A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines.
US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise.
The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported.
Photo: Screen grab from Google Earth
“The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access point to enter or exit the Pacific Ocean from the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, and the deployment of NMESIS allows the US to assert control over that access,” Ben Lewis, a co-founder of PLATracker and an expert on the Chinese military, was quoted as saying.
The Naval Strike Missile has a reported operational range of more than 185km — just short of the 190km stretch of water that separates Taiwan proper from the Batanes Islands, the northernmost territory of the Philippines.
The Philippine News Agency on Tuesday said the US Marine Corps deployed an unspecified number of NMESIS launchers in the Philippines, citing Philippine Army Brigadier General Michael Logico.
Balikatan 25 is part of a larger joint exercise involving 3,000 Filipino and 2,000 US troops, a Philippine military spokesperson said in an earlier report.
The drills are designed to improve joint all-domain operational capabilities, enhance warfighting readiness and showcase the bilateral commitment to defending the Philippines’ territorial integrity, they were cited as saying.
Separately, the US Marine Corps on Wednesday confirmed that the Naval Strike Missile-armed 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment would participate in Balikatan 25.
During the exercise, several NMESIS launchers would be airlifted by US Army and Marine Corps aviation units to conduct maritime key terrain security operations across multiple islands in the Batanes, it said.
The regiment’s fire control center would coordinate its batteries in simulated missile strikes without live fire, it added.
“Working with the government and Armed Forces of the Philippines to bring the NMESIS into the Philippines has been a significant step in the right direction for the reaffirmation and strengthening of US-Philippine relations,” regiment commander Colonel John Lehane was quoted as saying.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS