CDS (I) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 86 of 120

Correct — B, USA. CARAT stands for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training, and it is a United States Pacific Fleet programme, not an Indian or a regional one. The United States Navy has run it since 1995 as a series of annual bilateral exercises with the navies of South and South-East Asia — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand among them. Bangladesh joined the programme in 2010 and the first CARAT Bangladesh was held in September 2011, and the exercise has been conducted with the United States Navy in the Bay of Bengal every year since.

• (a)India — India does hold naval activity with Bangladesh, and the Bangladesh Navy has sent a patrol vessel to every MILAN gathering off the Andaman Islands since 2010, but CARAT is not an Indian programme.
• (c)Japan — Japan works with Bangladesh on capacity building and maritime infrastructure; the CARAT series is not among its exercises.
• (d)Thailand — Thailand is itself a CARAT partner of the United States, which makes it a neat distractor — but the exercise is always bilateral between the United States and one partner navy.

The CARAT format is deliberately bilateral: the United States runs a separate edition with each partner navy rather than one large multinational exercise, which lets the content be tailored to what each partner wants to practise. Early editions with Bangladesh covered diving operations, riverine warfare, visit and search procedures, helicopter operations and gunnery. For Bangladesh the series sits alongside participation in India's MILAN and in Pakistan's AMAN, which is a fair picture of how a smaller navy keeps several partnerships running at once.

The name is the clue, because CARAT is an American acronym and its expansion gives the game away. Where candidates slip is on the assumption that an exercise held in the Bay of Bengal must involve India; the geography is Bangladesh's, not the exercise owner's. A second useful habit is to keep the exercise families apart by who runs them — CARAT and Tiger Triumph are American, MILAN is Indian, AMAN is Pakistani, and RIMPAC is the large American-led multinational one in the Pacific.

• CARAT means Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training and is run by the United States Pacific Fleet.
• The programme began in 1995 with South and South-East Asian navies and is conducted bilaterally with each partner.
• Bangladesh joined in 2010 and the first CARAT Bangladesh was held in September 2011.
• The Bangladesh Navy has taken part in the CARAT series with the United States Navy in the Bay of Bengal since 2011.
• Bangladesh also sends a vessel to India's MILAN gathering near the Andaman Islands and has joined Pakistan's AMAN exercise.

• Assuming an exercise in the Bay of Bengal must be an Indian one.
• Treating CARAT as multinational; each edition is bilateral between the United States and one partner.
• Confusing CARAT with RIMPAC, the large American-led multinational exercise in the Pacific.

As a who-exercises-with-whom item, or inside a match-list pairing exercises with the countries that hold them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The CARAT series of naval exercises is conducted by which one of the following navies with its partners?

  • (a)Indian Navy
  • (b)United States Navy
  • (c)Royal Australian Navy
  • (d)Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force

  Answer(b) United States Navy — the United States Pacific Fleet has run the bilateral series with South and South-East Asian navies since 1995.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  MILAN, the multinational naval gathering, is hosted by which one of the following countries?

  • (a)Bangladesh
  • (b)India
  • (c)Sri Lanka
  • (d)Indonesia

  Answer(b) India — it is held near the Andaman Islands, and Bangladesh has sent a vessel to every edition since 2010.