An exercise where each side sends forty-five people is not a demonstration. Forty-five soldiers cannot manoeuvre, cannot hold ground, and cannot impress anyone watching from a reviewing stand. What forty-five soldiers can do is learn to work in the same room as each other — and that, precisely, is the point.
The 18th edition of Exercise NOMADIC ELEPHANT, the India–Mongolia joint military exercise, began on 21 September 2026 at the Foreign Training Node, Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand. It runs to 3 October 2026. The Indian Army and the Mongolian Armed Forces are each represented by 45 personnel. The last edition was held at Ulaanbaatar in May–June 2025; the exercise alternates between the two countries.
Why "platoon level" is the most important phrase in the release
Military exercises are described by the size of the formation involved, and the description tells you what is actually being trained.
The Indian Army's structure runs upward in steps. A section is ten to twelve soldiers under a non-commissioned officer. Four sections make a platoon of roughly thirty, commanded by a junior commissioned officer or a subaltern. Around four platoons make a company of about 120 under a Major. Four to six rifle companies make a battalion of 900 to 1,000 under a Colonel. Above that sit brigade, division and corps.
An exercise at battalion or brigade level trains staff work — planning, logistics, communications, the coordination of many moving parts. An exercise at platoon level trains something different and more granular: the drill. How a stack of soldiers enters a doorway. Who covers which arc. What hand signal means stop. How a stoppage is cleared. These are the actions that do not survive being written down, because they are executed in seconds under stress by people who must read each other without speaking.
Two armies can share a doctrine on paper and still be unable to operate together in a building, because the muscle memory differs. Platoon-level training is where that gap is found and closed. Forty-five personnel is the right number for it. It is also, incidentally, why such exercises rarely make dramatic photographs.
The syllabus, drill by drill
The announced curriculum is specific, and each item is worth understanding rather than listing.
Cordon and search operations are the foundational counter-insurgency task. The doctrine has three parts. An outer cordon seals the area so that nobody enters or leaves — it is placed first, usually at night, and its discipline determines whether the whole operation works. An inner cordon contains the specific objective. Only then does the search party go in. The hardest element is not the search; it is holding the outer cordon for hours without a gap, because a cordon with a hole in it is an operation that has already failed.
Room intervention drills — close-quarter battle inside structures — are the most casualty-prone activity in counter-insurgency. The reason is geometric. A doorway is what instructors call the fatal funnel: everyone entering must pass through the same narrow aperture, and anyone waiting inside knows exactly where they will appear. The counter is speed, sequencing and mutual cover, executed identically every time. Two armies training this together must agree on the sequence before they can execute it, which is why it appears in a bilateral syllabus at all.
Special heliborne operations insert troops by helicopter rather than on foot. In mountains the value is not merely speed but reach — a ridgeline that takes a day to climb can be crossed in minutes, and the insurgent's assumption about how long he has is what the operation destroys. It is also technically demanding: high-altitude helicopter performance is marginal, landing zones are small and sloped, and the drills for rapid emplaning and deplaning have to be exact.
Cyber security training in a platoon-level counter-insurgency exercise reflects what small-unit operations have become. Soldiers carry devices; units run digital communications; adversaries exploit both. This is now basic hygiene rather than a specialist function.
Drones and counter-drone systems are the newest entry and the most consequential. A platoon commander today can have persistent overhead observation that a battalion commander lacked two decades ago — and so can the other side. Counter-drone capability has moved from a theoretical concern to a drill that small units rehearse, and its presence in this syllabus is a fair marker of how quickly the tactical picture has changed.
The three words that change the rules
The stated aim is counter-insurgency operations in semi-urban and mountainous terrain under the United Nations mandate. That last phrase is not decoration.
A national counter-insurgency operation and a UN-mandated one look similar and are governed differently. Under a UN mandate the force operates within rules of engagement set by the Security Council resolution that authorised it, and those rules are typically more restrictive than a state's domestic authority over its own territory. Force is generally limited to self-defence and defence of the mandate. The mission is impartial between parties. The troop-contributing country's own national command sits alongside, not above, the UN chain.
Soldiers trained only in national operations do not automatically adapt. Restraint under a mandate is a trained skill, not an instinct, and it has to be rehearsed in the same drills where the shooting decisions are made.
Both countries have reason to invest in it. India is among the largest cumulative contributors of personnel to UN peacekeeping in the organisation's history. Mongolia, with a small population and a small army, is a notably committed contributor relative to its size, and peacekeeping is a significant part of what its armed forces are structured to do. Training together under a UN frame is therefore not an abstraction for either party — it describes deployments both actually undertake.
Pithoragarh, and why the location fits
The Foreign Training Node at Pithoragarh sits in the Kumaon hills of Uttarakhand, in a district that reaches up to the trijunction with Nepal and Tibet. The terrain does what the stated aim requires: mountains, slopes, settlements of the kind that "semi-urban" describes, and altitude that makes every task physically harder than the same task on a plain.
Foreign training nodes exist so that visiting contingents can train in representative terrain with dedicated facilities rather than in a corner of an operational formation's area. India runs several, and the choice between them is a choice about terrain. A desert exercise goes elsewhere; a jungle exercise goes to the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte in Mizoram — which, as it happens, hosted the second edition of this exercise in 2005.
Nomadic Elephant and Khaan Quest are not the same thing
This is the confusion most reliably exploited in examinations, and it is easily resolved.
NOMADIC ELEPHANT is bilateral — India and Mongolia only. It alternates between the two countries. The 2026 edition is in India.
KHAAN QUEST is multinational. It is hosted by Mongolia, with the United States as a long-standing co-organiser, and India participates as one contingent among many. Its focus is UN peacekeeping. We covered the 2026 edition in our explainer on Exercise Khaan Quest.
One question format pairs the two and asks which is bilateral. Another asks which is held in Mongolia — and the trap there is that Khaan Quest is always in Mongolia while Nomadic Elephant is in Mongolia only in alternate years. Hold both facts and neither version catches you.
The exercise was first held in 2004, at the Mongolian Armed Forces' Peace Support Training Centre at Terelj. The second edition followed in 2005 at Vairengte. That it is only the eighteenth edition in 2026 tells you the series has not run in every intervening year — a detail worth noting for anyone tempted to calculate the edition number from the start date.
The relationship underneath the exercise
Mongolia is landlocked between Russia and China, and its foreign policy has long sought partners beyond those two. India is one of them.
India was among the first countries outside the Soviet bloc to establish diplomatic relations with Mongolia, recognising it in 1955 and supporting its United Nations membership in 1961. Prime Minister Modi's visit of 16–18 May 2015 was the first ever by an Indian Prime Minister, and the two countries declared a Strategic Partnership during it. India extended a USD 1 billion line of credit for infrastructure at that time, and an Indian line of credit of about USD 1.7 billion underwrites Mongolia's oil refinery project — the largest single item in the economic relationship.
The cultural dimension is real rather than ornamental. Mongolia is a Buddhist country, and India describes the relationship in terms of that shared inheritance. When the relics of the Buddha's chief disciples travelled to Mongolia, that exchange drew crowds that no trade figure would explain.
For a country with a small army and two very large neighbours, a defence relationship with a distant, capable partner has obvious value. For India, Mongolia is a point of presence in a region where it has few others. An exercise of forty-five soldiers a side is a modest instrument, but it is a recurring one, and recurrence is most of what a defence relationship consists of.
🔑 Revision block
- Exercise: NOMADIC ELEPHANT, 18th edition — India and Mongolia, bilateral
- Dates: 21 September to 3 October 2026
- Venue: Foreign Training Node, Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand
- Participation: 45 personnel from each side; platoon level
- Previous edition: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, May–June 2025; the exercise alternates between the two countries
- First held: 2004, at the Peace Support Training Centre, Terelj, Mongolia; second edition 2005 at Vairengte, Mizoram
- Aim: counter-insurgency operations in semi-urban and mountainous terrain under the United Nations mandate
- Curriculum: cordon and search, room intervention drills, special heliborne operations, cyber security, drones and counter-drone systems
- Cordon and search: outer cordon seals, inner cordon contains, search party clears
- Do not confuse: KHAAN QUEST is multinational, hosted by Mongolia, focused on UN peacekeeping
- Army structure: section 10–12 → platoon about 30 → company about 120 → battalion 900–1,000
- India–Mongolia: diplomatic relations 1955; India supported UN membership 1961; Strategic Partnership declared during PM's visit of 16–18 May 2015
- Economic: USD 1 billion line of credit for infrastructure (2015); about USD 1.7 billion line of credit for the oil refinery project
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. Exercise NOMADIC ELEPHANT is conducted between India and: (a) Mongolia (b) Kazakhstan (c) Kyrgyzstan (d) Uzbekistan
→ (a)
Q2. The 2026 edition of NOMADIC ELEPHANT is being held at: (a) Vairengte, Mizoram (b) Umroi, Meghalaya (c) Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand (d) Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
→ (c) — at the Foreign Training Node.
Q3. A platoon in the Indian Army consists of approximately: (a) 10 soldiers (b) 30 soldiers (c) 120 soldiers (d) 900 soldiers
→ (b) — four sections of ten to twelve make a platoon.
Q4. In cordon and search doctrine, the outer cordon is intended to: (a) Conduct the search of the objective (b) Evacuate civilians (c) Provide medical support (d) Seal the area so that nobody enters or leaves
→ (d) — it is emplaced first, and a gap in it compromises the whole operation.
Q5. The "fatal funnel" in room intervention drills refers to: (a) The doorway through which all entrants must pass and where defenders expect them (b) A ventilation shaft (c) A type of explosive charge (d) The corridor leading to a building
→ (a)
Q6. Which of the following distinguishes KHAAN QUEST from NOMADIC ELEPHANT? (a) Khaan Quest is bilateral; Nomadic Elephant is multinational (b) Khaan Quest is a naval exercise (c) Both are bilateral exercises with Mongolia (d) Khaan Quest is multinational and hosted by Mongolia; Nomadic Elephant is bilateral and alternates between the two countries
→ (d)
Q7. Training "under the United Nations mandate" implies that: (a) The exercise is funded by the United Nations (b) Only UN personnel may participate (c) Rules of engagement derive from the authorising Security Council resolution and are typically more restrictive than national authority (d) The exercise must be held at a UN facility
→ (c)
Q8. Special heliborne operations are particularly valuable in mountainous terrain because they provide: (a) Reach across terrain that would otherwise take far longer to cross on foot (b) Greater firepower (c) Better communications (d) Reduced fuel consumption
→ (a) — surprise follows from the adversary's assumption about travel time being wrong.
Q9. India declared a Strategic Partnership with Mongolia during the Prime Minister's visit in: (a) 2014 (b) 2015 (c) 2019 (d) 2023
→ (b) — 16–18 May 2015, the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister.
Q10. Consider the following statements: 1. Platoon-level exercises primarily train staff planning and logistics coordination. 2. Counter-drone drills have become part of small-unit counter-insurgency training. Which is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
→ (b) — staff work is trained at battalion level and above; platoon level trains drills.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Military exercises are among the highest-yield topics in the NDA general ability paper, because the questions are factual, the facts are finite, and they recur with very little variation.
The pairing question dominates: match the exercise to the partner country. Candidates who learn exercises one at a time struggle here; candidates who learn them in groups do not. Mongolia gives you two — Nomadic Elephant bilateral, Khaan Quest multinational — and learning them as a pair is more efficient and more robust than learning either alone.
The venue question asks where the current edition is held. The answer changes each year, which is why the fact is asked, and it is also why the alternating pattern is worth holding: in an alternating series, knowing last year's venue tells you which country hosts this year.
The service question asks which arm is involved. Nomadic Elephant is an army exercise. Candidates frequently attach naval or air exercises to the wrong service because the names give nothing away.
The doctrine question is less common but more discriminating: what a cordon and search operation involves, what close-quarter battle requires, what heliborne insertion achieves. These are worth preparing because they carry across to the SSB interview, where a candidate who can explain why the outer cordon is placed first is demonstrating something quite different from recall.
For the interview specifically, the India–Mongolia relationship is a neat piece of ground to hold: a small landlocked democracy between two large powers, a partner India has cultivated since 1955, and a defence relationship measured in recurring platoon-level exercises rather than headline equipment sales. That is a more interesting answer than a list of exercise names.
Preparing for NDA? Exercise names are cheap marks if you learn them in sets — partner, service, venue pattern, and the one exercise it is most often confused with. Build the base with our NDA general ability notes, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Col D.N. Sharma — Defence studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.