100 Years of Partnership
Exercise Bright Star: A Definitive Statement of Strategic Partnership Between Egypt and the U.S.

In September of 2021, the United States Special Operations Forces joined their Egyptian and partner ally Special Operations forces for Exercise Bright Star, at the Mohamed Naguib Military Base in Alexandria, Egypt.

The structure of Bright Star’s 2021 exercise was designed around strengthening multi-lateral interoperability and addressing challenges across air, land, sea, and cyber domains and consisted of field training exercises combined-arms, live-fire exercises, command post exercises, and a senior leader seminar to further facilitate information sharing between tactical and strategic levels.

The Bright Star exercise builds upon the strategic security relationship shared between Egypt and the United States, which serves a leading role in regional security efforts, as well as combating the spread of extremism.

Generally held every two years, the first Bright Star exercise took place in 1980, with the most recent being its 17th iteration; the next exercise is scheduled to take place in 2023.

Photo: U.S. Army Photo By Spc. Amber Cobena, U.S. Army Central