“In an increasingly uncertain security environment, the focus of our work will be on operational readiness,” the official added.
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) announced that the military exercise will involve all units and will be carried out until mid-to-late November. The drills will include around 100,000 personnel, 20,000 vehicles, and 120 aircraft, the network reported.
A total of 12,000 military members and nearly 4,000 vehicles from two GSDF divisions based on Hokkaido, a Japanese prefecture, and the Tohoku region, as well as a brigade in the Shikoku region, will start an expeditionary mission in southwestern Japan next week.
JGSDF’s latest drill is the first large-scale military exercise since 1993—when all units of the JGSDF, the largest of the three warfare branches in Japan, participated in a military exercise about two years after the Cold War ended.
In May, dozens of Japanese, American, and French troops held the first-ever joint drills by the three allies on Japanese soil as they sought to step up military ties amid China’s growing assertiveness.
Taiwan Annual Drills Reach Peak
Also on Sept. 15, Taiwanese fighter jets landed on a makeshift runway on a highway strip overseen by President Tsai Ing-wen as annual drills reached their peak, skills that would be needed in the event China attacks and targets Taiwan’s vulnerable air bases.Tsai, re-elected by a landslide last year on a pledge to stand up to China, has made modernizing Taiwan’s mainly U.S.-equipped military a priority, turning it into a “porcupine,” both highly mobile and hard to attack.
Three fighters—an F-16, French-made Mirage, and a Ching-kuo Indigenous Defence Fighter—plus an E-2 Hawkeye early-warning aircraft landed in rural southern Pingtung county on a highway strip specially designed to be straight and flat for rapid conversion from a road into a runway.
“Such splendid combat skills and rapid and real actions come from solid everyday training and also demonstrate the confidence of the Republic of China Air Force in defending its airspace,” Tsai wrote on Facebook, referencing Taiwan’s formal name.
Taiwan has five emergency highway runways across the island which can be pressed into service in the event a Chinese attack takes out air force bases, meaning the air force will still be able to operate.
The communist country over the weekend successfully test-fired a new missile capable of hitting targets 930 miles away. Analysts said the missile could be North Korea’s first such weapon with nuclear capabilities.
