(STAR &STRIPES) — The Marine Corps is integrating new weapons and refining its island defence strategy alongside Japan to counter any military crisis in the Indo-Pacific region, the Marines’ top general on Okinawa said Tuesday.
“The last thing we want is a confrontation or conflict with China,” Lieutenant General Roger Turner, commander of the III Marine Expeditionary Force, said at the start of a media roundtable at his headquarters on Courtney.
“But we will not be deterred from continuing work alongside our allies and partners in support of our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Japan reported Sunday that a Chinese J-15 fighter jet launched the previous day from the aircraft carrier Liaoning locked military radar on two Japanese F-15s that scrambled in response to potential airspace violations near Okinawa. A radar lock on a potential target can be the precursor to a missile attack.
The incident is a “good example of the kinds of activity that we see day-to-day across the region,” Turner told the reporters.
“This particular act was more provocative than we have seen recently,” he said. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen these sorts of activities increase exponentially across the region.”
Turner took command of the expeditionary force in January 2024 and oversaw the integration of the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment’s three subordinate units, including logistics, anti-air and combat team elements.
The regiment’s stand-in force operations are a key tenet of the island-fighting doctrine found in the Marines’ Force Design plan. Littoral regiments are designed as smaller, mobile units inserted within enemy missile range to seize and hold key islands and deny enemy vessels access to surrounding areas.
The regiment helps the force to “not only be able to project power from the sea to the land, but our ability to project power from the land to the sea, in the air, and into space — in cyberspace,” Turner said.
“I think what we have learned is that we do have the ability to do that now,” he said. “That capability is not only resident in the [Marine littoral regiment]. That’s kind of the core capabilities for the broader Marine expeditionary force.”
During the Resolute Dragon exercise in September, the regiment deployed the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, and the Marine Air Defence Integrated System, or MADIS, to Ishigaki island for the first time.
MADIS — armed with Stinger missiles, a 30 mm cannon and 7.62 mm machine gun — is designed to counter low-flying aircraft and armed drones. NMESIS mounts Naval Strike Missiles on joint light tactical vehicles to target ships at sea.
Turner stressed both systems’ ability to work in conjunction with Japanese weaponry, such as the Type 88 and Type 12 surface-to-ship missile systems.
Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi reaffirmed his country’s commitment to increasing cooperation with the U.S in the Nansei islands during a meeting with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, he said in Tokyo during a news conference in October. The islands, including Okinawa, stretch from southwest Kyushu to Taiwan.
Turner said the Marines have worked with Japanese forces to improve their communications, command and control and ability to bring firepower to bear.
“That really has been the intense learning that we have done over the last two, three, four years,” he said. “But I’m happy to report that I think we’re making really good progress on all of those fronts.” Turner. (PACNEWS)
