# REPORT: RESOLUTE DRAGON 2026, 9,600 SOLDIERS ON THE EDGE OF THE INDO-PACIFIC

> On June 20, 2026, at Camp Kengun in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, Lieutenant General Seiji Toriumi, commander of the Western Army of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, delivered a few words at the opening ceremony. They were sober, precise, and heavy with meaning in the current I

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Reportage
- Published: 2026-06-24
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-resolute-dragon-2026-9600-soldats-au-bord-du-precipice-indo-pacifique

## Introduction: Kyushu and Okinawa under allied boots

### The opening of a show of force

On **June 20, 2026**, at **Camp Kengun in Kumamoto Prefecture**, Japan, Lieutenant General **Seiji Toriumi**, commander of the Western Army of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, delivered a few words at the opening ceremony. They were sober, precise, and heavy with meaning in the current Indo-Pacific context: "**Showing our defense capabilities is very important for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.**" This is not the speech of an officer preparing for war. It is the speech of an officer seeking to prevent one — by showing those watching from the Chinese or North Korean coasts that allied deterrence is real, trained, and ready. Exercise **Resolute Dragon 26** had just begun. **9,600 American and Japanese military personnel** were about to spend the following ten days rehearsing together what each hopes never to have to do for real.

The exercise **Resolute Dragon** — the **Resolute Dragon** — is a series of annual training exercises between the **United States Marine Corps** and the **Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces**. The sixth edition of these maneuvers, beginning **June 20, 2026** and continuing through **June 30, 2026**, mobilized personnel from all three Japanese services — ground, maritime, and air — as well as American Marines and Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel. In total, **23 sites** spread across **Kyushu** and **Okinawa Prefecture** served as training grounds, in a geographic space that runs along the western boundary of Japan's maritime domain — and looks directly toward Taiwan and the waters claimed by **China**.

### Geography as a political message

The choice of **Kyushu** and **Okinawa** as the exercise theaters is not incidental. These archipelagos constitute the axis of the southwestern Japanese island chain stretching from the southern tip of Kyushu to **Yonaguni**, less than 110 kilometers from Taiwan's coast. This is the "**first island chain**" that American military planners consider a natural geographic barrier limiting the Chinese navy's ability to expand freely into the western Pacific. Every military exercise conducted in this area sends a clear signal: these islands are defended, they are integrated into the American-Japanese security architecture, and any attempt to take them or bypass them by force will meet with coordinated, trained resistance. **Resolute Dragon 26** is, in this sense, a military exercise but also a **diplomatic message** articulated in the language of boots and armor.

The **island defense exercises** — their explicit declared objective by both parties — simulate precisely the operations that American-Japanese forces would have to conduct if one of the small islands of the Nansei-Shoto archipelago were occupied by an opposing force. These operations involve the transport of troops to islands by sea and air, the establishment of beachheads, the deployment of anti-ship weapon systems from island positions, and the coordination of air and ground strikes in a contested environment. These are precisely the capabilities that China is developing and that Japan and the United States are seeking to counter.

*There is a permanent tension in these exercises: they are necessary to maintain deterrence, but their very visibility can fuel spirals of provocation. Every time Japan and the United States train on these islands, Beijing watches and comments. Every Chinese comment is itself a demonstration of power. This is not a vicious cycle — it is a fragile balance maintained by constantly testing it.*

## 9,600 men and women, 23 sites: the anatomy of the exercise

### The operational firsts of 2026

The sixth edition of **Resolute Dragon** distinguishes itself from its predecessors through several significant operational innovations. **First**: the deployment of vessels from the **Self-Defense Force Maritime Transport Group** — a military maritime transport unit newly equipped with enhanced amphibious capabilities. This is the first time these ships have participated in the exercise, signaling the growing strength of the maritime component of Japan's defensive response. **Second**: the first use of a **V-22 Osprey** from the Japan Self-Defense Force for casualty evacuation operations from **Miyako Island**, in Okinawa Prefecture, to the US Marines' **Futenma Air Base** on Okinawa's main island. This is a medical evacuation capability in remote islands that fills a real operational gap. And it is also a demonstration of the **Osprey**'s versatility in island terrain, with its ability to take off and land vertically in confined spaces.

**Third innovation**: the integration into the exercise of the new **Type 25 land-based anti-ship missile systems**, which had been operationally deployed by Japanese forces in **March 2026**. These systems — whose official Japanese designation is the **Type 25 Land-based Anti-ship Missile Launcher** — represent a substantial reinforcement of Japan's capability to deny naval access in the waters around its southern islands. Their training during **Resolute Dragon 26** is their first major exercise, signaling that the operational build-up of this system is proceeding on a sustained schedule. In the context of Chinese naval expansion — and notably submarines such as the one observed at **Jiangnan** — modern coastal anti-ship missiles deployed on the Nansei island chain contribute directly to deterrence.

### Type 10 tanks at Hijudai — without their guns

One particular detail of **Resolute Dragon 26** deserves noting: the **Type 10** tanks of the Japan Self-Defense Forces participated in maneuvers at the **Hijudai training area** in Oita Prefecture — but without firing their main guns. The reason: a training accident that occurred in **April 2026** at the same site, which had caused **four deaths or injuries** among military personnel. The authorities judged it prudent to suspend main gun firing exercises at this site pending a review of safety procedures. This detail, seemingly minor, illustrates the real complexity of military preparation: even the world's best-equipped armies must manage accidents, adapt their exercises accordingly, and maintain safety standards that protect their soldiers during training. The tanks therefore conducted their maneuver and coordination evolutions, without the firing dimension that often represents the most realistic part of their combat training.

The participation of the **Type 10** tanks in the exercise remains significant despite this constraint. These tanks — developed specifically for Japan with dimensions adapted to Japanese roads and bridges that are narrower than their European or American equivalents — represent the armored component of ground island defense. In an island invasion scenario, armored vehicles capable of opposing a landing or counterattacking an enemy beachhead are a significant force multiplier. Their presence at **Resolute Dragon 26**, even without live fire, signals their integration into the joint American-Japanese island defense doctrine.

*The April accident at Hijudai — four dead or injured in a training exercise — reminds me that preparing for war also kills in peacetime. These soldiers were not dying against the enemy; they were training to defend their country. This reality must not be lost in abstract strategic analyses. Behind every military exercise, there are men and women who risk their lives — even in maneuvers.*

## The island defense doctrine: a revolution in progress

### From conventional defense to distributed defense

The central concept of **Resolute Dragon** — the defense of remote islands against invasion — reflects a **doctrinal revolution** underway in Japan's approach to its own security. For decades, **Japan** maintained a relatively static defensive posture, centered on protecting its main islands — Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku — with armed forces that declared themselves explicitly non-offensive. The growing military power of China, increasing ambiguities over the status of the **Senkaku/Diaoyu islands** disputed with Beijing, and repeated provocations in adjacent airspace and waters have led **Tokyo** to fundamentally revise this posture.

Today, Japan is developing capabilities that clearly fall under **active defense**: long-range anti-ship missiles deployed on southern islands, counterstrike capabilities, amphibious forces for island retaking. This doctrinal evolution was unthinkable ten years ago. It reflects the recognition that purely defensive deterrence — "we will do nothing, we will only resist" — is not credible against a military power as determined as today's **China**. **Resolute Dragon 26** is the exercised manifestation of this new doctrine — a doctrine that tells Beijing: if you try to take these islands, you will not only face local resistance, you will face joint American-Japanese forces capable of retaking what you have taken.

### Coastal anti-ship missiles as force multipliers

The deployment of the **Type 25 missile systems** during **Resolute Dragon 26** perfectly illustrates this new doctrine. An anti-ship missile fired from a small island can sink a much larger and much more expensive surface vessel. This is the logic of asymmetry in island defense: a relatively mobile and inexpensive platform — a missile system on a truck, moved between different positions to avoid counter-battery fire — can threaten colossal naval investments. The Chinese navy, with its destroyers, frigates, and amphibious assault ships, presents precisely the targets that coastal anti-ship missiles are designed to engage.

Training these systems under realistic conditions — transport on military vessels to the islands, deployment from island positions, simulation of firing procedures — is essential for this capability to be truly deterrent. A weapons system that an army does not know how to use effectively is not a real deterrent. This is why **Resolute Dragon 26** specifically integrates the training of these new system crews under conditions as close to real as possible — maritime transport of launchers to the islands, terrain deployment, simulation of operational procedures. This is not a parade exercise — it is serious combat training.

*Let's call him Kenta — a Japan Self-Defense Force soldier, 23 years old, from Kyushu, participating in Resolute Dragon 26 for the first time. He doesn't know exactly what his superior officers know about Chinese intentions. But he sees the missiles he loads onto trucks, he rehearses the deployment procedures, and he understands that what he is learning is not theoretical. His island is real. The sea around it is real. And the threat — he doesn't need anyone to explain it. He just has to look at a map.*

## The Japanese Osprey: a new capability in the archipelagos

### A first in the history of the exercise

One of the most visible innovations of **Resolute Dragon 26** is the **first operational use of a Japanese V-22 Osprey** in the context of an island defense exercise. The **Osprey** — an aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing that can convert in flight into a fast turboprop transport — is a platform particularly suited to operations in archipelagos like Okinawa, where small islands often lack a long enough runway for conventional transport aircraft. Its ability to take off and land vertically or with a short run allows it to operate from areas that conventional helicopters would struggle to reach quickly.

The specific mission tested during **Resolute Dragon 26** was the medical evacuation of casualties from **Miyako Island** — one of the Ryukyu islands situated between Okinawa and Taiwan — to **Futenma Air Base**. In a real combat scenario involving fighting on these remote islands, the ability to quickly evacuate seriously wounded soldiers to advanced medical facilities can mean the difference between life and death for injured soldiers. This is a **combat rescue** capability that improves the resilience of forces deployed in island terrain — and indirectly, the willingness of soldiers to fight in advanced forward positions if they know that rapid evacuation is possible in the event of injury.

### The Osprey and the risks of modernization

It is worth noting that the **Osprey** has a complex safety history. The aircraft has experienced several fatal accidents during its development and operational service — including a series of accidents that had led to a temporary suspension of its operations in certain areas. **Japan** had itself expressed concerns about the system's safety before acquiring its own aircraft. The first-use exercise during **Resolute Dragon 26** therefore takes place in a context where trust in the aircraft's reliability is being built progressively, exercise by exercise, in conditions that aim to maximize safety while developing operational competence. This is the permanent balance of military modernization: every new system brings new capabilities and new risks to manage.

The combination of the **Osprey** for medical evacuation and the new coastal anti-ship missile systems illustrates the nature of the ongoing modernization within the Japan Self-Defense Forces. It is not simply an increase in personnel or budget — it is a **qualitative transformation** of capabilities, with new platforms giving Japanese forces operational options they did not previously have. This transformation is accelerated by the perceived growth of the Chinese threat and by **Tokyo**'s growing clarity on the need to be able to defend itself more autonomously, complementing the alliance with the **United States**.

*The Osprey remains a divisive aircraft. Its accidents have cost lives. But its ability to operate in Okinawa's isolated archipelagos, where runways are rare and distances are long, makes it almost irreplaceable in this specific geographic context. It is a difficult safety trade-off that the armed forces must manage with total honesty — with their soldiers, and with the public that funds them.*

## The North Korean threat as a backdrop

### Two threats, one exercise

If analysts naturally associate **Resolute Dragon 26** with the context of China's growing military power, the exercise in reality addresses a spectrum of threats that also includes **North Korea**. **Pyongyang**'s ballistic missile program — whose latest developments include the **Hwasong-20**, a recently tested solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, and shorter-range nuclear-capable missile systems — maintains permanent military pressure on **Japan** and the American forces stationed there. The bases in **Kyushu** and **Okinawa** used during **Resolute Dragon 26** would themselves be potential targets in a conflict involving North Korea.

The **dual threat** — China for island scenarios, North Korea for missile strikes — justifies a deterrence response that is simultaneously capable of island defense operations and protection against ballistic missiles. Japanese investments in missile defense systems — notably **Patriot PAC-3** batteries and **Aegis**-equipped destroyers — fit within this logic. **Resolute Dragon 26** focuses on the ground and amphibious dimension of deterrence — island defense — but it is part of a larger ensemble that includes anti-missile and air defense components. It is the coherence of this ensemble that constitutes the real architecture of deterrence in the western Pacific.

### Synchronization with other allied exercises

It is significant that **Resolute Dragon 26** takes place simultaneously with a series of other military exercises and developments in the region. In **June 2026**, Taiwan conducted its own coastal missile exercises toward the Taiwan Strait. China continued its regular exercises around Taiwan. Discussions on defense spending within **NATO** took place in Brussels. And allied navies closely monitored activities at the Jiangnan shipyard. This is not coincidence — it is the nature of the current strategic period, where multiple crises and developments unfold simultaneously across several theaters, demanding distributed attention and response across the entire **geopolitical spectrum**. **Resolute Dragon 26** is one thread of this complex fabric — an important thread, but not the only one.

Coordination between different theaters is managed by American unified commands — notably **US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM)** based in Honolulu — which seeks to maintain coherence of deterrence posture across the entire Pacific area of responsibility. Exercises like **Resolute Dragon 26** are integrated into this broader planning framework, coordinated with other bilateral and multilateral exercises to collectively signal the robustness of the allied architecture. It is a delicate balance to maintain — enough demonstration to deter, not enough to provoke.

*There is something impressive in the mechanics of deterrence. Thousands of soldiers training together, learning to fight in environments they hope never to see at war, developing a mutual trust that only repeated training can create. This is the invisible foundation of peace in the Pacific. It holds as long as both sides believe that the cost of an attack is too high. Resolute Dragon 26 contributes to maintaining that belief.*

## The Japanese perspective: a nation in strategic transformation

### Tokyo rewrites its strategic constitution

To understand the real scope of **Resolute Dragon 26**, one must grasp the strategic transformation that **Japan** has been undergoing in recent years. **Japan's 1947 Constitution**, adopted under American occupation, contains Article 9, which renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and prohibits the maintenance of war potential. This constitutional provision has long limited — at least in theory — Japan's offensive capabilities. But since the adoption of the **revised National Security Strategy in December 2022**, Japan has clearly reinterpreted its constitutional constraints to authorize so-called **counterstrike** capabilities — the ability to strike adversary bases if an attack on Japan is deemed imminent.

This is a historic change. Japan is rearming — not in a logic of aggression, but in a logic of **credible deterrence** against threats that its leaders perceive as real and growing. Japan's defense budget has increased significantly in recent years, with a target of **2% of GDP** now reached, after decades spent well below that level. Military acquisitions — **F-35s**, **Ospreys**, anti-ship missiles, Aegis destroyers — testify to this effort. And exercises like **Resolute Dragon 26** are the operational dimension of this transformation — they convert equipment into real capabilities and soldiers into trained fighters.

### The alliance that stands

At the heart of this Japanese transformation is the alliance with the **United States**. The **US-Japan Security Treaty** obligates Washington to defend Japan in the event of an armed attack on its territory — an obligation whose concrete application depends on operational coherence between the two armies. This is precisely the coherence that **Resolute Dragon 26** builds, edition by edition. Learning to fight together — to coordinate communications, to integrate weapons systems, to manage shared logistics, to mutually understand operational procedures — cannot be improvised. It happens in the mud of a training ground at **Hijudai**, on the decks of maritime transport vessels in the waters around **Okinawa**, in the cockpits of **Ospreys** practicing their first island medical evacuations.

**NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte** stated on **June 17, 2026**, during his press conference in Brussels: "**Ukraine is also sharing more and more of its battlefield knowledge with Europeans, Canada, and the United States, for example through our joint center in Poland, JATEC, but also through other means to share all this information on drone technology and modern warfare.**" This sharing of operational knowledge — the experience of real war disseminated to allies who are training for potential conflicts — is precisely what bilateral exercises like **Resolute Dragon** allow to be put into practice. The lessons learned in Ukraine about defending forward positions, using anti-ship missiles, joint arms coordination — they feed the doctrines tested in Pacific exercises.

*The American-Japanese alliance is one of the strongest in the free world. It has weathered decades of trade friction, controversies over military bases, constitutional debates. But it has held. And today, facing a more assertive China than ever and a more unpredictable North Korea than ever, it remains the foundation of the security of 125 million Japanese. Resolute Dragon 26 is not just a military exercise — it is a renewed act of faith in this alliance.*

## American forces and their permanent presence

### USMC: at the heart of island deterrence

The **United States Marine Corps (USMC)** is the principal American partner in **Resolute Dragon 26**. This is the logic of the mission: the Marines are the American force dedicated to amphibious operations and landings — precisely the capabilities necessary to defend or retake islands. The permanent presence of American marine forces in Japan — notably in **Okinawa**, where major Marine bases such as **Camp Schwab**, **Camp Hansen**, and **Futenma Air Station** are located — is both a strategic asset and a recurring source of political tensions with the local Okinawan population, which bears a disproportionate share of the American military presence in Japan.

These tensions — real and documented, related to aircraft noise, incidents involving military personnel, restrictions on access to training areas — must not be ignored in an honest analysis of **Resolute Dragon 26**. Military deterrence rests on the physical presence of forces in the region, and this presence has social costs that Okinawa's residents pay in concrete terms. This is a tension that Japanese and American decision-makers must manage carefully, working to relocate certain facilities and improve relations with local communities. The social legitimacy of American military presence is a dimension of deterrence that no force table reflects — but that no serious strategy can ignore.

### The build-up of Japanese ground forces

Alongside their partnership with the American Marines, the **Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces** — more commonly known as **JGSDF** — are in the midst of transformation. The creation of the **Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB)** in 2018 gave Japan a force specifically designed for island assault operations — inspired by the American Marine forces but adapted to the Japanese context. This force, based in **Sasebo** in Nagasaki Prefecture, regularly participates in **Resolute Dragon** exercises and other bilateral exercises. Its operational build-up — new platforms, new equipment, new exercises — is one of the most visible manifestations of Japan's strategic transformation.

Lieutenant General **Seiji Toriumi**, commander of the Western Army — the one that covers the **Resolute Dragon 26** theater — used at the opening ceremony a formula that perfectly summarizes the philosophy of the exercise: "**The defense of the West is the defense of Japan.**" This is both a doctrinal affirmation — the southern islands are as Japanese as Hokkaido — and a political message — Japan is ready to defend them. In the context of China's growing military power and its claims in the East China Sea, this message has a strategic value that extends far beyond the borders of the exercise itself.

*General Toriumi's formula — "the defense of the West is the defense of Japan" — struck me. It is simple. It is precise. And it is the kind of doctrinal clarity that is sometimes lacking in strategic debates that drown in nuance. Island chains looking toward Taiwan are Japanese territory, and they will be defended. There it is. There is nothing ambiguous about that.*

## What the hypothetical enemy observes

### The readability of deterrence

A deterrence exercise is only effective insofar as it is correctly perceived by the adversary it seeks to deter. **Resolute Dragon 26** was publicly announced by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and American forces, with official communications detailing participating personnel, exercise sites, and operational innovations. This transparency is deliberate: the goal is not to prepare a strategic surprise, but on the contrary to **clearly signal** the capabilities and cohesion of the alliance to those watching — notably in Beijing and Pyongyang. A secret exercise has no deterrence value. It is visibility that makes it politically effective.

The question is therefore: how does **China** perceive **Resolute Dragon 26**? Official Chinese commentary on these exercises generally describes them as "provocations" or "military posturing" in its neighborhood. This rhetoric is itself a signal: it means the exercise has been noted, it has had a psychological and political impact, and Beijing considers that its influence in the region is directly contested by the allied capabilities demonstrated. This is not an admission of weakness on China's part — it is an assertion of its claim over the strategic space these exercises seek to defend. Deterrence works, in part, because it provokes exactly this reaction.

### The figure that counts: six editions, constant progression

The sixth edition of **Resolute Dragon** in **2026** — the exercise began in **2021** with initial personnel numbers well below the current **9,600** — illustrates a constant progression in the sophistication and ambition of the exercise. Each edition has brought new capabilities, new equipment, new participating units. The trajectory is clear: the exercise grows because the perceived threat grows. The **9,600 military personnel** of **2026** represent a signal that planners on both sides of the **Alliance** read correctly: the investment in deterrence in the southern Japanese archipelagos is increasing. Confidence in the strategic value of the exercise is sufficient to justify ever-increasing personnel and ever-greater operational complexity.

In coming years, if the current trajectory holds, **Resolute Dragon** could well exceed **15,000 personnel** and integrate additional components — perhaps more significant naval combat forces, elements of the **Japan Air Self-Defense Force** with close air support missions, or contingents from other regional allies like **Australia** or the **Philippines** seeking to strengthen their cooperation with **Washington** and **Tokyo** in the context of the growing Chinese threat. The direction is set. The question is whether the political will required to follow it will be maintained in all the relevant capitals.

*Six editions in six years. The regularity is itself a message. It says: we are not doing this for the cameras, we are not doing this in reaction to a crisis. We do this because it is our routine, our discipline, our permanent commitment. Deterrence is not an event — it is a continuous effort. Resolute Dragon 26 is the sixth annual demonstration of that. There will be a seventh. And an eighth.*

## The archipelago and its civilian populations

### Civilians in the shadow of maneuvers

Exercise **Resolute Dragon 26** takes place in inhabited regions. The islands of **Kyushu** and **Okinawa** are not empty territories — they are living spaces where millions of people work, raise their children, farm their fields, run their businesses. Military maneuvers have concrete impacts on these populations: the sounds of exercises, restrictions on access to certain areas, disruption to traffic. The residents of **Okinawa** in particular — who have hosted for decades a disproportionate concentration of American military presence in Japan — live in a complicated relationship with the forces that theoretically protect them. This complexity is real and deserves to be named honestly in any analysis of **Resolute Dragon 26**.

There is a permanent and legitimate debate in **Japan**, notably in **Okinawa**, about the balance between national security imperatives and the rights of local populations to lead their lives without the permanent constraints that a significant military presence imposes. This debate does not invalidate the strategic necessity of the exercise — but it is a reminder of its real human cost. The solutions to this tension — relocation of certain bases, improvement of community relations, economic compensation of the affected territories — are responsibilities that the Japanese and American governments must assume seriously. The long-term legitimacy of the military presence depends on it.

### Regional stability as a public good

For the millions of inhabitants of the islands of the Indo-Pacific region — Japanese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indonesian — regional stability is not an abstract concept. It is the condition that allows leaving for work in the morning, sending children to school, making plans for the future. An armed conflict in the **Taiwan Strait** or in the southern Japanese archipelagos would have catastrophic consequences for civilian populations who have asked for nothing. This is why deterrence — as costly, as inconvenient, as visible as it may be — remains preferable to its absence. **Resolute Dragon 26** is, in the final analysis, an investment in the civilian peace of the region — even if its participants wear uniforms and carry weapons.

Lieutenant General **Toriumi** chose the right words at the opening ceremony. "**Demonstrating our defense capabilities is very important for peace and stability in the region.**" This is not hollow military rhetoric — it is a well-founded strategic observation. Armed conflicts rarely break out against adversaries who prove stronger than anticipated. They often erupt when a potential aggressor underestimates the resistance they will encounter. **Resolute Dragon 26** ensures that no one underestimates the resistance of American-Japanese forces in the southern archipelagos. This is its concrete contribution to peace.

*I think of the residents of Miyako, that Okinawa island from which Ospreys take off for their medical evacuation exercises. They see the military aircraft pass. They hear the sounds of exercises. They know they live on a geopolitical front line. And they continue nonetheless to grow their sugarcane fields, to welcome tourists who come to see their coral reefs. Life continues, even under the shadow of strategy. That is resilient in a way that moves me.*

## The operational lessons to be drawn

### What 2026 teaches 2030

Each edition of **Resolute Dragon** generates valuable operational data for military planners: which procedures work, which need to be revised, which equipment presents limitations under real conditions of use, where communication and interoperability gaps remain. This data feeds doctrinal revisions and equipment requests that will guide defense budgets in coming years. In this sense, **Resolute Dragon 26** is not just a demonstration exercise — it is an **operational laboratory** that produces knowledge directly useful for preparing for the conflict everyone hopes never to have to fight.

The firsts — the **Japanese Osprey** for medical evacuation, the Maritime Transport Group vessels, the **Type 25 missiles** under realistic conditions — provide precisely this type of data. Technical and doctrinal teams analyze performances, identify problems, formulate recommendations. This continuous learning process is one of the characteristics that distinguishes the armies of allied democracies from their potential adversaries: an institutional culture that values constructive criticism and rapid adaptation. The American Marines have developed this culture across several generations of real conflicts. They transmit it to their Japanese counterparts in exercises like **Resolute Dragon**.

### Interoperability as a strategic investment

**Interoperability** — the ability of two different forces to operate together coherently and effectively — is perhaps the most durable gain of **Resolute Dragon 26**. It is not easily measured in figures or immediate performance indicators — it accumulates, exercise by exercise, in the mutual familiarity of command teams, in the trust between units, in the shared understanding of operational procedures. An American officer who has worked with his Japanese counterparts during three successive editions of **Resolute Dragon** knows their strengths and their limits. He knows how to communicate effectively despite language barriers. He has confidence in their competence. This trust is a real military asset — perhaps the most precious that these exercises generate.

It is also for this reason that **NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte** insists, in his statements of **June 2026**, on the importance of sharing Ukrainian operational lessons with all allies — including in the Pacific. The coherence of the allied architecture is stronger when the different partners learn together from the same operational experiences. **Resolute Dragon 26** fits within this logic of collective learning that is, at bottom, one of the greatest strengths of the **West** in the strategic competition with authoritarian adversaries who learn alone.

*Interoperability — that cold bureaucratic military word — hides something profoundly human: the trust between soldiers who have never met before but find themselves side by side in a difficult situation. Resolute Dragon builds this trust, layer by layer, exercise by exercise. It is slow. It is costly. And it is irreplaceable.*

## China, the towering specter of the exercise

### What Beijing cannot ignore

From its offices in **Beijing**, the **People's Liberation Army** observes **Resolute Dragon 26** with the attention that any allied capability signal deserves. China follows these exercises with precision, analyzing personnel numbers, equipment deployed, new capabilities introduced. Its military analysts draw their own conclusions about the operational coherence and real capabilities of allied forces. In a certain sense, this mutual observation is part of the normal deterrence process — each party evaluates the credibility of the other's threats.

What **Beijing** cannot ignore after **Resolute Dragon 26** is the constant progression in the sophistication of the exercise. The **9,600 personnel** deployed across **23 sites** in Japan's southern archipelagos, the new anti-ship missile systems, the first operational use of the Japanese Osprey, the new maritime transport vessels — all of this points to an alliance that is seriously investing in its capacity to defend precisely the territory that China watches most closely. This signal has a strategic value that cannot be measured in numbers of soldiers or exercise budget — it is measured in degrees of probability that a Chinese military aggression in the southern archipelagos would encounter stronger-than-expected resistance.

### Stability as a collective result

Ultimately, the success of **Resolute Dragon 26** will be measured not by its immediate operational performances, but by its contribution to the stability of the **Indo-Pacific** region in the years to come. If this exercise, combined with all the other allied deterrence signals, contributes to maintaining peace in Japan's southern archipelagos and the Taiwan Strait, it will have accomplished its mission. This is not an easily measurable objective — how do you prove that a war did not happen because of an exercise? — but it is the objective for which it is conducted. And it is the objective that justifies the **9,600 soldiers**, the **23 sites**, the new missiles, and the Ospreys practicing their first evacuations on the islands of Okinawa.

*Deterrence is perhaps the only military victory that generates no newspaper headlines. It is invisible when it succeeds. We cannot see the conflicts that did not happen, the invasions that were never launched, the missiles that were never fired because the resistance was too formidable. Resolute Dragon 26 aims precisely for this invisibility. And if it achieves it, it will have accomplished something immense that no one will ever openly celebrate.*

## Coordination with the Philippines — a strategic triangle

### Resolute Dragon in the context of regional exercises

Exercise **Resolute Dragon 2026** does not exist in a geographic vacuum. It articulates with a series of joint military exercises that sketch, month by month, the architecture of collective defense in the western Pacific. At the same time that **9,600 soldiers** were maneuvering in **Kyushu** and the **Nansei islands**, the **Philippines** was conducting its own joint exercises with the **United States** under the **Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)**. These parallel exercises, synchronized without being formally coordinated, send a coherent geostrategic message: from **Hokkaido** in the north to the **Batanes Islands** in the south, a defensive arc is progressively strengthening against Beijing's documented expansionist ambitions.

The question of **Japan-Philippines** interoperability is one of the least analyzed but most promising dimensions of this emerging architecture. Since the **2023** security agreement between **Tokyo** and **Manila**, bilateral exercises have multiplied, Japanese equipment has been made available to Philippine forces for training, and operational communication channels are developing. This **United States - Japan - Philippines** triangle is not yet a formal three-way alliance — Japan's constitutional constraints and Philippine political sensitivities make this formalization complex. But its operational effects are beginning to be felt, and they complicate the strategic calculations of any military planner in **Beijing**.

### The Taiwan factor in the exercise geometry

Any analysis of **Resolute Dragon 2026** that does not mention **Taiwan** is incomplete. The **Nansei islands** — that arc of archipelagos stretching from Japan's **Kyushu** to the northern tip of **Taiwan** — are the operational space that would link any military intervention in the **Taiwan Strait** to Japanese and American forces stationed in the region. The **Japan Self-Defense Forces** exercise in this space precisely because this is where the battle for maritime access would play out, if it came to that, in a conflict scenario. The **23 training sites** of **Resolute Dragon 2026** cover exactly this critical zone — from **Okinawa** to the southernmost small islands.

This geographic reality is not a secret. It is documented by **JGSDF** strategists, discussed in Japanese security journals, and analyzed by **Washington** think tanks. What is new in **2026** is the density and sophistication of exercises in this space. The **Japanese Ospreys** are not there by chance. The **island defense units** do not train in the **Nansei** by tradition. It is a deliberate, documented, and progressive response to a real and measurable geostrategic risk. Japan has chosen to prepare rather than to hope not to have to.

*The Hokkaido-Batanes arc — when I trace this line on a map, I measure the scale of what is being quietly built. Not an aggressive alliance. Not a bellicose encirclement. A defensive net woven exercise by exercise, agreement by agreement, Osprey by Osprey. China watches this net forming. And its planners understand what each knot of this net means. That is the real language deterrence speaks in the Pacific.*

## JGSDF integration — a Japanese army in transformation

### The de facto constitutional revision

**Japan** in **2026** is no longer the **Japan** of **2010**. The revision of the national defense policy of **December 2022** — one of the most significant strategic reorientations since the creation of the **Self-Defense Forces** in **1954** — formally authorized counterstrike capabilities, increased the defense budget toward the target of **2% of GDP**, and explicitly identified **China** and **North Korea** as threats to regional peace. **Resolute Dragon 2026** is the operational expression of this doctrinal transformation. The **9,600 soldiers** maneuvering are not the same soldiers — institutionally, doctrinally, and in terms of equipment — as their predecessors from ten years ago.

This transformation is reflected in the equipment deployed during **Resolute Dragon 2026**. The modernized **Type 12** ground-to-ship missiles — whose range has been extended to cover targets within a radius of **900 kilometers** — are at the heart of the island defense concept. Japanese **Patriot PAC-3** air defense systems operate alongside American **HIMARS** in fire-maneuver coordination exercises. And the **Ospreys** — those tiltrotor converters — enable the movement of forces at speeds and over distances that conventional helicopters cannot achieve in the **Nansei** archipelago.

### The build-up of amphibious infantry units

Japan's **Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade** — created in **2018** on the model of the **American Marines** — constitutes one of the most significant doctrinal innovations of the **Ground Self-Defense Forces**. During **Resolute Dragon 2026**, this unit trained with the American **31st MEU** in island retaking and amphibious landing scenarios on the **Nansei** coasts. The coordination between the two units — compatible doctrines, interoperable equipment, languages bridged by years of joint exercises — has reached a level of operational sophistication that military observers describe as **"fusion"** rather than mere cooperation.

The stakes of this amphibious capability extend beyond the defense of Japanese islands alone. A **Japan** capable of joint amphibious operations with the **United States** fundamentally changes the force employment calculations across the entire western Pacific. This is not a provocation — it is a defensive capability that broadens the range of responses available in the face of aggression. And in the logic of deterrence, broadening defensive options reduces incentives for aggression. **Resolute Dragon 2026** is not a threat. It is a demonstration that the cost of aggression in this space would be prohibitive.

*Japan's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade — created in 2018, thickened in 2024, deployed in exercise in 2026. In eight years, a capability has emerged that changes the geometry of security in the Nansei archipelago. Eight years is short on the scale of military history. But in the current strategic competition, it is exactly the required tempo. I am not nostalgic for an immobile pacifist Japan. I am relieved by a Japan that takes its security seriously.*

## Ukrainian lessons applied to Japanese terrain

### What the war in Ukraine teaches about island defense

The **JGSDF** and **Pentagon** planners who designed **Resolute Dragon 2026** have all studied the operational lessons of the Ukrainian conflict. The defense of an island in the **Nansei** archipelago shares structural characteristics with the defense of territory against a mass-superior power: dependence on precision munitions rather than heavy armor, the critical importance of intelligence and surveillance systems, the primacy of mobility over positional density. These lessons — drawn at the cost of tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives — have been integrated into the doctrine of **Resolute Dragon 2026**. The exercises of **2026** are more sophisticated than those of **2022** precisely because **Ukraine** has provided an operational laboratory in real time.

Anti-drone defense, in particular, has received specific attention during **Resolute Dragon 2026**. Low-altitude drones — omnipresent in Ukrainian fighting — represent a threat for which the **Japan Self-Defense Forces** have accelerated their acquisition of countermeasures. **C-UAS** (counter-drone) systems have been integrated for the first time in large-scale exercises during this edition. Early detection and neutralization protocols are being standardized. The lesson is the one **Mark Rutte** stated on **June 17, 2026**: **"Learning from Ukraine on drone technology, we must do this together."**

### The advantage of island terrain — what Ukraine does not have

Island defense has a characteristic that continental land defense does not: it benefits from natural maritime obstacles that slow any invasion force and create predictable attrition zones. The **straits** between the **Nansei islands** are chokepoints that any naval or amphibious force must cross. It is in these chokepoints that Japan's **Type 12** sea-skimming missiles and American **Harpoon** batteries can exercise their maximum effect. Geography here is a defensive force multiplier that the planners of **Resolute Dragon 2026** have systematically integrated into their exercise scenarios.

This geographic reality creates an asymmetry favorable to defenders in the **Nansei** — an asymmetry that joint **JGSDF-USMC** exercises specifically seek to exploit. **9,600 soldiers** trained to defend an archipelago they know terrain by terrain, backed by precision missiles and allied air capabilities, represent a defensive force whose attrition cost for an aggressor would be prohibitive. This is not a guarantee of victory — no exercise can guarantee a future victory. But it is the credible demonstration of resistance sufficient to make any calculated aggression against these islands irrationally costly.

*The Nansei straits as natural attrition zones. Geography working for the defenders. There is something almost reassuring in this reality — the map is on the side of those who want to preserve the peace, not those who would want to break it. Resolute Dragon 2026, ultimately, is not just an exercise. It is the demonstration that geography and preparation can combine to make aggression stupid. That is all deterrence can do. And it is enough.*

## Conclusion: Resolute Dragon burns with determined calm

### 9,600 reasons to prepare

Exercise **Resolute Dragon 26** is over — it concluded on **June 30, 2026** after ten days of intense maneuvers across **23 sites** throughout **Kyushu** and **Okinawa**. **9,600 American and Japanese soldiers** practiced island defense, deployed new anti-ship missile systems, conducted medical evacuations in island terrain with the **Osprey**, and strengthened the operational ties between two armies that form the backbone of security in the western Pacific. What they accomplished will not appear in the next victory communiqués — the real victory of this exercise would be that the islands they learned to defend are never attacked.

### The Resolute Dragon, symbol of an era

The name of the exercise — **Resolute Dragon** — contains perhaps an unintentional irony. The dragon is one of the most powerful symbols of **China** — the power that the exercise is designed, in part, to deter. Resolute evokes the determination of allied forces to defend their territory. The juxtaposition says something about the nature of the current strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific: two dragons — one ancient and authoritarian, the other young and democratic — looking at each other across a contested sea, each baring its teeth to convince the other that the price of an attack would be too high. **Resolute Dragon** 2026 has bared its teeth. Whether the message was heard in Beijing, only the future will tell.

*I am not military. I have never worn a uniform. But when I read the reports about these 9,600 soldiers training in the Kyushu and Okinawa archipelagos, under the June heat, on difficult terrain, with new equipment they are still learning to master — I feel something that resembles deep respect. They are doing difficult work to protect something worth protecting: the peace of a region that has already known war, and has no desire to see it again.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Japan Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF) — Official Resolute Dragon 26 communication on X — June 20, 2026](https://x.com/Japan_GSDF/status/2064180728607519164)

- [ANews — Japan and United States launch joint island defense exercise Resolute Dragon — June 20, 2026](https://www.anews.com.tr/asia/2026/06/20/japan-us-launch-joint-island-defense-exercise-in-kyushu-okinawa)

- [NATO — Rutte press conference: Ukraine lessons, drones and Indo-Pacific security — June 17, 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/events/transcripts/2026/06/17/pre-ministerial-press-conference-ahead-of-the-meeting-of-nato-ministers-of-defence)

### Secondary sources

- [Euromedia24 — Japan-US joint military exercise Resolute Dragon-26: 9,600 personnel — June 20, 2026](https://euromedia24.com/en/post/58723)

- UA News — United States and Japan launch large-scale island defense exercises — June 20, 2026

- [SIPRI — Yearbook 2026: Indo-Pacific security context and growing Chinese nuclear capability — June 8, 2026](https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2026/increasing-focus-nuclear-weapons-amid-heightened-escalation-risks-new-sipri-yearbook-out-now)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/reportage-resolute-dragon-2026-9600-soldats-au-bord-du-precipice-indo-pacifique