By Solomon "Customs" Bridges
BANTEN, Indonesia — In a field hospital tent on the coast of Banten province, a U.S. Air Force surgical physician assistant named Capt. Guy-Raphael Toussaint worked alongside a team of foreign doctors he'd never met a month ago, running through a simulated operation. Outside, a rescue team carried a mock patient across broken ground, playing out an earthquake-and-tsunami scenario that this part of the world has lived through for real more than once.
This is Exercise Trident Resolve 2026, co-hosted by the United States and Indonesia under the ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus framework — the largest such gathering in a decade, with roughly 2,200 personnel from 19 countries training together from Sept. 20 to 26. The U.S. Army's 18th Theater Medical Command, based in the Pacific, is running the American side of it. A Republic of Singapore Navy vessel hosted a group photo of the assembled multinational team on Sept. 22, a small image with a large point behind it: disaster response, in this region, is not a solo act.
The drill's stated goals are medical cooperation, cybersecurity and humanitarian disaster relief — organizers were explicit that "U.S. objectives do not apply to China or Russia," a line worth noting given how often military exercises in the Indo-Pacific get read as messages to Beijing whether intended that way or not. Participants are also running health screenings and infrastructure work for local Indonesian communities alongside the simulated response.
What's being rehearsed here is unglamorous and essential: the plumbing of getting foreign militaries, aid workers and local authorities to speak the same language fast, before the ground actually shakes. Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire; the next earthquake is not a matter of if. Twenty nations practicing together this week is the quiet insurance policy nobody notices until they need it.
Nothing happens "over there" anymore.
— Compiled from U.S. Central Command (DVIDS) reporting.
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