The Marines in Japan are training for possible island operations in Japan, using The Chinese army as an imaginary enemy. A U.S. MILITARY MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft takes off and land from the deck of the Izumo class helicopter frigate DDH-184, which serves as a helicopter carrier, off the coast of Southern Japan in October 2020. (Reuters File photo)
U.S. Marines are stepping up training in Japan to prepare for a future conflict in the western Pacific dominated by islands, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. In recent years, the focus of u. S. Marine Corps preparations has shifted to China, making Japan the frontline of U. S. strategic pivot to China.
The MARINES have recently carried out a series of drills. In December last year, the GROUND Self-Defense Force conducted a field exercise simulating island defense at the “Soma Warhara garrison” in Jindong Village, Gunma Prefecture. Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper said the exercise was based on an expansion of the military threat posed by China in southwestern Japan, from Kyushu to Taiwan.
In the exercise, the Marine Corps uses its MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to carry marines, and the Marines use their CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters to improve marines’ interoperability with marines. The exercise’s mock mission is to evade enemy reconnaissance and retake island ports within range of enemy missiles and artillery, WSJ reports.
China’s emergence as an emerging military power has been a new focus for the PENTAGON as it updates its strategy and training programs. Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, said China’s development of advanced weapons, such as hypersonic missiles, unmanned systems and robots, has’ fundamentally changed the u.s.-China equation. ‘
Maritime and land cooperation training between the two countries
Brigadier General Kyle Ellison, of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, said the U.S. military is testing how to work with the U.S. Navy and the Army’s Amphibious Mobile Regiment, Japan’s version of the Marine Corps, which was formed in 2008. “We are training every day,” Ellison said.
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