By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
The U.S. Marine Corps commandant has expressed misgivings about relocating thousands of Marines from Okinawa to Guam, warning that it would weaken defense in critical locations.
“Frankly, Guam puts us going the wrong way,” the Pentagon’s newsletter Task & Purpose quoted Gen. Eric Smith as saying.
Amid the escalating tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, Smith said a “credible
deterrent force has to be present to win, which to me means being in the first island chain.”
The first island chain, which comprises Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia, forms the U.S. strategy against a potential war with China. The communist regime has been displaying aggressive behavior in the region, conducting dangerous maneuvers in the South China Sea, launching missile tests and threatening to invade Taiwan in 2027.
“Guam puts us on the other side of the international dateline, but it puts us a long way from the crisis theater, from the priority theater,” Smith said Wednesday at a breakfast meeting with the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C.
About 5,000 U.S. Marines will be transferred from Okinawa to Guam as part of the troop realignment plan sealed through a 2012 revised security treaty
between the United States and Japan.
“I’m not sure that is in the best strategic interests of America, to be honest with you,” Smith told reporters.
However, he acknowledged Washington's obligation to comply with its treaty with Japan.
The Marines' relocation to Guam was a component of the U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment signed in 2006.
On June 24 last year, Kyodo News reported that the U.S. Marine Corps had plans to establish a new littoral regiment on Guam in the next several years to “counter Chinese aggression” in the region.
Quoting Smith at a press conference, Kyodo News reported that the new regiment would be able “to rapidly deploy into the Philippine Sea to spread the battlespace out and to protect those strategic lines of communication that emanate from Japan, back to the Philippines, back to Hawaii.”
The Indo-Pacific Command is enhancing the defense system and deterrence on Guam to counter China's threats.
“What I do know is every time you give China a foot, they take a mile. They only understand one thing, which is a credible deterrent force,” Smith said.
The Marines' transfer, which is anticipated to continue this year, will be completed in a phased-in approach.
Last December, approximately 100 logistics support arrived on Guam, representing the advanced detachment tasked with getting the Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz ready for the subsequent flows of troops.
While Smith challenged the judiciousness of the Marines' deployment to Guam other ranking military officials have repeatedly underscored the island's strategic value.
Tom Mancinelli, acting undersecretary of the Navy, last year said Guam’s proximity to China makes it a default launch pad for any counterattack in the event of a conflict in the region.
“American prosperity and security depend on free and open oceans, and Guam is a strategic hub for critically important activity for the Navy and our Department of Defense,” Mancinelli said. “It is physically closer to Beijing than Hawaii.”
Approximately 9,000 Marines will move out of Okinawa. The original agreement called for deploying all 9,000 to Guam, but a subsequent review prompted a plan amendment, requiring troop redistribution to other areas.
The revised plan will send 2,700 Marines to Hawaii, 1,300 to Australia on a rotational basis, and 800 to locations in the continental United States.
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