Nearly two decades ago the United States and Japan signed an initiative to reduce the number of Marines in Okinawa. Now experts with the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C. warn that moving Marines to Guam and elsewhere in the Pacific from the Japanese island would undermine the military’s ability to counter an attack from China.
Under the the US-Japan Defense Policy Review Initiative, or DPRI, the United States has agreed to move about 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, Hawaii, and other locations in the Pacific, while about 10,000 Marines would remain in Okinawa.
But the Atlantic Council experts argued in a recent article that the strategic situation in the Indo-Pacific region has changed drastically over the past two decades, and the Marines based on Okinawa would play a vital role if China and the United States went to war.
“They could delay enemy advances and buy time for US reinforcements as key elements of the stand-in force by holding combatant ships and maneuver elements at risk as the rest of the US military moves into place,” according to the Feb. 3 article, written by Marine Lt. Col. Caleb Eames and Amy Cowley.
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Eames is the 2025-2026 Senior Marine Corps Fellow at the Atlantic Council and Cowley is an assistant director for the Forward Defense program of the think tank’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Both wrote that the III Marine Expeditionary Force and its Littoral Regiments are designed to operate from remote bases within the range of Chinese missiles. Units such as the 12th Littoral Combat Team, which is currently based on Okinawa, are also able to strike back, with anti-ship missile batteries that are capable of hitting targets up to 115 miles away.
Okinawa is part of the “First Island Chain,” which refers to a strategically important set of island nations in the western Pacific that includes Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Should a war break out in this region, the Chinese military would face Marine littoral forces stationed at bases in Okinawa, according to the article.
“Unfortunately, if fully implemented, the DPRI would give Chinese military planners exactly what they want—a removal of US forces from the locations where they would be most essential in a First Island Chain conflict,” the article says.
The United States military has been building up its infrastructure on Guam, with new bases and missile defense elements. But, the Atlantic Council authors noted that Guam is about 1,500 miles from Okinawa, and it would take U.S. forces three days to cross that distance by ship — without having to deal with enemy attacks.
Relocating Marines from Okinawa would move “critical rapid-response forces” out of the region at a time when China describes reunifying with Taiwan as a “core interest,” they wrote. In fact, having a ready force that close to China is “the exact intent of having a Stand-In Force,” they wrote.
Eames and Cowley argued that it is time for the United States and Japan to negotiate their earlier agreement by providing Okinawans with economic incentives to support keeping a large Marine Corps presence on the island.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith voiced similar concerns last year, when he told reporters that the agreement to move Marines from Okinawa to Guam would put them far away from where they are most needed.
“Frankly, Guam puts us going the wrong way,” Smith told reporters at a Jan. 15, 2025 Defense Writers Group Breakfast in Washington, D.C. “Guam puts us on the other side of the International Date Line, but it puts us a long way from the crisis theater, from the priority theater.”
Smith added that he was not sure that the move to Guam was in the United States’ best national security interests, but the Marine Corps would comply with the agreement “unless, and until, it changes.”
For now, the agreement is still in effect.
“The United States Marine Corps maintains a steadfast commitment to honoring our nation’s obligations in the defense of Japan,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Steven J. Keenan said in a statement to Task & Purpose on Monday. “The Marine Corps is continuing to implement the realignment of U.S. forces in accordance with the DPRI Program of Record.”
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