Hawaii Marines, law enforcement to drill on raids

Marines and local law enforcement personnel begin training today at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for raiding operations on both land and sea. The exercise is scheduled to last until Jan. 13.

“Members of the public may hear increased noise from ground tactical vehicles, military aircraft, blank gunfire and simulated breaching explosives,” said the Marine Corps in a news release. “Law enforcement personnel and military exercise staff will be on-site for each simulated raid.”

The training includes approximately 100 Marines and local law enforcement personnel. “The Honolulu Police Department and other law-enforcement agencies will participate in the training in order to remain proficient in their demanding skills in similar environments,” the release said.

The training will begin at Pearl Harbor with boat operations, including simulated maritime interdiction operations and boardings of vessels. The Marine Corps has spent the past two decades fighting wars in deserts and mountains but is undergoing a radical redesign beginning in Hawaii with a renewed emphasis on amphibious fighting.

The Oahu-based 3rd Marine Regiment is transforming into the first Littoral Regiment, which is set to become the model for Marine Corps units as the service reorganizes and forces on the island are the first to receive new light amphibious warships that will be jointly operated by the Navy and Marine Corps.

In December 2020 the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard released the new Tri-Service Maritime Strategy, which called for closer coordination among the naval services.

The world’s littorals — areas between the open oceans and shorelines — create a unique environment for troops to operate in, one that U.S. military leaders increasingly feel they have overlooked. The littorals have emerged as a favored environment for smugglers and also become the sites of conflict in regions where disputes have emerged over navigation, fishing and undersea drilling rights.

In the Tri-Service Maritime Strategy, commanders wrote that challenges in the littorals require a “unified framework for Navy-Marine Corps innovation” and “a renewed emphasis on fighting for and gaining sea control, to include employing sea- and land-based Marine Corps capabilities to support the sea control fight.”

This new strategy was crafted in part as a reaction to simmering tensions in the South China Sea. Several countries have competing claims over various small islands, reefs and atolls in the region, most notably the Spratley and Paracel islands.

The Chinese military has begun building bases on some of these formations and even built man-made islands to place troops and weapons on to assert its claim that the entire region is historically its territory. The Chinese military has also been accused of using “maritime militia” forces, ostensibly civilian vessels that sometimes conduct surveillance or even attack other vessels in disputed areas.

Once the Marines finish with interdiction and boarding training on the water, the exercise is expected to move to the land as what the Marine Corps describes as “limited-scale raids at four off-installation, pre-
coordinated locations” are conducted to hone urban fighting skills.

The Marine Corps said the urban training and sites have been coordinated with state government, local landowners and law enforcement authorities.