Against the backdrop of Chinese aggression in the region, the US, Japan and Australia this weekend agreed to closer military ties, including, for the first time, regular deployments of Japanese marines to the Lucky Country, Breaking Defense reports.
“Today, we are announcing that there will be regular deployments of Japan’s amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade to Australia,” Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said during a televised press conference in Darwin.
“Today, we discuss the next steps to expand our exercises and training, and Japan’s commitment to annual trilateral amphibious training in the Indo-Pacific demonstrates our momentum, including with the [US] Marine Rotational Force Darwin here in Northern Australia. We’re also elevating key bilateral exercises into trilateral exercises,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, appearing alongside Australian defense minister Richard Marles and Japanese defense minister Gen Nakatani.
Austin is on his first stop of a four-nation swing through the Indo-Pacific theater, marking his 12th and last planned visit here. Rounding out his trip, Austin also has visits to the Philippines, a meeting of ASEAN defense ministers in Laos, and then the first-ever visit by an American defense secretary to Fiji.
As part of the agreement, the Japanese will become regular participants in Australia’s preeminent annual exercise, Talisman Sabre next year, and they will boost their participation in Exercise Southern Jackaroo, participating in more complex scenarios to increase trilateral interoperability. In addition, local press traveling with Marles said that the expectation is a regular rotation of roughly 600 Japanese Marines alongside the US Marines who regularly are in Darwin.
Also, Australian forces will start taking part in Exercise Orient Shield next year and increase their enhanced participation in the traditionally bilateral US-Japanese exercises Yama Sakura, Keen Edge, and Keen Sword. Last year, 7,000 troops from all three nations took part in Yama Sakura, a command post exercise.
Marles had signaled the likely commitment in September, when he and Foreign Minister Penny Wong joined their Japanese counterparts Kihara Minoru and Kamikawa Yoko near the town of Geelong for annual talks before heading north to Darwin. Marles represents the Geelong district.
In addition to the increased participation in exercises and the regular rotation of Japanese troops, a trilateral statement said the countries “continue to grow trilateral intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region as a priority, including Australian personnel’s participation in the Japan-United States Bilateral Information Analysis Cell (BIAC).”
The cell, opened two years ago, is located at Japan’s Yokota Air Base and was created to allow the analysis and sharing of highly classified intelligence between the two militaries. This announcement will mean Australia, Japan and the US will be able to more effectively share intel.
And Austin said categorically that “we expect that Japan will join AUKUS Pillar Two at some point in the not-too-distant future to work on specific projects that have yet to be named.” He ticked off areas of R&D cooperation for the three nations such as quantum, autonomy, Collaborative Combat Aircraft and Long Range Strike.
There are, Austin said, “so many things that that we can work together on.”
