Yudh Abhyas 2026 opens at Auli and Mahajan with 600 troops on each side

The 22nd edition of Yudh Abhyas, the annual Indian and US army exercise, began on 15 September at the Auli Foreign Training Node in Uttarakhand and at the Mahajan Field Firing Range in Bikaner district, Rajasthan. Each army has sent about 600 personnel. The exercise is scheduled to end on 28 September. The opening address at Auli was given by Maj. Gen. Amaresh Gunjan, general officer commanding of India’s 14 Infantry Division, and Col. Benjamin Jackman, commander of the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division, the Alaska-based formation known as the Arctic Angels.

The stated aim is joint work by Integrated Battle Groups in mountain and semi-mountain terrain, with an infantry-heavy emphasis. India operationalised its first IBG from formations under 17 Corps in July. Yudh Abhyas is the first bilateral exercise since that step. An IBG is a self-contained grouping meant to move faster than a traditional brigade. Putting that structure next to a US airborne brigade combat team is a test of staff habits, radio procedures and fire support more than a test of individual soldiering.

The two sites split the work. Auli sits high in the Himalaya and will run a brigade-level command-post exercise, field training, mountain and cold-weather drills, and counter-unmanned aircraft training. Mahajan is a desert range. The US Army said live fire there will include HIMARS rockets, Stinger missiles and the Mobile Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System, or M-LIDS. Both sides will fly drones and other uncrewed systems for surveillance. Subject-matter talks are planned on multi-domain tactics.

Yudh Abhyas has grown from a small familiarisation drill into a regular fixture. Holding it on Indian soil at two climates in one fortnight is a logistics choice as well as a training one. US airborne troops get time at altitude. Indian gunners get to watch and fire alongside a HIMARS battery. Neither army has said the exercise is aimed at a named adversary. The terrain package, high mountains plus a long-range desert shoot, matches the two environments the Indian Army treats as primary.

Technology is the word both defence ministries used. That means drones for looking and, at Mahajan, kits for bringing drones down. It also means staff officers sharing how they build a target list when sensors and shooters belong to different countries. Interoperability is a tired term. The concrete version here is whether an Indian IBG headquarters can accept a US fire mission and whether a US battery can shoot off Indian coordinates without a day of translation.

Fourteen days is short. It is long enough to expose friction in radios, ammunition accounting and medical evacuation rules. It is not long enough to hide it. The public statements will call the exercise a success. The internal notes from Auli and Mahajan will say where the two staffs still talk past each other. Those notes are the part that matters after 28 September.