Navy, Marines Drill with Japanese Forces in Test of New Island-Hopping Concept - USNI News

The U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy and Japanese Self-Defense Force teamed up in the Philippine and East China seas to test the ideas behind the Marines’ Force Design 2030 plan.

Noble Fusion, held in early February, tested the Marines’ island-hopping concept with allies.

“Noble Fusion allowed us to showcase our interoperability and to validate Force Design 2030 initiatives in our Corps’ main-effort theatre at a scale not seen since 2018,” Col. Michael Nakonieczny, commanding officer of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, told reporters.
The exercise “set conditions for the next large-scale exercise that will allow us to rehearse our response to any crisis or conflict, at an ever increasing scale.”

The drills serve as a prelude to a larger scale exercise between U.S and Japanese forces scheduled to take place in Japan later this year.