Japan's GSDF, U.S. Marines start amphibious drill

Good, the better prepared both allies are to counter Chinese adventurism the less likely they are to try something stupid.

Japan's GSDF, U.S. Marines start amphibious drill:

So the 3 week long drill is meant to prepare the forces in view of the ambiguous expansion of China.

Why use China as the bait? Why not just say US wishes to extend its hegemonic intention in East Asia..?

urr, I can understand Japan has some regional concern, but geographically, where is The USA?

Why use China as the bait? Why not just say US wishes to extend its hegemonic intention in East Asia..?

??? How is helping Japan better defend it's territory in the face of Chinese claims that Japanese islands belong to China in any way the US extending any kind of hegemony? Early in WWII the IJA pioneered many amphibious assault techniques and were the first to use a dedicated landing craft. But after WWII Japan swore off having an amphibious capability. Until now Japan had no need but China's claims to Japanese territory has made developing an amphibious capability an urgent need. The US Marines are there to protect Japan and are expert at amphibious assault. Should Japan have the PLA teach them instead instead? What do you want?

Wouldn’t they much better need the opposite kind of drill? Bringing in weapons and positioning them on those islands to counter any attempts of amphibious landing attacks from any enemy side and defend the island? I don’t see much sense to drill for own landing or occupying own land or islands and play the enemies’s part in that virtual stage drama.

It is unfortunate, but the only chance we have for peace and freedom is to be prepared to fight for it.

If Japan and China were ever to clash militarily over the Senkaku Islands, would the U.S. Marines come to Japan's aid at once? Judging from the Ukraine case, I would say they wouldn't, excusing the U.S.'s direct involvement would escalate the conflict to a world-scale confrontation, that must be avoided. 

If so, what's the use of building a new base for the U.S. Marines in Henoko, Okinawa?

The Senkaku island is a rock of a size about 8 football fields, you can't dig in trenches, stiff cliffs,no water, no bay for anchoring or docking, uninhabitable ! No one can make permanent garrison over there.

Wouldn’t they much better need the opposite kind of drill? Bringing in weapons and positioning them on those islands to counter any attempts of amphibious landing attacks from any enemy side and defend the island? I don’t see much sense to drill for own landing or occupying own land or islands and play the enemies’s part in that virtual stage drama.

Japan has to be able to put troops and equipment ashore ahead of an enemy and to do that they need to know how to conduct amphibious operations rapidly. These islands are small and numerous. Even if Japan garrisoned all of them it would still need the ability to reinforce quickly in the face of a threat.

The US Marines are changing their doctrine from traditional land warfare to anti-ship warfare. They have already transferred all of their tanks and most of their field guns to the Army and are replacing these with a couple of different cruise missiles. The Littoral Regiments they are experimenting with will land small teams, less than a Company, on an island, quickly set up anti ship missiles on robotic launch vehicles, attack enemy warships in an attack coordinated with naval surface and air forces, then quickly withdraw back out to sea before an enemy can counter attack. This won't be the Amphibious Ready Group of yore with a big deck LHA and two smaller but still very large dock landing ships, but instead a group of much smaller ships that can disperse into merchant and fishing traffic someplace like the seas off east Asia or maybe the many islands around Greece and Turkey.

If Japan and China were ever to clash militarily over the Senkaku Islands, would the U.S. Marines come to Japan's aid at once? 

The US would. The US has no formal defense commitment to Ukraine. Ukraine is not a NATO member so there is no formal obligation for the US or NATO to defend Ukraine against attack. By contrast the US has a formal commitment to defend Japan and has expressed many times that a Chinese invasion of the Senkaku Islands would invoke that pact.

To reinforce this fact to the Chinese, last year the US and Japanese held an exercise where a beach landing team was deployed to some small Japanese islands from a Guided Missile Submarine at night. If you have ever swum in the ocean at night you know that it's pretty sporty to conduct a beach landing from rubber boats at night to a rocky unfamiliar shore. The SSGNs have berthing and messing facilities for Marines or Seals, methods for launching small boats or mini-subs from a docking well and places to wash the salt water off everything and warm up cold divers or Marines. There are four SSGNs and the US keeps one in Asian waters for such contingencies. At the conclusion of the exercise it was publicly stated this was one way the US could reinforce the Senkaku Islands in anticipation of a Chinese landing party.

Desert Tortoise,

Maybe, the U.S. would come to Japan's aid in such a case. But only when the JSDF cannot deal with the situation by themselves, as bilaterally agreed.

The catch is: Even so, is a new base for the U.S. Marines absolutely necessary to build in Okinawa? Can't Guam/Hawaii-deployed Marines come to help JSDF? Wouldn't they help JSDF unless they are provided with the new base?

Participating in the drill were 400 GSDF members and 600 Okinawa-based Marines. Hmm, 400 GSDF members vs. 600 U.S. Marines. What's the reason for this differential?

Doesn't it mean to deceive people's eyes and let them believe that the U.S. Marines will play a leading role in a future conflict involving the Senkakus? But that's not true. It's shenanigans.

Participating in the drill were 400 GSDF members and 600 Okinawa-based Marines. Hmm, 400 GSDF members vs. 600 U.S. Marines. What's the reason for this differential?

Sigh. The Marines sent the combat elements of a battalion. The Japanese small amphibious assault ships can only land 300 troops. The rest is probably aircrew for the tiltrotors, their maintainers and some supporting manpower that goes along on squadron detachments. When we detted out we'd take two helicopters, 8 pilots one of which was the Det OIC (Officer in Charge) and almost three dozen enlisted members of which a dozen were also aircrew members and the rest mechanics, supply support and admin weenies plus a Chief Petty Officer to ride herd on the enlisted troops. A V-22 has to have at least two pilots and one crewman in back just to fly around and two crewmen in back for some missions. One to work the hoist and the other is a SAR Swimmer for example if you are doing a rescue.

Desert Tortoise,

Haven't the two governments agreed that the primary responsibility to defend Japan's outlying islands rests with JSDF?

Besides, in April 1982, then U.S. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger testified before a Congressional committee that the Marine personnel stationed on Okinawa are there not for the defense of Japan but that they are stationed there as constitutional elements of the Seventh Fleet for the security of the Indo-Pacific region (The Ryukyu Shimpo: 7/7/2016).