As U.S.-China Tensions Rise Ahead of Summit, Marines Train for Taiwan Crisis

At a time when U.S.-China tensions are once again on the rise over President Joe Biden's decision to invite Taiwan to an upcoming virtual conference, the U.S. Marine Corps is preparing for the outbreak of a potential crisis by returning to its roots as an elite island-hopping force. But whether this would be enough to win a war, or even deter an attack, remains a question looming between the world's two top powers and, by extension, the rest of the world.

News of the Marines' shift to a more traditional mission with echoes of the World War II Pacific Campaign was first undertaken by Commandant General David Berger, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, under whom a severe downturn in relations with China first occurred. The new techniques have since been demonstrated in a series of exercises, including this April's Noble Fury off the coast of Japan and July's Summer Fury off the coast of California.

One of these techniques is a new training program called the Infantry Marine Course (IMC), which a U.S. Marine Corps Training and Education Command official told Newsweek was "a direct reflection of the Commandant's Planning Guidance that dictates the requirement for smarter, better-trained multi-disciplinary infantry Marines."

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