Japan

U.S. Army Garrison Japan held a change-of-responsibility ceremony here Dec. 2 to welcome incoming USAG Japan Command Sgt. Maj. David Rio, and to bid farewell to the outgoing, Command Sgt. Maj. Justin Turner.

North Korea is at it again with its live-fire testing provocations, with another suspected ICBM fired and landed near Japan on Friday.

Japan sets to revamp its surface-to-air guided missiles to strengthen its intercepting capabilities against hypersonic glide weapons.

With North Korea continuing to cause provocation, allies South Korea, Japan, and the US have become “more aligned than ever.”

Higgins’ return marks the end of a six-month patrol that began in May and took the ship and crew from the northern Pacific Ocean to the South China Sea and back.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, not happy with US-led war games in his backyard, is ratcheting up tension in the region by launching multiple missiles toward his neighbors. All of this is in a possible run-up to the testing of a nuclear weapon.

As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on our usual way of life, the language of war proliferates. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called it the “the battle that all Australians are enlisted in as we fight this virus”. French President Emmanuel Macron has declared: “We are at war”; and US President Donald Trump is calling himself the “wartime president”.

A U.S. Marine Corps High Mobility Artillery Rocket System with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, III Marine Expeditionary Force, exits a hide before a simulated fire mission while training at Ie Shima Training Facility, Okinawa, Japan, Oct. 21, 2022.

Last week, the US and Japanese leaders CNO Adm Gilday and Japan Chief of Staff Gen Yamazaki met at the Pentagon to revitalize the alliance.

Tensions in Asia-Pacific continue to stir up this week, from North Korea’s firing another “warning shots” to Japan employing the MQ-9B

U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Stephen Meiners, an aircraft electronic systems technician and Sgt. Ernest Brunelle, a fixed wing aircraft safety equipment mechanic, both with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 533, are awarded an incentive flight at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 30, 2022.

A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18D Hornet aircraft with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 533, takes off from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, during an incentive flight, Sept. 30, 2022.