude logistics. At Mahajan Field Firing Range near Bikaner, contingents will train in long-range firing, precision strikes, desert manoeuvres and joint firepower operations. No previous edition of Yudh Abhyas has been conducted simultaneously across two such different terrains — a design choice that reflects the operational reality of contemporary Indian defence requirements across both the northern and western frontiers.

Technology infusion — the new frontier

Technology infusion forms one of the substantive focus areas of Yudh Abhyas 2026. Training will include the employment of drones and autonomous systems for surveillance and reconnaissance across both theatres. At the Mahajan Field Firing Range, the exercise will feature demonstrations of contemporary weapon systems by both armies — a dimension that has progressively become central to modern joint exercises given the substantive lessons of recent conflict environments about the operational role of unmanned platforms, precision fires and integrated command-and-control architecture.

The wider India-US defence architecture

Yudh Abhyas sits at the operational centre of one of India's most consequential single bilateral defence relationships. Since its 2002 inception as a platoon-level exercise, the annual bilateral has progressively expanded in scope, participation and complexity — advancing from small-unit training to brigade-scale joint operations spanning multiple terrains. India today conducts more military exercises with the United States than with any other country, with Yudh Abhyas, Malabar, COPE India, Vajra Prahar and Tiger Triumph together forming the operational backbone of the India-US Major Defense Partnership.

The 2026 edition further strengthens this architecture through the participation of the 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force (3MDTF), which introduces advanced long-range precision fires and integrated command-and-control systems to the bilateral framework. US Ambassador Sergio Gor and Lieutenant General Joel 'JB' Vowell, Deputy Commanding General for US Army Pacific, are scheduled to attend key training events across the exercise duration — signals of the operational and political weight both governments continue to place on the bilateral defence relationship.

What Yudh Abhyas 2026 signals

For India, the two-theatre format demonstrates operational capacity to conduct simultaneous joint exercises across the country's most consequential single security theatres — the high-altitude Himalayan frontier and the western desert border. For the United States, the deployment of Arctic-trained 11th Airborne Division soldiers to high-altitude Indian environments provides substantive training in Indo-Pacific mountain warfare that few operational environments elsewhere can offer. For the wider Indo-Pacific security architecture, the exercise reinforces the operational readiness of the substantive Indo-US defence partnership as one of the anchor institutional arrangements in the free and open Indo-Pacific framework.

The exercise runs through 28 September 2026 and will progressively include the Command Post Exercise phase, the Field Training Exercise phase and the Combined Live-Fire Demonstration culminating the training cycle.