Air Force Special Operations Command recently wrapped up Emerald Warrior 25.2, a large-scale military exercise meant to test the Air Force’s ability to coordinate conventional and special operations forces in contested areas. The exercise mostly took place in Arizona and California. Mostly.
While airmen were active in the American Southwest, another part of the Emerald Warrior 25.2 exercise was happening, this time far away in the southern Caribbean. Over the last week of August, a mix of airmen, including combat controllers, special reconnaissance troops, and pararescuemen, practiced seizing an airfield, using it as the base of operations for widespread search and rescue operations and carrying out island-hopping reconnaissance and raiding missions. The drills had been planned in advance, but the showcase of how quickly aerial commandos could deploy took place at the same time that the U.S. military was moving a large naval force into the southern Caribbean.
Special tactic units with the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Airlift Wing found themselves taking over an airfield on Aug. 26 at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. According to AFSOC, a C-130J plane flew over the Caribbean with six special tactics airmen parachuting out to then board an inflatable boat in the sea. As they sped towards the island, 11 pararescuemen and combat controllers jumped from the plane directly to the airfield. The troops linked up to seize the area, clearing the way for the C-130J to land and offload gear. It was a test of how quickly and effectively the forces could capture an enemy airfield and quickly position equipment for further operations.
St. Croix was chosen in part because its tropical environment was seen as an ideal way to test airmen in conditions they would be expected to fight in.
“Operations in the Caribbean simulate many of the geographical features our forces may encounter when deployed around the globe,” an unnamed AFSOC officer said in a release by the command. “Having to overcome the kinds of challenges presented here will make us a more lethal and effective force the next time we conduct littoral operations anywhere in the world.”
AFSOC used St. Croix as a training group for several training exercises meant to simulate raids on small enemy bases in island-hopping situations. The airmen carried out infiltration missions, ferried by UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, operated by Mississippi Army National Guard crews, and used St. Croix as a launch point for a nautical reconnaissance mission on another island held by opposition forces in Emerald Warrior. They also practiced for disasters, from mass casualties to potential search and rescue missions involving downed Air Force planes. Operations were also aided by elements of the U.S. Coast Guard.
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While the Air Force units were training, the U.S. military gradually built up a large naval presence in the region. Over the course of August, the Navy deployed three Aegis-class destroyers, a guided-missile cruiser, a fast-attack submarine and a three-ship amphibious ready group carrying the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, sent on counter drug trafficking operations. Last week that force fired on a ship leaving Venezuela for Trinidad, killing all on board. The president and senior Trump administration leadership characterized the boat as full of “narcoterrorists” running drugs for a group the government designated a foreign terrorist organization, although no formal evidence has been put forward.
Last week, 10 F-35 fighter jets were ordered to fly to Puerto Rico to support anti-trafficking operations. The military has not said what unit the stealth fighters are assigned to or where they are flying from. That large naval deployment was unrelated to Emerald Warrior 25.2 but still put a large naval force and special operations contingent active in the same region.
The Emerald Warrior exercise was part of a wider Department of the Air Force department-level exercise series, a set of large-scale combined arms training operations. They ranged from Arctic exercises in Alaska to the airfield seizure in the Caribbean and involved aerial units and Space Force satellite tracking.
