A Zodiac boat launches from the Mexican Navy ship ARM Usumacinta during an amphibious landing exercise.
The Mexican Navy (MARINA) and U.S. Marine Corps conducted the second edition of the bilateral amphibious exercise Operation Fenix on Santa Margarita Island in Baja California Sur in March and April 2025. Practicing scenarios that ranged from medical evacuations to live-fire events, Fenix demonstrated the operational compatibility of the partner nations.
An initial planning conference was held in October 2024, involving a team designated by the General Staff of the Mexican Navy, liaisons from the Office of Defense Coordination of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and representatives from U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM).
This is not the first time an amphibious training operation has taken place between the countries on Santa Margarita Island. In 2018, a training exercise led by Marine Forces Northern Command (MARFORNORTH) included instructors and was executed by Mexican Marine Infantry and Army troops, as well as ships and aircraft from the Navy and a helicopter from the Mexican Air Force.
In 2023, Mexico’s secretary of the Navy authorized the exercise to be conducted on Santa Margarita Island with the mission of enhancing amphibious response capabilities and operational compatibility, strengthening bilateral cooperation between the Mexican Navy and MARFORNORTH. The exercise involved the fictional recovery of Santa Margarita Island, occupied by rebel forces.
A planning success
Hosting this exercise presented logistical challenges for the Mexican Navy, such as increasing accommodation, food, water and energy supplies on Santa Margarita Island, home to the Naval Sector of Puerto Cortés. This required the planning team to issue instructions promptly to prepare troops at least a month in advance and to conduct training exercises that standardize amphibious tactics, techniques and procedures, including combined arms operations (surface, aviation, field artillery) with live-fire exercises.
The exercise planning and execution involved MARFORNORTH staff and troops and featured an amphibious raid with reconnaissance, shaping operations to neutralize enemy antiaircraft threats and indirect fire, as well as surface and air-landed assaults on targets near the beach and deeper inland.
In addition to fulfilling the exercise’s fictional mission, the Mexican Navy aimed to achieve other training objectives, such as:
- Training tactical fire support controllers.
- Live-fire exercises with the 105 mm artillery battery.
- Naval surface fire support with high ballistic trajectories by surface units.
- Effective use of the Wave system at the operation’s command and control center.
- Close air support with helicopters and planes using live fire.
- Helicopter crew training for shipboard operations and medical evacuation.
In the previous exercise, the Mexican Task Force consisted of four surface units, six aircraft, one Marine infantry company, one field artillery battery, one special forces team, and one team to search, locate and neutralize explosive devices, totaling 452 people.
MARFORNORTH’s task force included an exercise control group (six people) stationed on land at the Puerto Cortés Naval Sector with a combat operations center, while the landing force operations center (11 people) was set up aboard the Mexican Navy ship ARM Usumacinta for tactical planning and operations monitoring. Also, two special forces reconnaissance teams (seven people each) participated, bringing the total to 31 participants.
The 2025 edition of the exercise involved more naval units from each nation, as well as the participation of observers from other countries in the hemisphere.