A soldier with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) during the Rim of the Pacific 2014 Exercise. US Navy Photo
On Monday the United States and Japan agreed to the most sweeping changes to their bilateral alliance in more than fifty years. The so-called “2+2” Security Consultative Committee (SCC), consisting of the U.S. secretary of state, and secretary of defense, and Japan’s foreign minister and defense minister agreed to a series of initiatives that will draw the two allies even closer in defense and security matters. Read More
The following is the Jan. 30, 2015 Congressional Research Services report, China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Read More
Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work on Sept. 30, 2014 at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. CFR Photo
More than half of U.S. Air Force and Navy forces will be based in the Asia Pacific by 2020 as part of the Pentagon’s rebalance to the Pacific, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work said during a Tuesday address at the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. Read More
Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command on Feb. 4, 2014 in Yokosuka, Japan. US Navy Photo
Pacific Command’s senior officer told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on Tuesday that he doesn’t think that a crisis with China is inevitable as it fields its first Jin-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) this year. Read More
A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber. Press reports claim two of the planes flew from Guam into an Air Defense Zone China established over the weekend. US Air Force Photo
Two unarmed U.S. military planes flew through a section of international airspace to which China has claimed extra rights, Pentagon officials confirmed to USNI News Tuesday afternoon. Read More
The Asia-Pacific region recently has seen a rise in construction of multipurpose, aviation-capable ships by major area powers. Australia, China, South Korea, Japan and Thailand all have built ships with full-length flight decks with a variety of purposes: some as helicopter carriers, some as amphibious assault ships. Only one, China’s Liaoning, was built to accommodate traditional fixed-wing aircraft carrier operations, but many others, such as Japan’s Izumo-class of helicopter destroyers could conceivably carry some form of vertical or short takeoff-and-landing aircraft. Read More
USMC CH-53E following a Tuesday crash 55 miles from Seoul. Reuters Photo
U.S. Forces Korea is investigating a so-called “hard landing” of a Tuesday U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter, according to a release from the Seoul-based command. Read More
The Chinese navy intrudes on the maritime rights of its neighbors, bullies other nations and is determined to build a force strong enough to counter the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer told an audience at the WEST 2013 convention in San Diego on Thursday.
China’s navy, said Capt. Jim Fannell, deputy chief of staff for intelligence and operations at the U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters in Hawaii, is a force that “is focused on war at sea.”
Naval History, December 2012
The helicopter revealed its potential in Korea. As the Marine Corps honed close air support in the years since, it has assumed a key role.
Marine Helicopters in Vietnam, U.S. Naval Institute Archives
Marine Corps aviation, in “its organization, equipment, and training . . . should be primarily oriented toward performance of close air support.” So wrote a special board in its confidential 1947 report to the commandant of the Marine Corps. Although the Marines’ first “official” use of close air support (CAS) had come in 1927 in Nicaragua, 20 years later the bond between the service’s air and ground forces had not yet been cemented fully. That would occur a few years later in the Chosin Reservoir campaign in Korea—arguably the birthplace of the Marine air-ground task force.
