US MARINES USING THREE ISLAND CHAIN STRATEGY

While the Obama administration made its pivot to Asia to check the rapid military expansion of China, the Trump administration apparently has made a sharp 180-degree turn to the Three Island Chain Strategy to contain Beijing.

This strategy has been foremost in the minds of Chinese military planners who said the ‘Three Island Chain Strategy’ has been retrieved from the grave of John Foster Dulles in order to contain the Chinese Navy and Air Force, which have exceedingly been active in the Pacific, particularly in the contested Senkaku Islands that Japan controls, and in the South China Sea, where China controls seven reefs within the Paracels and the Spratlys, that it reclaimed and transformed into fortresses.

The first island chain covers the Senkaku Islands, Taiwan, Japan, the Kuril Islands and the Philippines, and China was furious that the US Marine Corps seeks to station long-range missiles, land-based Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1,000 miles, along with bombers in these areas along with combat-ready expeditionary forces setting up "no-go zones" on islands early in a military campaign against China.

"A ground-based anti-ship missile capability will provide anti-ship fires from land as part of an integrated naval anti-surface warfare campaign," the Corps said in a letter to lawmakers obtained by Defense News. "This forward-deployed and survivable capability will enhance the lethality of our naval forces and will help to deny our adversaries the use of key maritime terrain."