Quad navies open this year's Malabar exercise off Tokyo with submarine and surface warfare drills

The navies of the United States, Japan, Australia and India began this year's Malabar exercise on Thursday, 5 November, in waters off the Kanto region around Tokyo, Kyodo News reported. Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force said the training runs until 12 November and includes drills on responding to submarines and to surface fleets.

An opening ceremony was held aboard the helicopter carrier Ise, which was anchored at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo, and was attended by about 200 people from the four countries. Kyodo News described the exercise as taking place amid growing Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.

Vice Admiral Katsushi Omachi, who commands Japan's Self-Defense Fleet, told the ceremony that the security environment in the Indo-Pacific was becoming more and more complex, and that working with like-minded countries mattered more than ever before, according to Kyodo News.

Ships and aircraft taking part

Japan's maritime force announced the exercise in a release in late October, saying it would take place south of the Kanto region and was meant to support a free and open Indo-Pacific. According to that release, as reported by USNI News, Japan is sending the Ise, the frigate Mogami, a submarine and a P-1 maritime patrol aircraft.

India is represented by the stealth frigate INS Sahyadri, and Australia by the frigate HMAS Stuart and a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft, USNI News reported. The United States is contributing a P-8A and an amphibious transport dock ship that the Japanese release did not name. Stuart and the Australian P-8A had both just taken part in Keen Sword, the large exercise between the United States and Japan that ended in late October.

The planned events cover anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and a photo exercise with the participating ships sailing together, according to the Japanese release.

India's frigate arrives from Korea

Sahyadri entered Yokosuka on Wednesday, 4 November, the Indian Embassy in Japan said, according to IANS. Vice Admiral Yagi Koji, who commands the Yokosuka District, and the embassy's deputy chief of mission, Madhu Sundan, attended a welcome ceremony for the ship.

The frigate came to Japan directly from a bilateral exercise with the South Korean navy at Busan, where it had arrived on 26 October and later sailed with the South Korean destroyer Munmu the Great. Earlier in October it had also visited Vladivostok for the INDRA exercise with the Russian navy, the Times of India reported, as part of a busy run of Indian naval deployments across several oceans since September.

This is the second year in a row that Sahyadri has joined Malabar. In last year's edition, the ship took part in a sea phase held from 10 to 18 November that included anti-submarine warfare, boarding drills, gunnery, refuelling at sea and helicopter operations between ships, while the harbour phase was held in Guam.

A long-running Quad exercise

Malabar started in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between the American and Indian navies, and Japan's maritime force joined in 2007, according to the Japanese force as cited by Kyodo News. With Australia also taking part, it now brings together the navies of all four members of the Quad grouping.

Because this year's edition is being held close to Tokyo a week after Keen Sword ended, the Australian frigate and patrol aircraft are moving straight from drills with Japan and the United States into training with all four Quad navies.