Dec 10 (South China Morning Post) - Fighter aircraft and tanks are conducting live-fire drills while a US multiple rocket system has been deployed as American and Japanese troops carry out one of their largest joint military drills in recent years.
The Exercise Resolute Dragon, which runs through December 17 at locations from Okinawa in the far south of Japan to Hokkaido in the north, involves 2,600 US Marines and some 1,400 Japanese military personnel participating in a wide range of military scenarios on land, sea and in the air. Analysts say the drills – which come shortly after bilateral sea-air exercises in the South China Sea and in waters off Okinawa prefecture, as well as a series of manoeuvres with military units from Britain, Australia, France, the Netherlands and Germany – underline Tokyo’s desire to deepen its security and military cooperation with its allies. And while Japan is closely watching developments in North Korea and Russia – which recently deployed a battery of its Bastion coastal missile defence system to an island in the Kurils off Hokkaido, part of which Japan claims as its territory – observers say the primary target of the wide-ranging manoeuvres remains China. As part of the drill, the US Marine Corps carried out the first air transport within Japan of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) from Okinawa to Aomori on December 7. Once deployed, the US troops trained with a unit from Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Forces, equipped with anti-shipping missile systems.
