China War Drills: US Commandos Capture Japanese Island to Show Beijing They’re ‘Not Kidding Around’

• China War Drills: US Commandos Capture Japanese Island to Show Beijing They’re ‘Not Kidding Around’
  by https://www.rt.com/
  US special forces, aided by F-35 stealth fighters and rocket artillery units, have practiced capturing a small Japanese island as part of a new operational concept to counter China in the Indo-Pacific theater.
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  Members of the US Marines, Army and Air Force invaded and secured Japan’s Ie Jima Island as they polished-up their Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) skills, which haven’t been put into practice since the end of America’s fight against the Japanese in World War II.
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  US airmen conducted reconnaissance of the island off the coast of Okinawa before ground troops and Marines were deployed in “a 600-mile long-range raid” to seize an airfield, according to a Marine Corps statement.
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  After capturing the airstrip, the US forces proceeded to set up the required infrastructure for Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters and C-130J Super Hercules aircraft to land. Finally, rocket artillery units were brought in just as the stealth fighters practiced their precision-guided strikes in an exercise that extended from March 11–14.
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  The new US island-capturing, power-projection strategy is “critical” to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee this month.
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