Exercise Bright Star

Exercise Bright Star is a series of biannual combined and joint military exercises led by the United States and Egypt. The exercises began in 1980, rooted in the 1977 Camp David Accords. After its signing, the United States Armed Forces and the Egyptian Armed Forces agreed to conduct training together in Egypt. Bright Star is designed to strengthen ties between the Egyptian Armed Forces and the United States Central Command and demonstrate and enhance the ability of the Americans to reinforce their allies in the Middle East in the event of war. These deployments are usually centered at the large Cairo West Air Base. Since the Gulf War, the end of NATO's Cold War-era Reforger exercises, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bright Star exercises have grown larger and have included as many as 11 countries and 70,000 personnel. Other allied nations joining Bright Star exercises in Egypt include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and formerly the Somali Democratic Republic. The exercise begins with coalition interoperability training to teach nations how to operate with one another in a wartime environment, then continues with a Command Post Exercise designed to help standardize command and control procedures, and then a large-scale Field Training Exercise to practice everything together. The first exercise, Bright Star 81, was conducted from October to December 1980 (fiscal year 1981). The U.S. Army's rapid-deployment unit (Task Force "Strike", 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment) of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and U.S. Air Force (USAF) personnel were deployed to Cairo West Air Base in Egypt for the exercise. This operation was the first deployment of combat soldiers into the region since World War II. Bright Star 81 was initiated by the Carter administration in response to the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet–Afghan War. However, U.S. forces proved to be unprepared for the exercise: soldiers were issued jungle fatigues in lieu of desert camouflage (which was not in the U.