In March 2020, United States Marine Corps Commandant General David H. Berger introduced Force Design 2030, now known as “Force Design,” an ongoing force restructuring plan to reshape its combat power for future adversary conflicts. The Marine Corps transformation is to align with the National Defense Strategy, mainly focusing on great power competition in the Indo-Pacific: to prevail against China. The 2018 National Defense Strategy Summary reads, “Challenges to the US military advantage represent another shift in the global security environment. For decades, the United States has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today, every domain is contested – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.”
The key concept of the Force Design 2030 initiative is Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), relating to the Navy’s strategy of Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO).
Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) is the operating concept of the Department of the Navy (or DON, which includes the Navy and Marine Corps) for using US naval (i.e., Navy and Marine Corps) forces in combat operations against an adversary, particularly China.
According to the Navigation Plan 2024, “Distributed Maritime Operations means dispersing the fleet while concentrating effects. The approach demands distributing, integrating, and maneuvering people, platforms, munitions, and data across time, spectrum, and space. Supporting that fight requires new ways of operating, from sustaining the fleet in contested environments, to an understanding that our installations and Maritime Operations Centers are themselves warfighting platforms. Information dominance is the key enabler in this new form of maneuver warfare, by which we confound the adversary’s ability to find, fix, and attack our forces.”
According to the Tentative Manual For Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (TMEABO), an authoritative source, “EABO are a form of expeditionary warfare that involve the employment of mobile, low signature, persistent, and relatively easy to maintain and sustain naval expeditionary forces from a series of austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area in order to conduct sea denial, support sea control, or enable fleet sustainment.” Also, “Forces conducting EABO combine various forms of operations to persist within the reach of adversary lethal and nonlethal effects, changing their risk calculations.”
As part of the redesign, the Marines plan to establish at least three Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) to accomplish missions within contested maritime spaces. According to a 2022 Marine Corps Association article, “Missions, MAGTFs, Force Design & Change,” by Colonel Michael R. Kennedy, USMC (Retired), MLRs are intended to “Deploy to islands, coastlines, and observation posts along chokepoints where their networked sensors and weapons can surveil the air and surface (and, potentially subsurface) waterways. The timing of their insertion is implied to be in the ‘competition’ phase before hostilities start. The duration of their stay is less clear.”
To conduct these strategies, the US needs many ground missile sites, harbors, and airports, which the US can use freely. In Japan, for example, the US military can build its installations wherever they want because of Article 2 paragraph 1 (a) of the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). It prescribes that “Agreements as to specific facilities and areas shall be concluded by the two Governments through the Joint Committee.”
The US-Japan Joint Committee is a consultative organization composed of the high US forces officers and Japanese high bureaucrats held once every two weeks. However, its minutes are only made public if the two countries agree, and Japan substantially has no right to decline the US force’s requests. The leaked classified document titled “Thinking Method of the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement Enlarged Edition” reveals that there is an assumption that if the US needs a base and requires it, Japan will also consider the base necessary. The Japanese government’s role is to persuade the locals and legislate related domestic laws.
In December 2024, the US and Japan established a classified joint operation plan about a Taiwan contingency. Reportedly, the US forces’ missile units will deploy in the Philippines and the Japanese Nansei Islands, a chain of islands extending from southwestern Kyushu to northern Taiwan.
Gyo Ishii, a senior staff writer for the Kyodo News, reported in March 2022 about the original plan that 40 of approximately 200 islands, which consist of the Nansei, would be candidates for the US temporary military bases. Most of which are inhabited, and the US selected them because they could be self-sufficient in water.
The Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) had told the US forces that it could not establish the joint plan immediately but would be able to do so in the future. However, the US forces side strongly reprimanded and pressured the JSDF side to draw up the plan urgently, such as “Do you understand that a war between the US and China is impending?” and so on. The US forces took advantage of the Japanese fear of being abandoned.
Based on Article 2 Paragraph 4(b) of SOFA, the US forces can use JSDF facilities and areas if the US requests it at the Joint Committee. Furthermore, both countries promote simplifying the formalities. The JSDF has established its bases in the Nansei islands, which are in Mageshima, Tanegashima, Amami-Oshima, Oshima, the main island of Okinawa, Miyakojima, Ishigakijima, and Yonagunijima. The US forces can deploy its troops in these bases.
The Japanese government finished constructing the JSDF bases in Yonagunijima Island in 2016, Miyakojima Island and Amami-Oshima Island in 2019, and Ishigakijima Island in 2023. The military installations on Mageshima Island are now under construction. The original plan for the bases in Yonagunijima was only for Coast Observation Units, but JSDF now plans to deploy its missile units. Regarding bases in Ishigakijima, Toyko explained that its missile was only for defense. However, in December 2022, Tokyo decided to have “counterstrike capabilities,” which means Enemy Base Attack Ability, to attack bases in mainland China. The Japanese government deceives Okinawans.
Besides the bases, the Japanese government is designating civilian ports and airports in the Nansei Islands and around them for JDSF and Coast Guard use. It plans to improve the ports and airports for warships and fighter aircraft and to maintain roads around them.
The US Marines will attack the Chinese forces moving from one island to another to avoid counterattacks. Of course, the locals will be in danger. The TMEABO document reads, “the littoral force conducting EABO will be at a disadvantage in numbers of personnel and weapons, and proximity to interior lines,” and also, “living among, or near, the local population increases vulnerability to irregular threats from malign actors and adversary proxy forces.”
Being aware of the danger, Okinawans established a group to “oppose turning the islands of Okinawa into a battlefield again.” However, Tokyo plans to evacuate the inhabitants of Okinawa. According to the plan, 120 thousand people from the Sakishima Islands, which are Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni, will escape to Kyushu and Yamaguchi in six days. The plan’s feasibility is unknown, and inhabitants of mainland Okinawa, where the US bases are concentrated, will remain on the island, evacuating indoors.
In order to stick to an exclusively defensive national security policy, Japan had only allowed itself to shoot down missiles launched into Japanese territory; however, Tokyo now has so-called “counterstrike capabilities.” National Security Strategy document reads, “In cases where armed attack against Japan has occurred, and as part of that attack ballistic missiles and other means have been used, counterstrike capabilities enable Japan to mount effective counterstrikes against the opponent’s territory.”
Tokyo contends that a preemptive strike against the enemy is not permitted. However, it stated that Japan judges it is attacked when the enemy sets about launching a missile, even though it is hard to identify when that occurs. The counterstrike might be a preemptive attack. Also, the Ex-Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, changed the interpretation of the Japanese Constitution in 2015; therefore, the JSDF can exercise the right of collective defense.
Japan asserts that Counterstrikes are done per the Three New Conditions for Use of Force: the enemy attacks Japan or another country with a close relationship with Japan, there are no other means, and it is limited to minimum necessary measures. Abe contended in 2021 that “A Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency. That is to say, that is US-Japan alliance contingency.”
Therefore, if Japan regards China set about launching a missile toward the US assets in East Asia, Japan will attack the mainland of China.
President Trump’s second term will not change the policy, given that new cabinet members. The preparations for a war against China are going steadily.
Reiho Takeuchi is a Japanese writer focusing on geopolitical issues in the Asia-Pacific region. He has written on substack.