interview www.bahrainthismonth.com 40 December 2022 HERE IN COMMAND The United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet has been headquartered in the Kingdom of Bahrain for several decades. The fleet’s commander, VADM Brad Cooper, is also at the helm of two large coalitions: the Combined Maritime Force (CMF) and International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC). In this conversation with Bahrain This Month, he gives us some insight into the fleet’s priorities, their role in intercepting drugs and weapons in the region, and gives us a peek into his life too. Can you give us an overview of Fifth Fleet’s mission? What have been your priorities as commander here? Just to give you a little context on why we’re focused on this region, it’s a big maritime region covering 8,000 kms. from the Suez Canal all the way around the Arabian Peninsula into the North Arabia Gulf. It’s a vast amount of water, and through these waters flow 20 percent of the world’s oil. I think we would all agree that this region, literally and figuratively fuels the world. So, ensuring maritime stability is important; and that’s our responsibility. We focus on maritime security through deterrence and maintaining the ability to respond should something happen. We believe the best way to meet that is by strengthening our partnerships and accelerating innovation, which are really at the heart and soul of everything that we’re doing here. We’re fortunate to have two very large coalitions here that I command: the Combined Maritime Force (CMF), a 34 member-nation maritime force which is the largest in the world, and the International Maritime Security Construct (IMSC) which is an 11-nation maritime force. Can you tell us about ‘Digital Horizon’ which was recently launched here in Bahrain? Digital Horizon is what I would call the next step in a series of steps that we’ve taken to accelerate innovation. One of the important aspects of our efforts to bring unmanned and artificial intelligence together has been the speed at which we’ve been able to do it. We’ve been moving very quickly using a model that I characterise as ‘factory to fleet’ - the latest and greatest that the world has to offer; let’s bring it to the region and operate it and see how it works. It’s a tough region to operate in from a climate perspective and long distances. So, if it works here, it can probably work anywhere else. About six months ago, we worked with a number of organisations in the Department of Defense, and asked for the latest and greatest around the world in unmanned systems and artificial intelligence over time. That got necked down and today we’re working with 17 industry partners who have 15 platforms here, 10 of which are here for this event for the first time. As I look to the future, we’ll take lessons from this as well as operational lessons and apply them in a meaningful way.
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