Sentinel Samurai (Kadena, 17–21 August 2026) trained U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine EOD teams to clear simulated munitions and reopen runways after a missile or drone strike—readiness for a Pacific war, not mainly leftover WWII bombs. Official language: restore “freedom of manoeuvre.”

The author sets that against 1945: ~200,000 dead on Okinawa, about half civilians; IJA coercion, “spy” killings, student corps and forced suicides plus U.S. bombardment. Caves are mass-death sites still yielding remains. ~1,856 tonnes of old UXO remain; Japan cleared ~13 tonnes in FY2024; four JSDF technicians were injured at Kadena in June 2025.

Okinawa is ~0.6% of Japan’s land but hosts 70% of exclusive U.S. base area. Futenma-to-Henoko proceeds despite a 2019 no vote. The piece asks “security for whom?”: joint U.S. drills omit Okinawan civil response; deterrence can feed a security dilemma. Call is diplomacy, hotlines, civilian say, more UXO clearance—not treating the island as expendable staging ground again.

I have seen the places where the Battle of Okinawa took place—the caves, the memorials, and the landscapes marked by battle damage — since one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Second World War occurred there. These sites do not tell just the story of American soldiers battling Japanese soldiers; they serve as a testimony to a people who were crushed between the two armies and who were terrified by the militarist regime which said it was defending them.

The wounded or killed included not only uniformed combatants and civilians who had been caught in the bombardment, but also Okinawans who had opposed or resisted the militarist regime, people who had been suspected of disloyalty, and others who were labelled as ‘spies’ since they spoke the Okinawan language, had attempted to surrender, had protected food, or had refused to submit without question to military orders.

The Imperial Japanese Army carried out executions of Okinawans it regarded as unreliable, drove the civilians out of the shelters, made the students serve and played a part in the mass suicides by using coercion and propaganda; at the same time, the American bombardment and ground attacks brought about total destruction of the island, so that the people of Okinawa became expendable to both the defending empire and the invading force.

To understand the importance of Sentinel Samurai, we must view it in light of its history: it was an American explosive ordnance disposal exercise held at Kadena Air Base in August 2026.

The US military entered the caves, crossed the trenches and searched difficult ground for simulated explosives. They flew drones, dealt with mock weapons caches and carried out the exercise of reopening routes after an attack. At one time, technicians tried to pull an explosive device from the bottom of a steep slope using a rope linked to a truck, but the rope broke, after which they halted, reconsidered the situation and discovered an alternative method.

The US military has presented the incident as a lesson in patience and operational adaptability, but it also has a more sinister symbolism: more than eighty years after the Okinawans had been sacrificed to the strategic aims of Imperial Japan and the sheer strength of the United States’ firepower, their island is once again being turned into a forward battlefield.

The language has shifted from imperial defence and invasion to interoperability, deterrence, and readiness, but the basic assumption remains strangely familiar: if a major conflict does arise, Okinawa will be required to take the initial blows.Subscribe

The war scenario behind the exercise

The Sentinel Samurai operation gathered explosive ordnance disposal specialists from the US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps at Kadena from 17 to 21 August 2026.

Explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD for short, is both essential and extremely dangerous. It involves technicians who find and destroy unexploded bombs, mines, missiles, improvised explosive devices and damaged ammunition; the work they do serves to protect both civilians and military personnel.

There can be no doubt about the technicians’ skill or bravery. What should be examined, however, is the strategic scenario against which they are developing their abilities.

As the official US Air Force states, the aim of the exercise was to enableAmerican forces “to clear hazards, recover from attacks and keep their forces operating right across the Pacific”. The exercise also aimed to preserve what the military calls “freedom of manoeuvre”—that is, the capacity to use airfields, ports, roads and supply routes after they have been attacked.

Under this impersonal style there is a very particular expectation: that either Kadena or another American base has been attacked, most likely using missiles or drones. The runways have been cratered or blocked, and unexploded ordnance is scattered throughout the installation, so that aircraft cannot take off, supplies cannot be moved, and the engineers are unable to start repairs until the bomb disposal teams have cleared the areas that have been affected.

Sentinel Samurai was not mainly concerned with dealing with an accidental discovery of wartime ordnance or with protecting the civilian population, but rather with preparing for the aftermath of an attack on American military infrastructure.

This shows a significant shift in US policy. Washington can no longer take for granted the idea that its extensive military bases in Asia will be kept safe in the event of a conflict. China has a large number of missiles which are capable of posing a threat to fixed installations throughout the region. North Korea has likewise increased its missile capabilities. It has already been shown elsewhere that relatively cheap drones can test or overwhelm even advanced defence systems.

American planners are therefore arranging........

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