The U.S. is Building an INDOPACOM Army-Marine Expeditionary Force
Combined Joint Task Force X seems like an appropriate designation
It sure looks like there will be a joint Army-Marine expeditionary force sent to Taiwan if China invades. Sometimes separate things that don’t make sense can become reasonable when pieced together.
In the Korean War, the Army X Corps was organized around the Army 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Marine Division:
Though pressed to meet Eighth Army troop requirements, MacArthur was able to shape a two-division landing force. He formed the headquarters of the X Corps from members of his own staff, naming his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond, as corps commander. He rebuilt the 7th Infantry Division by giving it high priority on replacements from the United States and by assigning it 8,600 South Korean recruits, most of them poorly trained. The latter measure was part of a larger program, the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA). The KATUSA program began when the U.S. Army could not supply Eighth Army with all the replacements it required. KATUSAs, usually newly conscripted South Koreans, were assigned mostly to American infantry units. At the same time Almond acquired from the United States the greater part of the 1st Marine Division, which he planned to fill out with the Marine brigade currently in the Pusan Perimeter. The X Corps, with these two divisions, the ROK 17th Infantry, and two ROK Marine Corps battalions, was to make its landing as a separate force, not as part of the Eighth Army.
This corps carried out the Inchon landing and later was shifted to the east coast of the Korean peninsula for the drive north to the Yalu River where it was confronted by the thinly disguised People's Liberation Army—the People's Volunteer Army. Totally different and in no way affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
I get the impression that the 101st Airborne Division is now focused on deploying to the Philippines in case of war with China, where it will use newly organized and equipped units with its organic air assets—helicopters now and eventually VTOLs—to jump over to Taiwan to battle the PLA invasion with lots of drones. Although I'm skeptical of smaller ground drones for large-scale conventional combat.
That role for the Army air assault units honestly makes more sense than deep air assaults into enemy rear areas. And it fits with my suspicion of where Marine SIFs are really intended to go in case of war with China.
Army Multi-Domain Task Forces and any longer-range Marine missiles based in the northern Philippines could help keep sea lines of communication open to Taiwan, attack Chinese ships moving troops across the Taiwan Strait, and attack PLA ground forces ashore in support of the 101st Airborne Division and Marines.
Maybe in this role, the seeming momentum to expand the size of Marine SIFs is not a bug, but a feature. The Marines sent to Taiwan could focus more on the coastal anti-ship mission, too.
In this light, the Army ability to move the division's units 500 miles could allow them an easy exit in case things go really badly on Taiwan. And perhaps the Marines with their otherwise misbegotten barges with pretensions can actually use those ships to deploy to and evacuate from Taiwan with main bases not far away in the Philippines. Or use marine V-22s. Those long-range tilt-rotors could also help with logistics for widely dispersed small ground units.
The military is working on improving its logistics in concert with allies in INDOPACOM:
While [Transportation Command General Randall] Reed did not reveal many specifics about the upcoming drills, he confirmed one would be Mobility Guardian, a biennial exercise held in the Indo-Pacific for the first time in 2023.
That iteration involved forces from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, France and Japan. Together, they moved 15,000 U.S. and international troops using 70 aircraft for resupply missions, aerial refueling, and medical evacuations across a 3,000-mile training area.
This year’s exercise series aims to demonstrate the ability to rapidly mobilize and deploy forces from the U.S. to spots throughout the Indo-Pacific, Reed said.
About 500 U.S. defense trainers are operating on Taiwan, more than 10 times the number previously disclosed, according to recent congressional testimony by a retired U.S. Navy admiral.
Mark Montgomery, speaking May 15 before the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist party, said the U.S. should double that number to help Taiwan build “a true counter-intervention force.”
Being able to work with the Taiwanese is obviously vital, and this training should promoted that.
American special forces will also have spread a net across the island and even to islands near China:
Last spring, some of the command’s 35,000 special operations forces took part in an unprecedented military deployment to Taiwan’s Kinmen island, about 3 miles from the Chinese mainland, the online military blog SOFREP reported. The commandos were training with Taiwanese military forces under provisions of the 2023 defense authorization law that calls for U.S. military advisers to work with their counterparts on the self-ruled island.
But even if America is successful in deploying and sustaining Joint Task Force X on Taiwan where the expeditionary force at least halts the Chinese invasion before it can conquer Taiwan, as I asked in Military Review, who drives the PLA into the sea?
NOTE: I made the image with the Substack system.