TOKYO: Japan kicked off a joint military exercise with the United States on Monday that will see a type of long-range missile deployed outside its base for the first time, as Tokyo’s ties with China languish at rock bottom.
The Keen Sword drill, which runs through October 29 in various parts of Japan, will be one of the largest exercises ever between the two allies, involving around 45,000 Japanese Self-Defense Forces personnel and 12,000 US troops.
Japan’s Joint Staff previously said that long-range Type 25 surface-to-ship guided missiles would be deployed at a training ground in the southern region of Kyushu during the exercise.
It will be the first time they have been deployed outside of their garrison in Kumamoto prefecture, Kyushu, since their arrival there earlier this year. The missile has a range of 1,000 kilometres (620 miles).
Japan plans to verify launch procedures for attacking naval vessels at sea, but there “will be no live-fire exercises”, a Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Staff spokesman told AFP on Monday.
The US Marine Corps will reportedly deploy an unmanned surface-to-ship missile system known as NMESIS and the MADIS integrated air defence system in the southern prefecture of Okinawa.
“Taking into account the various geographical and operational characteristics of the southwestern region, we believe it is essential to be able to deploy forces swiftly and flexibly,” Hiroaki Uchikura, head of the Joint Staff, told reporters this month.
Uchikura explained that the scale of the Keen Sword drill was determined considering these factors, and it “has become one of the largest exercises to date”.
“The fact that the exercise has reached a near-maximum scale reflects both a heightened sense of crisis and a strong demand for training,” he said.
