The deployment deeply strengthens the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment\u2019s capabilities, according to Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with CSIS and a retired Marine colonel. The Marine Littoral Regiments are a newer formation, set up to fight in \u201ca contested littoral environment,\u201d which is another way of saying on an island, with an enemy force close by.<\/p>\n
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News <\/a><\/p>\n Army \u2018Most Wanted\u2019 fugitive caught after 30 years on the run<\/p>\n By Jeff Schogol<\/a><\/p>\n In practice, they\u2019re meant to be a forward-deployed force for island-hopping campaigns, conducting counter-reconnaissance and armed with enough firepower to take out enemy warships trying to navigate to or past those islands. Roughly 2,000 Marines are part of the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting NMESIS out there is critical as that\u2019s the backbone of the [Marine Littoral Regiment],\u201d Cancian told Task & Purpose. \u201cThe two key pieces are the anti-ship missiles, which are the most important, and also the air defense piece.\u201d<\/p>\n The United States has strengthened its forces around East Asia, including sending newer fighter jets<\/a> to Japan, bolstering<\/a> air squadrons in South Korea and conducting several large-scale drills with partners around the South China Sea. Cancian said that the deployment of NMESIS and its ground-based anti-ship missiles offers a specific tool to U.S. forces: the platform\u2019s mobility and ability to hide. Surface ships, Cancian argued, are very vulnerable, whereas NMESIS and MADIS are able to be quickly and relatively easily relocated in case of threats.<\/p>\n Marines learn about the NMESIS weapons system during Resolute Dragon 25 on Sept. 20, 2025. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Lucas Lu.<\/p>\n For its part, the MADIS is intended as a complementary defensive measure. The surface-to-air weapons system is meant to take out low-altitude aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n The critical issue, Cancian said, is being able to move the anti-ship weapons closer to Taiwan or the Philippines in the event of a conflict with China. Okinawa, he said, has some strategic value, but the weapons would need to be quickly relocated to help in a peer-on-peer fight around contested areas.<\/p>\n Marines with the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii first received both weapons systems in late 2024, and have briefly brought them<\/a> to Japan for exercises, including last fall\u2019s Resolute Dragon. A large part of the drill involved rapidly deploying the systems to island locations for coastal defense. That mirrored other training that U.S. forces have done in recent months, where units work to quickly load, transport, and field artillery<\/a> and missile defense systems.<\/p>\n Most recently, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment brought both MADIS and NMESIS to the Philippines for the Balikatan 2026 exercise this spring. Marines worked with Army and Air Force personnel to quickly load NMESIS systems onto transport ships and cargo planes to practice redeploying the systems by air and sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This month, Marines on Okinawa got some additional firepower designed to take out enemy warships. Late on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[32124,7575,32127,32129,8,31941,32125,2010,32126,162,32130,32128],"class_list":["post-45910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-okinawa","tag-12th-marine-littoral-regiment","tag-3rd-marine-division","tag-3rd-marine-littoral-regiment","tag-enemy-warships","tag-japan","tag-madis","tag-marine-air-defense-integrated-systems","tag-marines","tag-mark-cancian","tag-okinawa","tag-the-marine-corps","tag-weapons-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f970fbc88542d4c6aa2e858dcff54df7.jpeg\"\/)
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