Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) held Exercise Silent Sentinel 2025 at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, Nov. 5-6.

The exercise focused on developing a better understanding of uncrewed and autonomous systems applicable to CMF, through a combination of hands-on demonstrations and presentations of various case studies.

Held for the first time, Silent Sentinel 2025 consisted of three main parts; capability demonstrations, capability briefs and scenario development.

The Combined Maritime Forces 2026-2030 Strategy identifies the use of uncrewed and autonomous systems as an opportunity to enhance maritime domain awareness and maritime security operations in the CMF area of operations. Silent Sentinel aims to progress that vision and deliver new capabilities to the CMF mission.

Exercise Silent Sentinel is set to become an annual event focused on developing processes for uncrewed platforms in the CMF area of operations and testing those uses in real life activity across the CMF task forces.

Combined Maritime Forces, headquartered in Bahrain with U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and U.S. 5th Fleet, is the largest multinational naval partnership in the world, with 47 nations committed to upholding the international rules-based order at sea. It promotes security, stability and prosperity across approximately 3.2 million square miles of international waters, encompassing some of the world’s most important shipping lanes.