The 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, assigned to the U.S. Eighth Army in South Korea, participated in Tenacious Archer 2026, according to information released by the U.S. military.
Tenacious Archer is an annual multinational air and missile defense exercise conducted under U.S. Army Pacific in Palau and other locations across the western Pacific. This year's exercise ran from July 25 through Aug. 2.
During the exercise, troops from the 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade conducted live-fire training involving the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger short-range air defense system and shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles, according to images released by the U.S. military.
The 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, headquartered at Osan Air Base, is one of the main U.S. air defense formations stationed in South Korea. Its units operate air and missile defense systems including Patriot batteries equipped with PAC-3 interceptors, as well as shorter-range systems such as the Avenger.
Palau lies roughly 3,400 kilometers southeast of Osan in a straight line and occupies a strategically important position in the western Pacific. Along with areas around Guam and Japan's Ogasawara Islands, it is generally associated with the so-called second island chain, a line of islands considered important in U.S. military planning for operations in the Indo-Pacific and in countering China's growing military reach.
The deployment also comes as the U.S. military faces heightened demand for air defense missiles amid the prolonged conflict with Iran, raising questions over how Washington would distribute limited air and missile defense assets among different theaters.
The exercise could be seen as a test of the U.S. military's ability to rapidly disperse and deploy air defense forces normally stationed on the Korean Peninsula to other parts of the Indo-Pacific during a contingency.
Such deployments are increasingly important to the U.S. military's concept of operating from dispersed locations rather than relying heavily on a small number of large, fixed bases that could be vulnerable to missile attacks.
The Eighth Army highlighted that mobility in a social media post announcing its participation in the exercise.
"By training to deploy and employ forces across diverse locations in the region, Eighth Army maintains the highest level of proficiency to defend our allies and partners, strengthens interoperability, and promotes stability in a free and open Indo-Pacific," it said.
AJP Takeaways
△ U.S. Forces Korea's 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade joined Tenacious Archer 2026 in Palau from July 25 to Aug. 2.
△ The unit conducted live-fire drills with Avenger and Stinger air defense systems.
△ The deployment highlighted the U.S. military's ability to rapidly disperse air defense forces across the Indo-Pacific.
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