The new Marine littoral regiment would be stationed by 2025 and have advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, anti-ship, and transportation capabilities, U.S. officials said. The formal recognition is slated to come in a joint statement Wednesday after high-level talks between U.S. and Japanese national security officials.

The talks come as Tokyo signals its willingness to take on a more offensive role in the Pacific given its view of China as its biggest strategic challenge, newly outlined in Japan’s defense strategy last month. There are growing concerns in Japan and the U.S. that Taiwan may become a military flashpoint in the region as China regards the self-governing island as part of its own territory.

The joint statement will welcome Japan’s new aim to acquire “counterstrike capabilities” ― part of the nation’s plans to double its defense budget. The planned expenditure would make Japan the world’s third biggest military spender.

Wednesday, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will meet with American counterparts Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will then meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday.

“The leaders will discuss our shared vision of a modernized alliance that will tackle 21st century challenges in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday. “China certainly will be a topic of discussion with our Japanese allies during the consultative meetings this week.”

Ryder said the meeting will provide an opportunity to discuss how to modernize the alliance and maintain a stable and secure Pacific, but declined to provide details on the new agreement.

The U.S. Marine Corps said publicly months ago it plans in 2025 to transform the Okinawa-based 12th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit, into a 12th Marine Littoral Regiment. However, Yomiuri Shimbun broke the news this week that Japan would formally agree to the quick-reaction force, meant to counter Chinese adventurism in the disputed Senkaku Islands.

Reportedly, the U.S. would not add troops on Okinawa, but reorganize some into a Marine littoral regiment, usually made up of 2,000 Marines. There are roughly 18,000 Marines in Japan, and while the Japanese government mostly supports U.S. bases, the presence of U.S. military personnel is unpopular among many Okinawans.

Okinawa Prefecture’s office in Washington said in a statement “it’s necessary to demand a firm explanation” of the planned changes from both governments. Okinawans are anxious about militarizing the southwestern islands, and strengthening them runs counter to their desire to reduce the base burden.

“We believe that the maintenance of order and stability in the region requires not only increased deterrence, but also constant diplomatic efforts,” said the statement.

The force structure changes compliment Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030, a plan to refashion the Corps with units that can be dispersible, highly mobile and hard to track.

The first of three planned units, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, stood up last March in Hawaii. Officials have said the units will be armed with Navy strike missiles mounted on unmanned Joint Light Tactical Vehicles and able to target enemy ships; MQ-9A Reapers for unmanned extended-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and a Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar, or G/ATOR.

U.S. officials describing the joint statement said the unit is the Marine Corps’ most advanced formation and would provide a stand-in force able to defend Japan and quickly respond to contingencies.

Tokyo, wary of rankling China, was long hesitant to allow such force posture changes, but it’s likely China’s launch of ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in recent months helped upend that thinking, said Eric Sayers, a former senior adviser to U.S. Pacific Command who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“Having these modern, mobile, lethal Marine Corps units in the southwestern islands that can operate independently, operate alongside Japanese units, is sending a pretty strong signal to Beijing that the alliance will continue to upgrade itself and deter a [Chinese] course of action in Taiwan,” Sayers said.

The two countries were also expected to hail the U.S. Air Force’s deployment of MQ-9 Reapers to Kanoya Air Base in southern Japan, where they have been conducting reconnaissance flights. Their patrols can collect information about Chinese military activity in the area — including signs it may be preparing to invade Taiwan — and about North Korea, which recently fired a ballistic missile over Japan.

Japan in December committed to acquiring long-range weapons and to continue increasing its defense budget as part of its latest National Security Strategy. Japan is seeking to buy U.S.-made Tomahawks and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles that can reach potential targets in China ― and extend the range of its Type 12 missile.

In the new joint statement, the U.S. and Japan commit to exploring more effective alliance command-and-control relationships to improve interoperability and responsiveness, U.S. officials said this week.

According to former Biden National Security Council official Christopher Johnstone, the Japanese counter-strike capability would set the stage for a far deeper level of command-and-control integration with the U.S. than exists today. That’s because Japan will likely rely heavily on U.S. intelligence and targeting support as it develops the capability.

“Any scenario in which Japan is launching long-range cruise missiles at targets in China or North Korea would almost certainly coincide with U.S. military action; the allies therefore will need to develop an integrated process for target identification, prioritization, and deconfliction to maximize the effectiveness of U.S. and Japanese strike operations. This capacity does not exist today,” Johnstone, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a recent paper.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies separately recommended, based on its recent war games of a Taiwan scenario, the U.S. prioritize deepening diplomatic and military ties with Japan. Based on its projections that the U.S. and Japan would suffer devastating losses of vital aircraft on the ground to China’s missiles, CSIS called for working with Tokyo to harden bases and plan for the use of civilian airfields.

For a Chinese takeover of Taiwan to be thwarted, it’s critical for the U.S. and its warplanes to be able to operate out of its bases in Japan, the think tank concluded. Without U.S. fighters based in Japan for escorts, U.S. bombers would be vulnerable to Chinese fighters armed with extreme-range air-to-air missiles ― and China would be able to concentrate on targets in Taiwan.

With reporting by Irene Loewenson, Megan Eckstein and Rachel. S. Cohen.

Granted, there is virtually no possibility of the ISIS-linked militants successfully holding on to an ever-shrinking part of Marawi City in the Lanao del Sur province on the southern island of Mindanao against the ongoing military assault. But regional defense and security watchers fear that the perceived success of the Maute group in keeping the Philippine military at bay for even a protracted period could raise the group’s profile, making it a more attractive proposition to potential donors and recruits. 

The result is that regional defense ministers and other security officials and professionals that lost territory in Iraq and Syria for ISIS might spur trained foreign fighters from the Middle East to make their way to the southern Philippines in an attempt to regroup.

Roots of the crisis

The current round of fighting in Marawi began on May 23, when the Philippine military and police mounted an operation to capture Isnilon Hapilon, named by an Islamic State newsletter in 2016 as “emir of all Islamic State forces in the Philippines.” The operation failed and a shootout ensued with militants of the Maute group, one of several insurgencies from the area that have pledged allegiance to ISIS. The group then proceeded to seize the city of 200,000 and its weapons, driving out the local police and city administrators. 

According to Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the ISIS attackers included 260 Maute militants, 100 Abu Sayyaf militants under Isnilon Hapilon and roughly 150 from local militant organizations.  

Richard Heydarian, a foreign affairs analyst from the Philippines, suggested to Defense News that the seizure of Marawi might have been timed to coincide with international travel of President Rodrigo Duterte and Philippines’ senior military leadership, and conducted in response to a jibe from Duterte last year challenging the Maute to seize Marawi.

Duterte declared martial law for all of Mindanao soon after Marawi’s seizure, and the military immediately went on the offensive to take back the city. Despite outnumbering the militants and utilizing armoured assets and airstrikes from aircraft and helicopters, progress has been slow, with Heydarian noting that the military “clearly has some struggles with urban warfare” it encountered in Marawi, along with deficiencies in intelligence gathering and coordination between different forces.

This was painfully brought home May 31, when an errant airstrike hit an army position engaged in close combat with the militants, resulting in the deaths of 10 Filipino soldiers and the wounding of several more. 

The military has also lost a number of its GKN Simba and Cadillac-Gage V-150 armored cars to RPGs and recoilless rifle fire, spurring improvised armor in the form of cardboard boxes and wooden planks to prematurely detonate the warheads.  

International response

Both the United States and regional countries have been quick to react to the sudden turn of events.  Local media covering the fighting between troops belonging to the Armed Forces of the Philippines or AFP and militants in the city of Marawi on Mindanao Island have photographed an AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma Unmanned Aerial Vehicle being operated by Western personnel near the battle, as well as a Lockheed-Martin P-3C Orion circling the city on separate occasions. 

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in nearby Singapore on June 3, also said the U.S. would continue to “support the modernization of the Philippines’ armed forces” and “uphold our commitments to the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty.”

This is despite Duterte’s regular outbursts against the United States and overtures to China and Russia, who he has approached for assistance to equip the underfunded and poorly equipped Philippine military. 

However, analyst Heydarian noted to Defense News that the “reality is both powers are not in a position to provide in a sufficient proportion the assistance the Philippines needs in order to deal with this problem,” adding that “only one country can provide the high-grade intelligence, advanced equipment, and has a long history of interoperability with the armed forces of the Philippines, and that is the United States.”

Meanwhile, neighboring countries have also indicated they will be pushing ahead with plans to conduct air and naval patrols in the Sulu Sea, which has been used as a conduit for piracy, transnational crime and militancy in the region. At 2016’s Shangri-La Dialogue, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, who all have coastlines with the Sulu Sea, had floated the idea of limited coordinated patrols and signed an agreement to that effect soon after. Since then, things have appeared bogged down as the countries have struggled to develop standardized procedures and supporting infrastructure to mount those patrols. The idea was again brought up in 2017’s Shangri-La Dialogue, with Malaysian defense minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein revealing that maritime patrols will start June 19. 

Heydarian warns that the long-term focus of the Philippine government is not just to deal with the problem of insurgency or terrorism in isolation, but also to address the grievances of the local population in Mindanao, which has a Muslim-majority in contrast with majority Catholic Philippines. As it is, Heydarian notes that the destruction in Marawi could already lead to further grievances to be exploited by extremist jihadi groups for recruitment.

Singapore’s defense minister, Ng Eng Hen, has already noted that if the problem in the southern Philippines is not contained, it can affect “all of Southeast Asia and beyond.”

Echoing that sentiment, Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada

reiterated her support for freedom of navigation operations by the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea, saying that they “represent the U.S. resolve to maintain the open, free and peaceful international maritime order.”

Inada also used her speech to highlight continuing tensions over territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas although she did not mention any country by name, noting that in the former “government ships of a certain country continue to make periodic incursions into Japanese territorial waters” while “the construction of outposts in the South China Sea and their use for military purposes continues.”

Speaking immediately after Inada, Australian Defense Minister Marise Payne said Australia

“will also continue to strongly support the right of others to exercise these rights.” She added that Australian military ships and aircraft will continue to “operate in the South China Sea, as they have for decades, consistent with the rights of freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight.”

Under Operation Gateway, the Royal Australian Air Force deploys a single Lockheed-Martin AP-3C Orion aircraft to Butterworth, Malaysia between four and eight times a year, conducting regular flights over fortnightly periods.

Get full coverage of trends and news influencing defense in Asia, including the Shangri-La Dialogue here.

According to the Australian defense department, these flights are Australia’s contribution to the preservation of regional security and stability in South East Asia, and include maritime surveillance patrols in the North Indian Ocean and South China Sea.

Both Mattis and Inada also stressed that last year’s permanent court of arbitration ruling on the case brought on by the Philippines against Chinese actions in the South China Sea was legally binding, with all three ministers urging the claimant countries to abide by it and to use it as a starting point to manage the dispute, although China had refused to participate in the arbitration process and said it will ignore the ruling.

The ministers were not the only ones to weigh in on the need to continue the patrols, with IISS-Asia’s Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security William Choong telling assembled media that the U.S. “needs to enforce the freedom of the seas,” noting there was a seven-month hiatus in freedom of navigation patrols until the destroyer USS Dewey sailed within twelve nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the South China Sea on May 24, the first such patrol under the Trump administration.

Mattis will speak June 3 at the morning plenary sessions at this year’s iteration of the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which will take place June 2-4.

The plenary sessions at the event will examine the role of the United States in the Asia-Pacific, geopolitical change and defense policy, crisis management in the region, and other topics. There will also be special sessions on nuclear dangers and emerging technology, with regional and global senior defense officials poised to speak at the event.

The dialogue is organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, or IISS, and is currently the largest gathering of defense professionals in the Asia-Pacific region. This year’s event will see more than 500 delegates — representing 32 nations from across the Asia-Pacific and beyond — converge in Singapore to examine the region’s most enduring security challenges.

Tim Huxley, executive director of IISS-Asia in Singapore, said he has been told Mattis will deliver a “concise, punchy” speech. Earlier reports indicated the defense secretary will discuss North Korea, pressing for greater regional cooperation to contain the isolated regime’s nuclear and missile program.

If this is the case, it will be in contrast to previous years, where the U.S. has tried to focus the spotlight on China’s expansion and assertive behavior in the strategic South China Sea.

However, regional allies and partners will be keen for Mattis to outline the Trump administration’s policy in the Asia-Pacific. Huxley and Benjamin Schreer, who heads the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Australia’s Macquarie University, warned in a recent article for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that failing to do so will fuel “the perception — particularly in Southeast Asia — that the United States is effectively ceding its regional leadership to China,” and this perception “will only become more pervasive and more influential with regard to Asian countries’ policy choices.”

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull struck a similar tone in his keynote address at the event, where he expects the Trump administration will “recognize, as its predecessors have, that the United States’ own interests in the Indo-Pacific demand more U.S. engagement, not less,” noting that the “peace and stability of our region has been enabled by consistent U.S. global leadership”. 

He also called the United States’ decisions to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Agreement on climate change “disappointing.” But he also urged the audience “not to rush to interpret an intent to engage on different terms as one not to engage at all.”

Another issue that will likely come up at the summit will be the Philippines’ ongoing battle with Islamic State group-linked Maute militants in the southern part of the country, where the Army is struggling to take back the central Mindanao town of Marawi, which was overrun following a failed attempt to arrest the group’s leader in the town in late May.

BEL is undertaking research and development worth more than $385 million. “One of the major programs we are investing in is with the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organization, or DRDO, for development of quick reaction surface-

to-air missiles, or QR-SAM,” Gowtama added.

The entire QRSAM system is worth over $3 billion to arm eight air defense systems regiments of the Indian army.

The Indian army urgently needs to replace the aging Russian air defense systems, and the new Indian army chief has publicly announced that the need is “critical.” The Indian army has been pursuing the QRSAM systems since 2011 through a global tender.

An executive of BEL said: “The company is establishing a defense systems integration complex at Palasamudram in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh with an estimated investment of $123 million over a period of five years.”

“The proposed complex will be a world-class facility with automated guided vehicles and industrial robots for material movement and handling with state-of-the-art manufacturing infrastructure for radars and weapon systems integration,” the BEL executive noted.

Asked whether BEL will begin manufacturing missiles, the company executive said, “BEL is not planning to enter into manufacture of missiles, focusing on development of electronics systems for missiles.”

Gowtama said that 88 percent of its sales revenue is from indigenous technology, which includes procurement of systems and sub-systems from micro, small and medium micro enterprises, or MSMEs. He said procurement from MSMEs had been increased to 20 percent and BEL’s test facilities were being provided to private vendors.

A BEL executive said the company’s exports include “coastal surveillance systems, advanced composite communication systems, a shipborne electronic warfare system named Sanket, [and] electro optic fire control system, among others.”

However, the export order book was only $82 million as of April 1, 2017, which includes an offset order book of $15 million.

An official of the Ministry of Defence, however, said, BEL will have to compete more keenly with private-sector defense companies as the government wants to boost defense production in the private sector.

While North Korea has not yet demonstrated the capability to marry a nuclear device to an ICBM, they have repeatedly expressed the desire to do so, and have devoted significant resources to making this capability a reality. When they do, U.S. facilities and forces stationed in Korea, Japan, Guam, and Hawaii would be immediately vulnerable to the threat of an attack. The North Koreans have increased the pace of their missile testing, with two successful launches within the past few weeks, including liquid- and solid-fueled missiles. 

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system is currently being deployed to South Korea, and a similar system is located on Guam. U.S. forces in Japan are shielded by U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers with ballistic missile defense capabilities. This leaves Hawaii — which hosts a major naval base, the 25th Infantry Division, and the headquarters of both PACOM and Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet — as a key strategic target that is increasingly vulnerable to a North Korean attack. Deployment of a THAAD system to Hawaii could provide the protection required.

Another possible alternative would be to “operationalize” the Aegis Ashore site located at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, or PMRF, on Kauai. The Aegis Ashore site has demonstrated the capability to detect, track and destroy medium-range ballistic missiles, and it is the prototype for similar systems that are being installed in Romania and Poland. These tests involved using the existing radars at PMRF and missiles from U.S. Navy ships based at Pearl Harbor.

Exactly what would be required to operationalize the Aegis Ashore site? At a minimum, it would require conversion of the Aegis Ashore site to around-the-clock operations, probable construction of additional office and administrative spaces, an increase in assigned personnel to support operations, and provision of the SM-3 missiles, either through construction of a missile site in Hawaii, or use of the ballistic missile defense-capable U.S. Navy ships. 

Congress has already directed the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide a report that contains “an evaluation of the ballistic and air threat to Hawaii; the efficacy (including with respect to cost and potential alternatives) of making the Aegis Ashore site at PMRF operational; deploying the preferred alternative for fielding a medium range ballistic missile defense sensor for the defense of Hawaii.”

Congress, the Department of Defense and the Navy all acknowledge that a gap exists in the defense of the Hawaiian Islands and that the threat from North Korea is growing rapidly. The fastest and most immediate way to provide for the defense of Hawaii is to operationalize the Aegis Ashore site located at PMRF on Kauai. Considering recent events on the Korean Peninsula and the testimony of Harris, the Hawaiian congressional delegation should push the DoD to provide information on the operationalization of Kauai as soon as possible, with an eye toward immediately working to bring the Aegis Ashore site online.

J. J. Coyne is a retired Navy captain who served two tours in Hawaii and commanded a Navy helicopter squadron.

If China accepts, 2018 will mark the third consecutive RIMPAC exercise where units of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, have taken part. Five PLAN ships participated in the 2016 exercises — a destroyer, a frigate, a submarine rescue ship, a supply ship and a hospital ship.

Four Chinese ships took part in the 2014 exercises — the same mix of ships minus the submarine rescue ship. Somewhat infamously, a Chinese intelligence ship shadowed the exercises, although it was not part of the official RIMPAC team.

Russia also has officially participated in RIMPAC — once, in 2012. The Russians have not been invited back, although an intelligence ship and a destroyer shadowed RIMPAC participants in 2014 and 2016.

Exact dates for the 2018 exercises will be determined during the planning conferences, Perry said. The exercises generally run over several weeks, and in 2016 a satellite exercise took place simultaneously in southern California.

Chile, a RIMPAC stalwart, will be highlighted in the 2018 exercises, Perry added, with Chilean officers acting for the first time as the combined force maritime component commander.

Sino-U.S. relations have recently seen both ups and downs, particularly as the U.S. has sought to enlist Chinese aid in dealing with nuclear-armed missile threats from North Korea. A summit in early April between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida seemed to go well, according to both sides; although after a pause, North Korea resumed aggressive missile testing.

But a freedom-of-navigation passage on May 24 by the U.S. destroyer Dewey near Mischief Reef in the South China Sea annoyed the Chinese. And on at least two occasions since then, Chinese aircraft have flown dangerously close to U.S. patrol planes, according to the Pentagon.