Marines and Yonaguni

A Repurposed US Marine Regiment is Planned

In our book Stopping a Taiwan Invasion (Coauthored by Lt. General Earl Hailston, USMC retired) we made the case for the US Marines to work with its Japanese counterparts in setting up a capability using HIMARS or other weapons on the southmost Japanese island of Yonaguni.

Now the Secretary of Defense, meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Yasukazu Hamada, Japan’s Defense Minister, has announced the creation of a new Marine regiment that will be capable of redeploying to Japan’s islands. While Yonaguni is not mentioned by name, it is the only island that is strategically located to stop a Chinese naval assault on Japan. It is also the only one of the southernmost islands that has an airfield capable of handling C-130 transports. HIMARS is C-130 transportable, and the US recently showed off this capability in an exercise with Japan.

The new Marine unit is called the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment. It is a repurposed 12th Marine Artillery Regiment stationed on Okinawa. The conversion will take around two years. It means adding new equipment and training for rapid deployment. According to Secretary Austin, the unit will be bolstered with anti-ship missiles and will have its own organic intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities.

Yonaguni is 67 miles from Taiwan. Fortifying Yonaguni will add a significant capability capable of targeting any Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan or any attempt by China to take over Japan’s southernmost islands.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is due to meet President Biden in Washington on January 13th. On his way to Washington, Kishida visited London and signed a US-Japan Defense Agreement. A key feature of the Agreement is that it allows the UK to deploy forces in Japan in the case of an emergency.

Japan is increasing its defense budget significantly in light of the threat from China. Unlike the past, Japan is clearly identifying China as a threat to its national security and Japan has increasingly embraced Taiwan and senior Japanese officials recently visited the island in a show of solidarity.

The backdrop for the Kishida visit was a claimed artificial intelligence simulation study done by the Center for Security and International Studies in Washington, a centrist think tank. The study concluded that “the combined forces of Taiwan, US and Japan will be able to defeat an invasion by China but the sheer volume of potential casualties and economic losses will prove to be extremely difficult to sustain for all parties concerned.” Among other “findings” the study argues that the US would lose two aircraft carriers to Chinese missiles.

Our book Stopping a Taiwan Invasion warned against a spate of studies whose combined impact would be to deter Washington from supporting Taiwan if Taiwan was invaded. Any President who is told up front any battle would cost him two aircraft carriers and 10,000 sailors at the outset of a conflict is unlikely to commit them to battle. While the CSIS study is somewhat better than others that said the US would lose in a war with China, the outcome of the CSIS study is no better from the point of view of offering guidance to decision-makers.