PIB TrackerIndia and Cambodia begin CINBAX-II army drill
The second edition of the India–Cambodia bilateral military exercise, built around UN peacekeeping and counter-terrorism in a sub-conventional setting.
What happened
- The Indian Army contingent departed for the second edition of the India–Cambodia bilateral military exercise, CINBAX-II 2026.
- The exercise runs from 04 to 17 May 2026 at the Royal Cambodian armed forces training centre known as Camp Basil, in Kampong Speu Province, Kingdom of Cambodia.
- The Indian side fields 120 personnel, drawn mainly from a battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry Regiment; the Cambodian side fields 160 personnel of the Royal Cambodian Army.
- Training is pitched at the company level and is conducted under the framework of Chapter VII of the UN Mandate, simulating operations in a sub-conventional environment.
- The schedule combines tabletop discussions, tactical drills and a final validation phase, with special skill training in drone operations, mortar and sniper tactics.
- The stated objective is to raise interoperability, coordination and operational synergy between the two contingents while exchanging operational experience.
Background & context
CINBAX is a recurring bilateral army exercise between India and Cambodia. The "II" in the name marks this as the second edition of the series, which means the first edition (CINBAX) had already established the format of company-level joint training oriented toward peacekeeping. The exercise sits inside India's broader programme of structured defence cooperation with friendly foreign countries, under which the Indian armed forces conduct dozens of named bilateral and multilateral exercises every year — each one paired with a specific partner nation and a specific training theme.
The defining choice in CINBAX-II is its anchoring to Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Chapter VII is the section of the Charter titled "Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression." It is the legal basis on which the UN Security Council authorises coercive measures, including the use of force and robust peacekeeping mandates that go beyond mere observation. By training under a Chapter VII framework, the two armies rehearse the kind of muscular, mandate-backed operations that modern UN peace operations increasingly require — protection of civilians, response to spoilers, and counter-terrorism-style action against hostile armed groups — rather than the lighter, consent-based monitoring associated with traditional Chapter VI peacekeeping.
The choice of partner is itself instructive. India and Cambodia share a long civilisational and cultural connection, and Cambodia is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the regional grouping that anchors India's "Act East" policy. Defence cooperation with an ASEAN member feeds directly into India's wider strategy of building security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. India is also one of the largest and most consistent troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping operations, with a decades-long record of deploying infantry battalions, engineers and police to UN missions; an exercise that hones peacekeeping interoperability with a partner army therefore aligns with a role India has long projected as part of its international identity.
It also helps to read CINBAX-II against the wider architecture of how India structures these engagements. A bilateral military exercise of this kind has a recognisable anatomy: two participating nations only; a host venue that usually alternates between the partners across editions; a named contingent built around a specific regiment on the Indian side and a named formation on the partner side; a fixed training theme; and a phased schedule that typically moves from familiarisation and tabletop or "command-post" discussions, through field tactical drills, to a culminating validation exercise. CINBAX-II follows that anatomy precisely — Cambodia hosts this edition at Kampong Speu, the Indian contingent is built around a Maratha Light Infantry battalion, the theme is Chapter VII peacekeeping with a counter-terrorism overlay, and the programme ends in a comprehensive validation phase. Recognising this common structure is what lets an aspirant reconstruct the examinable facts of almost any India–partner exercise even when only the name is given.
The training content reflects the modern reality of "sub-conventional" warfare — the band of conflict that sits below conventional state-on-state war but above ordinary policing, covering insurgency, terrorism and operations against irregular armed groups. The named drills map onto that band. Drone operations cover both surveillance and the small-unmanned-aerial-system threat now common in such theatres; sniper and mortar tactics cover the precision-fire and indirect-fire skills that a company-sized force needs in semi-urban terrain; and the counter-terrorism orientation reflects the kinds of threats UN peacekeepers increasingly face from spoilers and armed groups rather than from regular armies. Pitching the exercise at the company level — a sub-unit of roughly company strength rather than a full battalion or brigade — is deliberate: it is the echelon at which most peacekeeping tasks (patrols, checkpoints, protection of civilians, cordon-and-search) are actually executed.
For Prelims
- Exercise: CINBAX-II 2026 — the 2nd edition of the India–Cambodia bilateral military exercise.
- Type: bilateral (two nations only) — India and Cambodia; an army-to-army exercise, not tri-services.
- Indian contingent: 120 personnel, mainly from a battalion of the Maratha Light Infantry Regiment.
- Cambodian contingent: 160 personnel of the Royal Cambodian Army.
- Venue: Camp Basil, Royal Cambodian armed forces training centre, Kampong Speu Province, Cambodia (04–17 May 2026).
- Framework: Chapter VII of the UN Mandate; company-level joint training for sub-conventional operations.
- Theme: UN peacekeeping plus counter-terrorism in semi-urban terrain; drills include drone operations, mortar and sniper tactics.
- Objective: interoperability, coordination, operational synergy and exchange of best practices.
- Nodal ministry: Ministry of Defence (Indian Army).
Two layers of recall help survive a "match the pairs" or "which statements are correct" question. First, the regiment: the Maratha Light Infantry is one of the Indian Army's oldest infantry regiments, with a regimental identity rooted in the Maratha military tradition; the contingent is built around one of its battalions. Second, the UN-mandate distinction: Chapter VI of the UN Charter deals with "Pacific Settlement of Disputes" (negotiation, mediation, consent-based peacekeeping), whereas Chapter VII deals with enforcement action and authorises the use of force — CINBAX-II is explicitly built on the Chapter VII framework, which signals an enforcement-oriented, robust peacekeeping focus.
For the "how many of these" pattern, it is worth placing CINBAX in the family of India's named bilateral army exercises so the set is survivable. India runs army exercises with a wide spread of partners under distinct names — for example the long-running joint exercises with several neighbours and partners that pair an Indian regiment with a partner army for counter-terrorism or peacekeeping training. CINBAX is the entry in that family that pairs India with Cambodia; the safe, examinable fact is the pairing itself (exercise name ↔ partner country ↔ service involved), which is exactly the atom a pairs question tests.
Why it matters
The significance of an exercise like CINBAX-II is rarely the tactical drilling itself; it is what the exercise signals and builds. Three things stand out. First, interoperability for peacekeeping: India and many partner nations contribute troops to the same UN missions, where contingents from different countries must operate side by side under one mandate. Rehearsing shared procedures, communications and tactics in advance reduces friction in the field and makes joint deployments more effective. Second, diplomatic signalling within the Indo-Pacific: a defence exercise with an ASEAN member is a concrete, repeatable instrument of India's Act East policy, deepening a partnership that has both historical and contemporary strategic weight. Third, capability exchange: the explicit inclusion of drone operations alongside conventional mortar and sniper tactics reflects the reality that even sub-conventional and peacekeeping environments now involve unmanned systems, and that armies use these exchanges to share evolving best practice.
The problem the exercise addresses is the gap between bilateral defence diplomacy on paper and tested, field-ready cooperation. A signed defence-cooperation framework does not by itself produce two armies that can work together; repeated, named exercises with rising complexity — edition I, then edition II — are how that intent is converted into demonstrated operational synergy. The progression to a second edition is itself the signal that the relationship is being institutionalised rather than left as a one-off gesture.