American missile systems were deployed last week to a remote Luzon Strait island 100 miles south of Taiwan as part of Washington and Manila’s Balikatan 2026 military drills.
The arrival of Washington’s precision strike and anti-ship launchers for the annual exercise marks one of the most significant deployments on the Philippine archipelago to date and places advanced U.S. area denial capabilities within a strategic first island chokepoint.
The annual series of U.S.-Philippine led exercises have shifted to focus on the defense of Manila’s strategic islands amid tensions with China. Translating from Tagalog to “shoulder-to-shoulder,” Balikatan continues to include more complicated training as the alliance gears up for a contingency that could see Beijing’s forces in the South China Sea or Luzon Strait. This year’s iteration brings 17,000 troops from the U.S., the Philippines, Australia, Canada, France and Japan together from April 20 to May 8.
U.S. Marine Corps and Army launchers deployed last week to Itbayat, located in the Batanes Island Group in the Luzon Strait, for a series of drills designed to demonstrate rapid infiltration of long-range missile systems into remote locations. A 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) and a 25th Infantry Division High Mobility Rocket Artillery System (HIMARS) were inserted and extracted from the island with Air Force C-130s. These Hawaii-based ground units have been tailored to combat threats in littoral and archipelagic environments across the Indo-Pacific, trading traditional gear from their respective branches for long-range strike platforms and more nimble methods of maneuver.
The Marines staged their anti-ship missile launchers at Cagayan North International Airport, one of nine sites designated under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement where rotational American forces could access and construct defense infrastructure. Army HIMARS were flown back to Clark Air Base, Philippines – once home to a large U.S. Air Force installation – following their capability demonstration.
Missiles supported by these Marine and Army launchers can reach targets at ranges between 115 to 310 miles, effectively covering the maritime areas extending from the Philippine island of Luzon to the southern tip of Taiwan. The capability that these launchers can afford American commanders in the event of contingency concerning disputed maritime areas of the South China Sea — or Manila’s northernmost territories in Batanes — have been increasingly highlighted by the Marines and Army during their activities in the Southeast Asian nation.
Washington has used the deployments of systems such as NMESIS, HIMARS and the ground-based Mark 41 vertical launching system Mid-Range Capability, also known as Typhon, to demonstrate its commitment to Manila amid Beijing’s coercive efforts against its oldest treaty ally in the Indo-Pacific.
While recent joint drills between the U.S. and the Philippines have seen increased missile deployments via aerial and maritime means to islands across the Batanes, the inclusion of these missile launchers during this year’s iteration of Balikatan coincides with the most intensive maritime strike activity to occur in the Luzon Strait to date. An area of the strait was recently declared a no sail zone due to a planned special operations forces-led anti-ship drill this past Friday and Saturday.
In Luzon, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces and Philippine Marine Corps plan to participate in the drills with live-fire and practice deployments of their Type 88 and BrahMos anti-ship missile units.