Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith, seen here at a May 29, 2024, town hall meeting in Naples, Italy, said June 21 that a new littoral regiment is planned for Guam. (Marc Imprevert/U.S. Marine Corps)
The U.S. Marine Corps plans to establish a new littoral regiment on Guam in the next several years to “counter Chinese aggression” in the region, Japanese media reported over the weekend.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith told reporters during a press conference in Washington, D.C., that the new regiment will be able to rapidly deploy into the Philippine Sea “in order to spread the battlespace out and to protect those strategic lines of communication that emanate from Japan, back to the Philippines, back to Hawaii,” Kyodo News reported Saturday.
He did not specify a timeline but said it would be deployed to Guam in a “few years,” according to the report.
Spokespeople for the III Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa and Marine Corps Camp Blaz on Guam referred all questions about the announcement to the Marine Corps’ headquarters in Virginia.
The service had not responded to Stars and Stripes’ email request for additional details as of Monday afternoon.
The announcement comes less than a year after the Marines in November converted the 12th Marine Regiment on Okinawa into the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment. The 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, the first in the Indo-Pacific, was established in March 2022.
The Marines’ restructuring initiative, first announced in 2020, has planned for a third regiment in the region and since at least 2023 has considered Guam as the likely location, according to a June 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service.
The Marines consider littoral regiments a key component of their planned Force Design transition that emphasizes island warfare and maritime maneuverability, according to the report.
The regiments typically consist of about 2,000 Marines and are intended to be able to rapidly deploy “to islands, coastlines, and observation posts along chokepoints,” while also being easy to maintain, according to the report.
Guam, a 212-square-mile island already home to major military installations, including Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam, has undergone significant military expansion over the past several years.
Camp Blaz, the first new Marine Corps installation since 1952, activated in 2020 and is expected to host 1,300 members of the III MEF and another 3,700 additional Marines as a rotational force.
In May 2023, the Missile Defense Agency proposed a comprehensive, 360-degree missile defense system that is currently under consideration and going through its scoping process.
