By Franz-Stefan Gady
US Marines teach Japanese soldiers how to fight from the sea in a bilateral military exercise.
For five weeks, 270 Japanese soldiers from the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) Western Infantry Regiment, along with other units, will participate in an annual, bilateral amphibious training exercise, codenamed Iron Fist, jointly held with the United States Marine Corps (USMC) at Camp Pendleton in southern California.
The goal of the exercise, which will include combat marksmanship, military planning, and fire support operations, is to train the GSDF and USMC in combined amphibious operations, according to a U.S. Department of Defense press release. “Since 2006, Exercise Iron Fist has enabled Japanese soldiers to train with U.S. Marines on American soil to improve the planning, communications, and conducting of combined amphibious operations,” said USMC Colonel Clay C. Tipton, commanding officer of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit. “In the short span of a decade, this exercise has allowed our two services to come together and practice amphibious operations at the platoon, company and battalion level.”
Japan wants to set up its first Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade by the spring of 2017. The initial size of the brigade will be around 2,000 troops, but this is slated to increase to 3,000 once the force becomes fully operational sometime in 2018. The new brigade’s principal mission will be to defend the 6,000 islands and islets of the Ryukyu Islands chain, which stretches southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan.
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