Members of Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia stand in formation with Indonesian marines to kick off the Keris Marine Exercise in Batam, Indonesia, on Nov. 6, 2024. (Shaina Jupiter/U.S. Marine Corps)
A Marine Corps rotational force is getting to know a part of Indonesia it hasn’t seen before, a territory close to a potential flashpoint with China.
Around 200 members of Marine Rotational Force–Southeast Asia are at Yonif 10 Marinir, an Indonesian marine corps base on Batam Island, east of Singapore, the force’s commander said Thursday.
The island flanks the 12-mile-wide Singapore Strait — a strategically important waterway where thousands of merchant ships transit daily to and from the South China Sea. Beijing claims nearly all the sea as its territory.
Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, in the South China Sea northeast of Singapore, are close to waters near China. Indonesian fishermen have reported intimidation by Chinese coast guard vessels near the islands in recent years.
The Chinese have also harassed Vietnamese fishermen and interfered with the Philippines’ attempts to resupply a maritime outpost off its coast elsewhere in the South China Sea.
The rotational force Marines traveled to Singapore from Manila after taking part in the Kamandag exercise with Filipino forces last month, their commander, Col. Stuart Glenn, told Stars and Stripes by phone from Batam.
They’re reinforced by members of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment from Twentynine Palms, Calif., he said.
The Marines took a commercial fast ferry from Singapore to Batam, home to Indonesia’s 10th Marine Infantry Battalion. It’s the first time U.S. Marines have trained in that part of Indonesia, where monkeys and cobras are part of the landscape, according to Glenn.
“We’re getting the feel of operating in the tropics,” he said.
They’re participating in the third annual Keris Marine Exercise, alongside 360 Indonesian marines, which kicked off Wednesday and runs until Nov. 19. During last year’s training, 150 members of the rotational force practiced coastal defense on West Java, Indonesia.
The Marines in the country this month are working with their local counterparts “driving towards a coastal defense capability,” Glenn said.
The training includes fire support control, planning, maneuvering, jungle survival and medical training, he added.
“Keris MAREX will culminate in a final training event, pitting the combined force of Indonesian and U.S. Marines against a notational enemy attempting to execute an amphibious landing,” the rotational force said in a statement Wednesday.
Force-on-force and live-fire training involving small arms and mortars are scheduled on Singkep Island, a four-hour ferry ride south of Batam, Glenn said.
“It is triple canopy jungle and remote,” he said of the island, which lacks an airport. “It will stress the small unit leaders on both sides.”
