USA: Soldiers Prove Mettle, Readiness in Talisman Saber

By Army Sgt. Frank Strumila, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment

QUEENSLAND, Australia, July 24, 2017 — Australia is not for the faint of heart. Scorpions, snakes, and spiders lurk in the Outback; treacherous terrain crisscrosses the northeastern countryside; extreme temperature shifts can leave you sweltering during the day and chilled to the bone at night.

These challenges did not deter the soldiers of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division as they trained alongside their Australian counterparts during Talisman Saber 17.

Talisman Saber is a multinational, multiechelon exercise held in Australia every other year. This year, 33,000 troops from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan trained alongside Americans from all military branches.

As part of Talisman Saber, the Australian Defense Force's 3rd Brigade conducted a certification field training exercise called Operation Hamel. The soldiers associated with the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, from Alaska, Hawaii, and around the Pacific, supported 3rd Brigade's certification as a subordinate maneuver force.

For the soldiers from Alaska, Talisman Saber 17 was the first of three exercises supported by Pacific Pathways, a U.S. Army Pacific initiative of exercises that take place annually around the Asian Pacific region. After completing Talisman Saber 17, the Task Force will travel next to the Hanuman Guardian exercise in Thailand and then to Orient Shield in Japan to build both readiness and interoperability with multinational partners.

News Report: Tokyo Regrets US Plans to Hold Parachute Drills on Okinawa – Defense Minister

Japan regret’s US plans to hold parachute drills at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Japan’s Defense Minister Tomomi Inada has expressed regret that the US military intends to hold on Wednesday parachute drills at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa despite Tokyo’s pleas to cancel the exercises.

"If the drills are held, that would be three months in a row. It is very regrettable," the minister was quoted as saying by the Jiji agency.

In 1996, Japan and the United States agreed that the US forces would conduct parachute drills only on the Iejima Island off the coast of Okinawa, a more reclusive location than the Kadena Air Base which is on the Okinawa itself. However, on Monday, the Japanese Defense Ministry received notice from the US forces that the drills would be held at Kadena due to weather conditions.

News Report: Wakeup Call - Why is Japan’s Defense Minister Asking US to Cancel Okinawa Drills?

Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada has urged the US to call off the May 31 - June 1 parachute drills slated to be held on the country’s southern Okinawa Island.

"We asked the United States to cancel the drills and cancel notifications for aircraft. At the moment we have not got a US answer,” Inada said, as quoted by the NHK broadcaster.

Tomomi Inada also said that the Americans hadn’t given a seven-day prior notification of the exercise, which is part of the defense agreement currently existing between the two countries.

The island of Okinawa is the main site of US military presence in Japan within the framework of the US-Japan security treaty signed in 1951.

On May 15, 2015 the Okinawans celebrated 45 years since Japan regained control of their island.

The small island, which takes up a mere 0.6 percent of Japan’s landmass, hosts 74 percent of US military installations in the country and over 50 percent of US troops deployed in Japan.

US military bases take up a hefty 18 percent of the island’s territory, including farmlands.

News Report: US Military Drills at Okinawa Test the Limits of Tokyo’s Patience

The decision by the US military to hold a snap exercise near Okinawa hints at Pentagon’s apparent belief that the US troops can do as they please on the island without having to worry about the consequences.

Earlier Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada demanded the US military to cancel its parachuting drill scheduled to take place in the vicinity of Okinawa on May 31 and June 1.

It should be noted that the US has apparently failed to notify Japan seven days ahead of the drill, as stipulated by a security agreement between the two countries; Tokyo only learned of this development when the US issued Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) to the Japanese civil aviation authorities.

"We asked [the US] not to conduct the training and to delete the NOTAM. So far we have not received a response from the US site," Inada said.

This parachuting drill became the third such exercise conducted by the US military forces at Okinawa this month, even though Japan and the United States agreed in 1996 that US parachute drills must be conducted on the island of Iejima, while other sites can be used for such purposes only under exceptional circumstances.

News Report: Japanese Defense Minister Demands US to Cancel Parachute Drills in Okinawa

Japan's defense minister urged the US military at the Okinawa island to scrap their parachute drills slated for May 31 - June 1.

TOKYO (Sputnik) – Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Tuesday demanded for US troops deployed on the Okinawa island to cancel their parachute drills scheduled for May 31 – June 1.

“We asked the United States to cancel the drills and cancel notifications for aircraft. At the moment we have not got a US answer,” Inada said, as quoted by the NHK broadcaster.

Japan and the United States agreed in 1996 that US parachute drills must be conducted on the island of Iejima, while other sites can be used for such purposes only under exceptional circumstances.

News Story: Japan defense chief displeased with U.S. parachuting drill at Kadena

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Friday expressed displeasure at a recent U.S. military parachuting drill at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa's main island, indicating it might have flouted a bilateral accord.

Inada said U.S. parachute drop training should be "basically" conducted at an airfield on nearby Ie Island under a Japan-U.S. accord reached in 1996, and that the use of the U.S. Air Force base for parachuting training should be an "exception."

"But the United States did not offer sufficient explanation on why the exercise conducted (Wednesday) amounted to an exceptional case," Inada said at a regular press conference. "It is extremely deplorable that it took place at Kadena Air Base without Japan and the United States able to share the same perception in advance."

"The Japanese side does not think this was an exceptional case," she added.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Report: US Conducts Drills in Okinawa Violating Agreement on Relocation to Ioto

US military forces conducted on Monday paratrooper drills over a military base in Japan's Okinawa prefecture despite the agreement prohibiting parachute drop exercises in this area, local media reported.

TOKYO (Sputnik) — Nearly 30 US paratroopers practiced parachute jumps out of MC-130 special mission aircraft with all of them landed on the Okinawa territory, what violated the agreement of 1996 stipulating relocation of paratrooper exercises to the island of Ioto, Kyodo news agency reported.

The Japanese Defense Ministry informed the authorities of the Okinawa's Kadena city about the drills only late on Sunday, the news agency specified.

News Story: Okinawans call for U.S. military to go home after further provocations

TOKYO, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Local residents of Kadena on Okinawa's main island said the United States military conducting parachute training drills over Okinawa's mainland on Monday morning was completely unacceptable with the latest provocation coming amid rising anti-U.S. military sentiment on the island.

Local media reported that residents in the area still remember a tragic incident that occurred in 1965 involving an elementary schoolgirl being crushed to death by a trailer being parachuted down to a village during such a drill.

The area hasn't seen parachute drills by the U.S. military since a drill at the base in 2011, that saw 30 personnel deploy from a MC-130 special mission aircraft, official accounts showed.

The aircraft used to deploy the airmen are designed for infiltration and exfiltration missions and can also be used for resupply of special operation forces.

The large transporter-looking planes can also be configured to be used for air refueling of primarily special operation helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft like the controversial Osprey, also hosted in Okinawa and mainland Japan, and the cause of great condemnation here for its checkered safety record.

The latest drill saw the local residents notified of the parachute exercise less than a day before it occurred, when notice was sent out on Sunday night by the Japanese Defense Ministry.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: U.S. parachuting drill over Okinawa's Kadena irks host town

NAHA, Japan (Kyodo) -- The U.S. military conducted a parachuting drill over Kadena Air Base on Okinawa's main island on Monday morning, irking the host town as Japan and the United States have agreed to hold such drills only at a different airfield in the southwestern prefecture.

The town of Kadena, which had called for the military not to conduct a parachuting exercise at the air base, said Monday the drill was unacceptable.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: The Pentagon could send conventional military forces into Syria

By: Andrew deGrandpre, Michelle Tan and Shawn Snow

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is developing proposals for sending an unspecified number of American military personnel into Syria, conventional ground forces who would augment the 500 combat advisers already there coordinating efforts to destroy the Islamic State. 

First reported Wednesday by CNN, any such deployment would have to be approved by President Donald Trump. However, the commander in chief has directed military leaders to fast track plans for defeating the terror group and, according to White House documents leaked to the media late last month, he has expressed a willingness to expand the United States' presence in war-torn Syria. 

Defense Department officials would neither confirm nor deny the report. 

"We are in the process of conducting our 30-day review of the strategy to defeat ISIS as directed by the president," said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. ISIS is another name for the Islamic State. "We are considering a number of measures to accelerate the campaign as part of that review, but no decisions have been made." 

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Islamic State campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq, told Military Times that no deployment announcements are imminent. 

However, multiple U.S. Army sources indicated that about two thousand soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team soon may bolster other Army elements already in the region. Currently, about 1,800 paratroopers from the 2nd BCT are in Iraq participating in the U.S. military's train-and-advise mission. The 82nd Airborne Division is based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Citing an unidentified U.S. defense official, CNN indicated additional deployments could happen within weeks. 

Read the full story at MilitaryTimes

News Story: Pakistan Navy Holds 5-Day Maritime Demonstration

Pakistan’s special forces and participating countries carried out a maritime counter-terrorism demonstration on the island of Manora in Karachi on Saturday.

Over 36 countries are participating in the five-day exercise which helps in combating drug trade, human trafficking, illegal gun trade, piracy and extremism, the Pakistan Navy said.

Speaking at the event, Pakistan’s navy lieutenant commander, Qaiser Razzaq, said: "I was in charge of the Sea Eagle team here who demonstrated free fall sky diving. It was part of the MCT demo -- Maritime Counter-Terrorism Demo. Actually, there are two types of free fall, one is called Tactical, the other is called Sports. Tactical is important from the operation point of view, especially at infiltration in the enemy land. But what we have demonstrated falls in the category of Sports."

Read the full story at TOLOnews

News Report: China Intensely Investing in Creating Flexible and Capable Airborne Forces

Airborne forces are an important element of the Chinese military and Beijing will continue to invest in their development and upgrade their combat capabilities.

China is pursuing its global interests, including placing focus on expanding its international military presence, as part of its "active defense" doctrine.

Traditionally, Beijing used to rely on its ground forces, but over the recent years it has been heavily investing in the navy and the air force. Now, China is enhancing its airborne forces, a report by the American think-tank Stratfor read. 

According to the article, having capable airborne forces is of strategic importance for China. China is one of the largest countries in the world and has a number of remote places along its border. Moreover, China is surrounded by potential flashpoints, including at the border with India and North Korea.