{"id":7376,"date":"2026-10-19T09:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T13:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/?p=7376"},"modified":"2026-10-21T23:01:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T03:01:49","slug":"japan-and-the-us-kick-off-joint-drills-around-islands-as-regional-tensions-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/2026\/10\/19\/japan-and-the-us-kick-off-joint-drills-around-islands-as-regional-tensions-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan and the US kick off joint drills around islands as regional tensions rise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link to Article: https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/japan-us-military-drills-china-okinawa-e24603d4c8fdf9427db206c401cdf09e<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently Japan and the US have enacted joint military exercises around the southwestern parts of Japanese islands to deter other countries due to escalating tensions within the region. The biennial maneuvers such as Keen sword are actively being participated by 45,000 Japanese and 12,000 American members which focus on ensuring readiness between the US and Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Scenarios focus on amphibious landings, retaking operations, and overall island defense but are also not limited to air and missile defense and maritime logistics. These drills are happening due to heightened fears regarding China’s regional expansion and aggressiveness over disputed territories, especially due to Takaichi’s remark about Taiwan, along with deeper Russian incorporation, as well as North Korea’s upscaled missile testing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is significant as the rapid militarization and security implementations within the region which the article covers, allures potential military conflict within the region due to controversial topics over securing national interests, especially on the sovereignty of Taiwan. What it means for the region is escalation and furthering of countries militarization, such as Singapore, the Philippines, and potentially Australia. This happened due to after the Chinese Civil war, the PRC mainly aligned themselves with the Soviet Union and against western influence, until the Sino-Soviet split, but still to this day, the PRC’s and Japan’s interests are vastly different, with after American occupation, Japanese and other countries like South Korea aligning with the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese stakeholders could respond by ramping up their personal military exercises, most likely within the strait between Taiwan and mainland China rather than near the Japanese islands to combat further US involvement within East Asia. China would also probably deepen ties with Russia as well and potentially enact military exercises with them. Japanese stakeholders would continue to exercise to deter China from pursuing their national interests against them. Stakeholders allied with Japan could respond by also performing military exercises. Though each stakeholders exercises would most likely not be with intention of actual fighting, instead to intimidate and threaten each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is related to the concept of levels of analysis, specifically an interstate or regional level of analysis for the US. The US is trying to intimidate and prevent China from expanding their spheres of influence throughout the region, evident by the “encirclement” around China, I.e. the allied countries of Japan, South Korea, potentially Taiwan, and the Philippines, which limits the power of China within the region. On Japan’s side, the joint exercises are also to prevent Chinese expansion, but less of an extent on maintaining their allies collective sovereignty in the region and containing China, moreso ensuring their own personal interests of their own personal sovereignty which happens to include preventing Chinese expansion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to Article: https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/japan-us-military-drills-china-okinawa-e24603d4c8fdf9427db206c401cdf09e Recently Japan and the US have enacted joint military exercises around the southwestern parts of Japanese islands to deter other countries due to escalating tensions within the region. The biennial maneuvers such as Keen sword are actively being participated by 45,000 Japanese and 12,000 American members which focus on ensuring readiness between the US and Japanese… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7376"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7400,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7376\/revisions\/7400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}