Japanese troops deploy to Australia with Oki-based Marines

Japanese troops Self-Defense Force soldiers are deploying with Marines as they head Down Under for a multinational amphibious training exercise Marines embarked upon the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, marking a first for both countries as tensions in the Asia-Pacific region continue to rise.

The move It represents the Japanese Self-Defense Force's latest step in boosting developing its amphibious operations capabilities. Thirty-one members of the Western Army Infantry Regiment are embedded with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. The troops are deployed aboard the amphibious transport dock Green Bay, where they will head to Australia to participate in Exercise Talisman Sabre, a multinational exercise.

The major training session, scheduled to begin July 4, will include more than 33,000 U.S. and Australian forces this year, according U.S. Pacific Command officials said. Participants will simulate responses to military and humanitarian crises. In years past years, that has included a joint U.S.-Australian task force taking on a fictitious aggressive island nation.

Participating in Talisman Sabre will give the embedded Japanese troops an up-close look at how the Marines handle an international crisis, from logistics and communication to sending personnel ashore men and women ship-to-shore.

It's the first time the Japanese will participate involvement in the exercise, and follows another first, comes in the wake of a newly signed military agreement with the U.S. The framework gives Japan a larger role on the global stage, including allowing it to act in defense of allies.

Japanese troops joining the 31st MEU on its fall patrol deployment is one of the first developments to emerge following this new, robust military agreement. And it's a move China will watch closely, according to said foreign policy experts familiar with the region.

The 31 Japanese troops deployed with the Okinawa, Japan-based MEU strong contingent embedded aboard the Green Bay brought along four combat rubber raiding crafts for use with Marines, said Capt. Jennifer Giles, spokeswoman for the 31st MEU. Exercise The Talisman Sabre exercise, which will showcase U.S., Japanese and Australian forces working together, is expected to serve as one of the highlights of the MEU's deployment.

It's an arrangement that will benefit Tokyo as well as Washington, said Dakota Wood, a retired veteran Marine officer and senior research fellow at the Washington-based The Heritage Foundation. The Japanese will be learning how to conduct amphibious operations — something the nation has not done since World War II — from the best. Just learning how to go ship-to-shore would prove beneficial, he said.

"For the Japanese, it's the beginning of an exploration of how to think about and conduct military operations outside of their home waters," Wood said. "For Marine Corps side, it's just a continuation of working with the [Japanese Self-Defense Force]. You've got a longtime ally, the more things you could work on together the better."

Japan's desire to regain the ability to conduct amphibious operations started in earnest just a few years ago. Officials there rededicated the Western Army Infantry Regiment for the purpose of rapidly responding to a crisis among the many islands that make up the Asian nation.

In the years since, Japanese soldiers worked increasingly close with the U.S. in bolstering their amphibious capabilities. In 2013, Japanese troops joined in on Exercise Dawn Blitz, a multinational training effort featuring amphibious landings and urban house-to-house combat, exercise held along the California coast.

A similar joint training session held earlier this year saw Japanese soldiers practice amphibious landings with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division as part of Exercise Iron Fist, specifically held to foster Japan's capabilities and increase interoperability while strengthening relationships between the two nations. That exercise was also held in Southern California.

But the joint deployment could is bound to irk Beijing and may raise eyebrows across a region with enduring memories of Japan's aggression during World War II.

Tensions between the two nations over the Senkakus Islands, eight uninhabited islands in the East China Sea between Japan and Taiwan, played a major role in growth of an amphibious force. The dispute — China, Japan and Taiwain all lay claim to the land — came to a head earlier this decade.

Since then, China Beijing has run patrols through the area and incorporated the islands under an air defense zone. Those actions spurred Japan Tokyo to create an air-ground force capable of defending the islands as well as other disputed — or potentially disputed — territories.

Some in Japan Many in the Japanese left are suspicious of efforts to upgrade the nation's military. An attempt to alter its U.S.-written constitution to allow Japanese forces to act on behalf of allies has drawn strong criticism.

But sending the small team of Japanese soldiers out the amphibious force and joint deployment with the 31st MEU seems to have drawn less criticism, mostly because it's projected to be a defensive measure, said Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The most recent example came in recent just the past few months: a diplomatic row over China's island-building project in the South China Sea. Beijing has since announced its controversial land reclamation effort is nearing an end, but not before an American pilot in aboard a P8-A Poseidon surveillance plane ignored repeated Chinese calls to leave international waters.

"You can't drive from Japan to cChina or from Korea to an island that's being contested, so the only way you can really shift capabilities or forces around is either by air or by ship and so somebody with an amphibious capability is going to have much more of a militarily significant capability," Wood said.