Deep within the high desert terrain of the Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada, a quiet but strategically critical evolution in American military training took place in mid-November 2025, offering a rare glimpse into how the United States is preparing for high-end conflict against sophisticated adversaries. According to imagery and reports released by the Department of Defense, U.S. Marines from the 1st Radio Battalion, part of the I Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, spent days maneuvering through the dust and sagebrush to train against full-scale, high-fidelity decoys of Russian S-300 and Chinese HQ-9 long-range air defense systems. This activity was part of Exercise Resolute Hunter 26-1, an event that has rapidly grown from a niche training course into the Pentagon’s premier stage for practicing the complex art of finding, tracking, and dismantling enemy kill chains. The exercise, which ran through mid-November, placed Marines alongside U.S. Army elements and coalition partners, including Australian Army signals officers, in a landscape that bears a striking geographic resemblance to the semi-arid basins of Iran and Central Asia.
The imagery captured by combat photographers during the exercise tells a compelling story of modernization and shifting tactics. Marines were documented positioning their vehicles and sensor suites along low ridgelines, overlooking broad valleys where foreign-looking missile launchers sat camouflaged against the earth tones of the high desert. These were not merely inflatable targets or plywood cutouts; the training leveraged advanced threat surrogates designed to mimic the electromagnetic fingerprints of real-world adversaries. The choice of the S-300PMU2 “Favourite” and the HQ-9 as the primary antagonists is far from accidental. The Russian S-300 system, particularly when integrated with its 64N6E2 long-range surveillance radar and 30N6E2 engagement radar, creates a formidable anti-access/area-denial bubble capable of threatening aircraft from up to 200 kilometers away. Similarly, the Chinese HQ-9 family, which has been exported as the FD-2000 to nations across the Middle East and North Africa, utilizes modern active phased array radars to track and engage targets at comparable ranges. By placing these specific threats in the Nevada desert, military planners are allowing the 1st Radio Battalion to rehearse the dangerous work of dissecting an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) from the ground up.
For the 1st Radio Battalion, Resolute Hunter serves as much more than a standard readiness check; it is a validation of their role as a stand-in force capable of operating inside the enemy’s weapons engagement zone. Traditionally, the suppression of enemy air defenses has been viewed as an air-centric mission, dominated by fighter jets carrying anti-radiation missiles. However, the Marine Corps’ evolving doctrine places small, dispersed ground units at the forefront of this battle. The battalion’s mission during the exercise focused on the intelligence information architecture, requiring small teams to detect the subtle electromagnetic emissions of the “enemy” radars, geolocate their positions with precision, and feed that targeting data instantly to joint commanders. This process creates a kill web where a Marine on the ground in Nevada can identify a threat emitter, and a Navy pilot or a long-range missile battery can theoretically prosecute the target minutes later. This level of integration requires intense practice, particularly when dealing with the complex signal environments simulated during Resolute Hunter, which is the only Department of Defense exercise dedicated specifically to Battle Management and Command and Control.
The technical fidelity of the exercise is what separates it from standard field maneuvers. Modern threat emitters used at ranges like Fallon are sophisticated pieces of technology that replicate the radar cross-section, thermal signature, and specific electronic pulse modes of systems like the S-300 and HQ-9. This allows the Marines to train against the “signature” of the weapon rather than just its visual silhouette. They learn to identify the specific chirp of a fire control radar locking on versus the sweep of a search radar, a distinction that can mean the difference between life and death in a real conflict. The environment at NAS Fallon further enhances this realism. The Navy’s own environmental data regarding the range highlights the presence of communications towers and electronic warfare emitters dispersed across a landscape defined by long radar horizons and intense ground clutter. The diurnal temperature shifts and dust of the Nevada desert also affect infrared sensors and visual identification, closely mirroring the environmental conditions military personnel would face in potential operational theaters in Southwest Asia.
The geopolitical subtext of this training is difficult to ignore. The specific combination of terrain and threat systems points heavily toward the “Iran hypothesis.” Iran has operated the Russian S-300PMU2 since the mid-2010s, deploying them to protect critical infrastructure such as the Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, often digging the launchers into terrain that looks remarkably like the Fallon ranges. Furthermore, while Iran relies heavily on its domestic Bavar 373 and Khordad 15 systems, there is persistent open-source speculation regarding their interest in or acquisition of Chinese HQ-9 technology to bolster their air defense network. By training against these specific system types in a high-desert environment, the U.S. military is effectively rehearsing the mechanics of dismantling a sophisticated, layered air defense network similar to what exists in Iran. While official Department of Defense releases frame Resolute Hunter as a general certification exercise for joint and allied partners, the specificity of the decoys and the participation of key intelligence and signals units suggests a sharp focus on readiness for state-level conflict in arid regions.
Ultimately, the activity at Resolute Hunter 26-1 underscores a massive shift in how the U.S. Marine Corps views its contribution to the joint fight. They are no longer just an amphibious force or a second land army; they are becoming the eyes and ears inside the denied zone. The 1st Radio Battalion’s integration with Australian allies and U.S. Air Force and Navy assets demonstrates a future of warfare where data is the primary ammunition. As these Marines sat in the Nevada dust, analyzing the signals from fake Russian and Chinese radars, they were refining a kill chain that is very real. The ability to spot a hidden HQ-9 battery, decipher its intent, and digitally hand it off to a striker hundreds of miles away is a capability that strategic rivals are working hard to counter, making exercises like this essential for maintaining the credible threat of force.
