According to Japan's Kyodo News Agency 25**, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force and the U.S. Marine Corps began exercises to recapture the outlying islands in Okinawa, Kyushu from the same day. According to the report, the "Iron Fist" exercise has been conducted in the United States since 2006 and has been held in Japan since last year. This series of exercises has always been considered to be aimed at China, and in the context of Japan's continuous strengthening of defense coordination capabilities with the United States, this exercise is undoubtedly another demonstration to China.
According to the report, unlike last year's exercise, which focused on on-site training, this year's "Iron Fist" exercise also included the formulation of operational plans by the Japanese-US Command and the command of various units, "striving to strengthen a higher level of cooperation between different units."
Participating in the exercise included about 600 members of the Ground Self-Defense Force's "Mobile Aquatic Regiment," known as the Japanese version of the Marine Corps, a special forces unit set up specifically to seize the island. It is widely seen as being set up against China. The U.S. Marine Corps is mainly composed of a rapid reaction force stationed in Okinawa, and the Maritime Self-Defense Force, which is responsible for transporting landing troops and equipment, and U.S. Navy boats also join the training.
The exercise, which will last until 17 March, will include a naval landing at the U.S. military's Blue Beach training ground on Okinagabu Island in Kagoshima Prefecture and Kinmu Town in Okinawa Prefecture, as well as live-fire drills on the uninhabited island of Desuna Island on the western side of the main island of Okinawa, and the U.S. military will dispatch F-35B** fighter jets to conduct bombing exercises.
This may not be seen in this year's "Iron Fist" exercise.
The U.S. "Defense News" said that because the current U.S. Marine Corps "Osprey" transport aircraft has not been grounded, it is expected that the aircraft will not participate, and the U.S. military may dispatch the "Super Stallion" heavy *** as an alternative.
In the author's opinion, it is worth noting that this year's exercise has added the content of "Japan-US Command Formulation of Operational Plans," which is commonly referred to as a joint command post exercise. Just in early February, Japan claimed that Japan's Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military had listed China as an "imaginary enemy" for the first time in the "Blade" joint command post exercise, and claimed that this was the result of "growing concerns about the PLA's possible 'invasion' of the Taiwan region in the future."
The computer-simulated exercise, which began on Feb. 1 and is expected to run until Feb. 8, envisions a scenario of what is known as an "emergency situation in the Taiwan region." Kyodo News said that the naming of "imaginary enemies" goes a step further than the previous use of temporary names to refer to enemies. According to Japan's "Specified Secret Protection", the Japanese Ministry of Defense has listed this scene as a "specially designated secret".
The report mentions that Japan and the United States have previously used vague names and geographical maps that are slightly different from the real map to avoid causing ** in the event of a leak of the plan, but this year not only did they explicitly label the "imaginary enemy" country as China, but also used an unmodified version of the real version of the map.
Although the Japanese side later denied the relevant reports, claiming that the exercise was "not aimed at a specific country or region," the US newspaper "Stars and Stripes" unabashedly declared that whether Japan admits it or not, the imaginary enemy that the United States and Japan are targeting in holding such exercises is China.
Against this background, the United States and Japan deliberately chose Okinawa as the venue for the "Iron Fist" exercise, not only with the intention of pointing at the Diaoyu Islands, but also at "something happening in Taiwan." In recent years, the United States and Japan have tried many times to test China's bottom line through similar moves, so it is very interesting to see whether "China as an imaginary enemy" will be publicly raised again in this "Iron Fist" exercise.
In addition, judging from last year's "Iron Fist" exercise, the relevant exercise subjects included live ammunition shooting, amphibious reconnaissance, fire assault and support, and logistics and medical care, and the purpose was to practice the use of amphibious vehicles and "Osprey" tilt-rotor transport planes and other equipment to recapture islands in remote areas and improve the coordination between the US Marine Corps and Japan's road self-defense forces. The background of last year's exercise was that the hypothetical enemy took control of a remote island, and after the US and Japanese fleets completed their strikes against the "enemy," the "Mobile Aquatic Regiment" of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force began to land and repel the "enemy forces" on the island, and only then did the US Marine Corps land from the "Osprey" transport plane to carry out tasks such as clearing the battlefield.
Compared with the "Iron Fist" exercises held in the United States in the past, the US military's interest in cooperating with Japan in seizing islands during last year's exercise is gradually waning, and in the relevant exercises, Japan's Self-Defense Forces undertook the tasks of landing on the beach with the highest risk and clearing up the remnants of the enemy, while the US military was only responsible for the final clean-up of the battlefield. This change may be related to the deliberate withdrawal of U.S. forces from the first island chain, fearing heavy losses in the battle to seize the islands, or it may be Japan's attempt to strengthen its independent seizing of the islands. Therefore, it is worth paying attention to what changes will occur in the content of the respective exercises of Japan and the United States in this year's "Iron Fist" exercise.
As for the attempt of the United States and Japan to "deter China" through such island-seizing exercises, the author believes that although the exercises held by the United States and Japan are getting larger and larger, in the face of the rapidly modernizing PLA, these moves are all futile -- even the Okinawa base group that the United States and Japan have operated for decades have made the Pentagon feel insecure and need to withdraw the main forces of the US military deployed here in advance.