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INDEX

Blair & Kendall- Recommendations ...... 7 Relocation- Delayed ...... 8 Relocation- Futenma Bad- Accidents ...... 9 Relocation- Futenma Good ...... 10 Relocation- Guam Bad ...... 12 Relocation- Guam Bad ...... 13 Relocation- Guam Bad ...... 14 Relocation- Guam Good- China ...... 16 Relocation- Guam Good- North Korea ...... 17 Relocation- Henoko- Happening Now ...... 18 Relocation- Henoko- Happening Now ...... 19 Relocation- Henoko- AT: Court Case Blocks ...... 20 Relocation- Henoko Bad ...... 21 Relocation- Henoko Bad- Happening Now/Environment ...... 22 Relocation- Henoko Bad- Environment ...... 23 Relocation- Henoko Good ...... 24 Relocation- Hokkaido Good ...... 25 Relocation- Kyushu Good ...... 26 Relocation- Yokota Good ...... 27 Relocation- Philippines Good ...... 28 Relocation- AT: Virtual Presence ...... 29 Japan Alliance- Impact- China ...... 30 Japan Alliance- Impact- China ...... 32 Japan Alliance- Impact- Climate ...... 34 Japan Alliance- Impact- Climate/Disease ...... 35 Japan Alliance- Impact- East Asia ...... 37 Japan Alliance- Impact- Missile Defense ...... 38 Japan Alliance- Impact- Rearmament ...... 39 Japan Alliance- Impact- Stability ...... 40 Japan Alliance- Impact- Stability ...... 41 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Henoko Spillover ...... 42 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out ...... 43 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact ...... 44 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Secession ...... 45 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Secession ...... 46 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Senkaku ...... 47 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Senkaku ...... 48 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- North Korea ...... 49 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Solvency ...... 50 Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Solvency- Kick Out ...... 51 Pro- Japan Alliance- 1P...... 52 Pro- Japan Alliance ...... 53 Pro- Japan Alliance ...... 55 Pro- Japan Alliance ...... 56 Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover ...... 57 Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover ...... 58 Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover ...... 60

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Pro- Japan Politics- 1P ...... 61 Pro- Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition- Henoko ...... 62 Pro- Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition- Futenma ...... 64 Pro- Japan Politics- Japanese Opposition ...... 65 Pro- Japan Politics- Impact- Opinion Key to Security ...... 66 Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Ginowan Election = Support for Henoko ...... 67 Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Joint US-Japan Basing Decreases Opposition ...... 68 Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Mainland Won’t Accept Basing Relocated Marines ...... 69 Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Protester Fatigue ...... 70 Pro- Japan Economy- Basing Costs ...... 71 Pro- Japan Economy- Conversion ...... 72 Pro- Japan Economy- Dependence ...... 73 Pro- Japan Economy- Relocation- Henoko ...... 74 Pro- Japan Economy- Tourism ...... 75 Pro- Japan Leadership ...... 76 Pro- Japan Leadership- Impact- North Korea ...... 77 Pro- US Hegemony- Off Shore Balancing ...... 78 Pro- US Economy- Basing ...... 79 Pro- Colonialism ...... 80 Pro- Democracy ...... 81 Pro- Democracy ...... 82 Pro- Discrimination ...... 83 Pro- Environment- Bases ...... 84 Pro- Environment- Dugongs ...... 85 Pro- Environment- Dugongs ...... 87 Pro- Environment- Impact- Biodiversity ...... 88 Pro- Environment- Impact- Dugongs ...... 89 Pro- Gender ...... 90 Pro- Gender ...... 92 Pro- Gender- Dehumanization ...... 95 Pro- Gender- Prostitution ...... 96 Pro- Gender- Militarism ...... 97 Pro- Gender- Impact- Patriarchy ...... 98 Pro- Gender- Solvency ...... 99 Pro- Gender- Solvency ...... 100 Pro- Gender- AT: War Causes Rape ...... 101 Pro- Human Rights ...... 102 Pro- Imperialism ...... 103 Pro- Imperialism ...... 104 Pro- Imperialism ...... 105 Pro- Imperialism- Impact ...... 106 Pro- Independence/Self-Determination ...... 107 Pro- Independence/Self-Determination ...... 109 Pro- Independence/Self-Determination ...... 111 Pro- Morality ...... 112 Pro- Unexploded Ordinances (UXOs) ...... 113 Pro- Structural Violence...... 114 Pro- Value to Life ...... 115 Pro- Value to Life ...... 117

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Pro- AT: China ...... 118 Pro- AT: China ...... 120 Pro- AT: Deterrence ...... 121 Pro- AT: Deterrence ...... 123 Pro- AT: Hegemony Good ...... 124 Pro- AT: Marines Good ...... 125 Pro- AT: Marines Good- Philippines Terrorism ...... 126 Pro- AT: North Korea ...... 127 Pro- AT: Power Projection ...... 128 Pro- AT: Security Commitments ...... 130 Pro- AT: Training ...... 131 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 132 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 134 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 135 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 137 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 138 Pro- AT: Rearm ...... 139 Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- China ...... 140 Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- China ...... 142 Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- Diplomacy ...... 143 Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- East Asia ...... 144 Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- ISIS ...... 146 Pro- AT: Rearm- North Korea ...... 147 Con- Marines Good- Amphibious Training ...... 148 Con- Marines Good- Amphibious Training ...... 150 Con- Marines Good- China- Deterrence ...... 151 Con- Marines Good- China- Military-to-Military Cooperation ...... 152 Con- Marines Good- China- Senkakus Dispute ...... 153 Con- Marines Good- Combined Training ...... 154 Con- Marines Good- Congressional Backlash ...... 155 Con- Marines Good- Deterrence ...... 156 Con- Marines Good- Deterrence ...... 157 Con- Marines Good- Japanese Military ...... 158 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters ...... 159 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters ...... 161 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters ...... 162 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Heavy Lift Capability ...... 163 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Ospreys ...... 164 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Public Support ...... 165 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Taiwan ...... 166 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Probability ...... 168 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Economy ...... 169 Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Gender ...... 170 Con- Marines Good- Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations ...... 172 Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Aggression ...... 173 Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Collapse ...... 174 Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Deterrence ...... 175 Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Nuclear Weapons ...... 176 Con- Marines Good- North Korea- War ...... 177

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Con- Marines Good- Pandemics ...... 178 Con- Marines Good- Pandemics ...... 180 Con- Marines Good- Pandemics ...... 181 Con- Marines Good- Pandemics- Impact ...... 182 Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations ...... 183 Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations ...... 185 Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations ...... 186 Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations- Impact ...... 187 Con- Marines Good- Philippines Terrorism ...... 188 Con- Marines Good- Rapid Response ...... 189 Con- Marines Good- Rapid Response ...... 190 Con- Marines Good- Readiness ...... 191 Con- Marines Good- Regional Cooperation ...... 192 Con- Marines Good- Regional Security ...... 193 Con- Marines Good- AT: Guam Solves ...... 194 Con- Marines Good- AT: Kadena Solves ...... 195 Con- Marines Good- AT: Navy Solves ...... 196 Con- Marines Good- AT: Small Number...... 197 Con- JWTC Good ...... 198 Con- JWTC Good- AT: Environment ...... 199 Con- JWTC Good- AT: Guam Solves ...... 200 Con- Allied Proliferation ...... 201 Con- Allied Proliferation ...... 203 Con- Allied Proliferation ...... 205 Con- China ...... 206 Con- China ...... 207 Con- China- Deterrence ...... 208 Con- China- Deterrence ...... 210 Con- China- Perception ...... 212 Con- China- Taiwan ...... 213 Con- China/Japan ...... 214 Con- China- AT: Vulnerability to Missile Attack ...... 215 Con- Deterrence ...... 217 Con- Deterrence ...... 218 Con- Deterrence ...... 220 Con- Deterrence ...... 221 Con- Deterrence- SLOCs ...... 222 Con- Hegemony ...... 223 Con- Hegemony ...... 225 Con- Hegemony ...... 226 Con- Japan Alliance- Abandonment ...... 227 Con- Japan Alliance- Commitment ...... 228 Con- Japan Alliance- Confidence ...... 229 Con- Japan Alliance- Confusion ...... 230 Con- Japan Alliance- Cooperation ...... 231 Con- Japan Alliance- Forward Deployment ...... 232 Con- Japan Alliance- Time Frame ...... 233 Con- Japan Alliance- Troops ...... 234 Con- Japan Alliance- Unilateral ...... 235

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Con- Japan Control (Misawa/Atsugi Model) ...... 236 Con- Japan Security ...... 237 Con- Japan Leadership ...... 238 Con- Missile Defense ...... 239 Con- Missile Defense ...... 240 Con- Rearm ...... 241 Con- Rearm ...... 242 Con- Rearm ...... 244 Con- Rearm ...... 245 Con- Rearm- Extended Deterrence ...... 247 Con- Rearm- Public Perception ...... 248 Con- Rearm- Impact ...... 249 Con- Rearm- Impact- Democracy ...... 250 Con- Rearm- AT: Technical Barriers ...... 251 Con- Regional Security ...... 252 Con- Security Commitments ...... 253 Con- Taiwan ...... 254 Con- AT: Accelerate Relocation ...... 255 Con- AT: Asia Pivot ...... 256 Pro- AT: Asia Pivot ...... 257 Con- AT: China ...... 258 Con- AT: China- Containment Bad ...... 259 Con- AT: Cyber War ...... 260 Con- AT: Environment ...... 261 Con- AT: Environment- Dugongs ...... 262 Con- AT: Japan Alliance...... 263 Con- AT: Japan Alliance...... 264 Con- AT: Japan Alliance...... 265 Con- AT: Japan Politics- Global Movements/Environment ...... 266 Con- AT: Japan Politics- Japanese Opposition ...... 267 Con- AT: Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition ...... 268 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable ...... 269 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Turn ...... 270 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out ...... 271 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out ...... 272 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Kadena ...... 273 Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Kadena ...... 274 China- Goldilocks ...... 275 China Navy- Not a Threat ...... 276 No Asia War ...... 277

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2016 March Public Forum Topic

Resolved: The United States should withdraw its military presence from Okinawa.

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Blair & Kendall- Recommendations

Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasawaka Peace Foundation USA, & former consultant & Senior Japan Policy Analyst @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

Four things must be done, and quickly: • First, the U.S. must “double-down” on its construction of relocation facilities. Construction on Hawaii must be conducted concurrently with that on Guam. A goal must be set, and achieved, to move all units scheduled for relocation from Okinawa no later than 2025, rather than the current date of 2031, and additional Department of Defense military construction funds must be allocated to these projects in the near term. The completion date for the relocation must be in the near enough future to encourage those Okinawans who favor the American presence. If the permanent facilities are not completed on this schedule, then the Department of Defense must find temporary facilities for those units in the interim. Unilateral decisions by the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy must be avoided; instead, important matters must be taken to the Secretary of Defense-level to ensure that decisions take into account larger American interests. • Second, the governments of Japan and Okinawa must develop some “quick wins” in land returns for the many Okinawans who favor a continued American presence on the island. This means finding a use for the West Futenma Housing Area that will make it an attractive example of the benefits of land returns. It also means, on the American side, accelerating some of the land returns from Camp Kinser in the vicinity of the Naha port, which is the centerpiece of plans for Okinawan economic rejuvenation. • Third, joint, shared use of facilities on Okinawa must be deepened. JGSDF rotary wing aviation should be moved from Naha to the Futenma Replacement Facility at Camp Schwab to collocate with Marine aviation units. JGSDF units should be relocated to Camp Hansen and Camp Schwab, where they can plan and exercise with U.S. Marine Corps staff and units. Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) F-15 aircraft currently deployed to Naha should be moved to the American base at Kadena, relieving pressure on the joint civil- military Naha base and increasing cooperation between the U.S. and JASDF in the key southern air space off Okinawa. At least three major military bases on Okinawa need to collocate Americans and Japanese. Not only will this collocation improve the ability of Japanese and American forces to be more effective for contingencies like the Senkakus, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance/ disaster relief, but it will also potentially improve civil-military relations on the island. • Fourth, the U.S. Department of Defense, working with the Government of Australia, must examine the relocation of Marine Corps forces to Australia. As an alternative, the Department of Defense should consider a leaner training detachment and exercise options that are closer to potential crisis points in East Asia.

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Relocation- Delayed

Relocation delayed two more years- 2025. Moritsugu, Associated Press; 2/23/2016 (Ken; Seattle Times; “US military leader says Okinawa base move delayed 2 years”; http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/us-military-leader-says-okinawa-base-move-delayed-2-years/)

TOKYO (AP) — A controversial plan to move a U.S. Marine Corps base within Okinawa in southern Japan has been pushed back by two years, America’s top military official in the Pacific said. Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said Tuesday that the shift of the Futenma air station to a less congested part of Okinawa island would not happen until 2025 because work on a new facility has been delayed.

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Relocation- Futenma Bad- Accidents

Futenma is the world’s most dangerous military base and prone to accidents. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London; 2/13/2016 (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

Currently, the focal point of the struggle in Okinawa may be found in Henoko, which has taken the form of a big sit-in protest in front of Camp Schwab. This started in July 2014 in objection to the relocation of Futenma Air Station to Henoko. Futenma Air Station, situated in the southern part of the main island, is called ‘the world’s most dangerous military base’. It is constructed without an acceptable level of ‘Clear Zones’ (a primary school next to the base), and has constantly ignored legal standards set out in Japan’s Civil Aeronautics Act.

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Relocation- Futenma Good

Withdrawal from Futenma unravels the entire alliance, emboldens enemies and undermines deterrence and our entire presence in the region Asashi 10 From an interview of Mr. Richard P. Lawless, Richard Lawless is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs, a position he assumed in October 2002. From 1972 to 1987, he was an employee at the Central Intelligence Agency, serving in Washington, D.C. and various postings in the Far East and Europe. Mr. Lawless entered the private sector in 1987 serving as co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of U.S. Asia Commercial Development Corporation. U.S. Asia and its affiliated companies specialize in telecommunications and investment technology and market entry strategies in East Asia. He is also a co-founder and former Chairman of Online Environs, Inc., an internet technology development company. Mr. Lawless received his B.S. in International Relations from Bradley University’s School of International Studies, and studied Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. "Former U.S. official: Japan could lose entire Marine presence if Henoko plan scrapped", http://www.dmzhawaii.org/?p=6237

If we have to leave, if we’re not able to operate at Futenma, and this is the reality that is coming forward to meet us head-on, if we’re not able to operate from that facility, the entire capability of the overall Marine presence in Okinawa–and therefore in Japan–is compromised./ So it is not really just a question of the air component that would be forced to leave; it would be the entire Marine presence. If that is the decision that the Hatoyama government forces upon us, then I think the Hatoyama government must, up front and directly, face the consequences of that decision, acknowledge the strategic consequences for Japan of such an action./ This is not about a Marine air base; it’s about the United States’ ability to sustain a critical military presence in Japan./ These same Japanese leaders need to be able to openly discuss the reality that if that critical air capability presence, the Marine ground component and the headquarters units and the other elements that provide that deterrence are compelled to leave Japan, to where will these same capabilities relocate?/ And with that relocation, what will be the net impact on the United States’ ability to honor our military capabilities and our defense relationship with Japan?/ Q: Would those amphibious units in Sasebo and the air wing in Iwakuni also go?/ A: I think that would necessarily be part of any reconsideration of the amphibious ships that are there to support the Marines that are here. Those related capabilities, (the aircraft and the ships) are based where they’re based . . . to support the Marine presence in Japan./ The amphibious ships are based there, and the Marine air wing is based at Iwakuni to provide the maximum capability to the Marines. So it is an air-ground-sea task element that has been created here, very carefully balanced, as a political and a military commitment./ So if the Marines are compelled to relocate in order to sustain that balanced capability, of course there’s no purpose for the amphibious ships to be here, and there may not be a purpose for the Iwakuni air wing to be here./ Q: So the entire Marine presence in Japan, not just the presence in Okinawa and also Sasebo, could go?/ A: That is the real magnitude of what is at risk here, with this pending decision of whether or not Japan should honor an agreement it has made as a national security issue./ Any relocation out of Japan of all or even a major part of our combined Marine presence in Japan would represent a fundamental relocation of a critical capability for the defense of Japan. Therefore, making a decision about Henoko has a potential to force the United States, probably sooner rather than later, to make a negative decision to base itself elsewhere./ We must be located where we can properly exercise that capability. It really means that we would have to rethink our entire deployment strategy. These are heavy decisions that have long-lasting consequences./ Q: Where would they go?/ A: That’s the $64,000 question. I cannot say where they would go, but this would be a strategic decision that would have to be made. But certainly, they would be going away from Japan, and this displacement, we must assume, will reduce substantially the defense posture of Japan. This would also result in a reduced credibility of the United States’ presence in Japan, our forward-basing in Japan./ Q: Would they go to Guam?/ A: Perhaps some could go to Guam. Perhaps some would go to Hawaii. Perhaps back to the United States West Coast or elsewhere./ There is an additional danger here. That is, once this issue causes a process of fundamental repositioning to begin to occur, understand that many forces will be at work, including U.S. congressional forces. It will be very difficult to manage the sequence of events that play out. And this is not something we want to see happen./ But our biggest concern is that it seems the people in Japan that are making these decisions, the Hatoyama government and its political overlords, do not have any sense of the magnitude of the issue with which they are playing./ In the greater scheme of things (for) the security of Japan, it almost seems we have a group of boys and girls playing with a box of matches as they sit in a room of dynamite./ Long after they have endangered themselves, the real damage will be done to the house of Japan. And the American firemen will not be around once the decision is made to burn down the house./ You know what I’m saying. It is, “Do the people that are making these decisions understand the second and third order consequences of forcing the United States to make a very difficult decision?” That’s the issue./ Q: Tell me about what’s happening in Congress. We know that Daniel Inouye and Jim Webb recently visited Okinawa. What’s the atmosphere in Congress regarding this issue?/ A: I think the atmosphere in Congress is one of disappointment. They believed that there was a realignment agreement that would protect and preserve the bilateral security relationship for the next 50 to 100 years. We told them that. We assured them that this was the outcome of the realignment and rebalancing we had agreed to with Japan when the agreement was reached./ Our Congress was intensely involved, Senator Inouye among other leaders, in the agreement. And these congressmen understood the details./ And now these congressional leaders see an agreement–and I here would not presume to speak for Senator Inouye–that is unraveling. And they’re very disappointed./ I think this development causes them to question the entire posture, our ability to retain a forward-based posture in the Pacific. The reasonable question they’re asking is, “If you fail to follow through with this realignment, how will this affect our U.S. capabilities to execute on our national commitments to the people of Japan?” And that’s the question that’s being asked./ As the Henoko agreement spirals down, you can bet this question will be pressed more aggressively in our Congress, as it should be./ Q: Tell me about the potential impact on deterrence if the Marines in Okinawa, or even Sasebo and Iwakuni, withdraw from Japan. What kind of a change would occur in the deterrence factor?/ A: I think it would be hugely damaging to the credibility of our deterrence posture. Beyond deterrence, it substantially damages our ability to execute on the planning we have in place and the commitments we’ve made to Japan. So you have a loss of deterrence value, which is very important./ But the second half of this is if you lose the deterrence value, you also lose the ability to execute. So you have to ask yourself, “What is the net impact on the alliance?”/ We have obligations under the alliance. Japan has obligations. This is Article 5 and Article 6, respectively./ If Japan

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is unable or unwilling to fulfill its obligations under the alliance . . ./ Q: Under Article 6 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty?/ A: Yes. We have to re- evaluate our ability to deliver, under Article 5. It is that simple! This is not rocket science./ Q: Are you saying that the United States would not defend Japan?/ A: No. What I am saying is the Hatoyama government must consider the real extended impact, having put us in the position of having a reduced capability to defend Japan. If the Hatoyama government puts us in that position, we have to be honest about what that action will have then done to the alliance./ There doesn’t seem to be any–any–consideration of the strategic impact of this issue on our ability to deliver what we have promised to deliver to the alliance. No consideration of the impact on our ability to deter and our ability to execute. Never has that issue, to my knowledge, been raised./ Q: But can the United States really afford to reduce its deterrence value in Japan? Won’t that damage the U.S. presence in this region in light of other major powers in this region, including China?/ A: We cannot afford to do that. We cannot, from the standpoint of the United States./ Q: So you would stay anyway./ A: As best we can, but only as we can. But the first country that cannot afford the departure of these defense-of-Japan capabilities is Japan. The first endangered body is not the United States; it is Japan!/ So why should this responsibility for such a fundamental adjustment be put on the shoulders of the United States rather than on the shoulders of the nation that is most directly affected?/ We cannot afford to withdraw. But if we have to, we will. If we are given no choice, one has to leave./ The party that is most affected, Japan, doesn’t seem to grasp that elemental fact, nor does it understand that it is very close to putting us in an almost impossible position, pressing us to make a difficult decision./ Q: Tell me the realities we may face if we really go down the road of having the Marines forced to leave Okinawa and Japan. What’s would happen? Would China, for example, take over the disputed Senkakus?/ A: I have no idea how this would play out. But think about this. What is happening–what might happen, what could happen, will happen, and very probably would happen–is that the responsibility for making the decision to stay in Japan will be put exclusively on the back of the United States./ At some point we’ll have to make that decision./ This will be an unmistakable signal to the other powers in the region, both our friends, our potential enemies, and other third-level powers who have ambitions to be disruptive or troublemakers. I certainly would put North Korea in that latter category, as its grinds out its nuclear weapons./ Think of the message that is being communicated today to China, to the Korean Peninsula, to our allies in the region, be it Australia, Singapore, to India. The message is that Japan and the United States cannot properly manage their security relationship, a Japan that is unwilling and unable to execute agreements it has entered into with its alliance partner./ The assorted nations of Greater Asia are watching a situation evolve in which the United States may have to, may be forced to, reposture itself in the Western Pacific. For all them–friend, foe, fence-sitters and assorted trouble-makers–this is a huge issue. If the body politic of Japan is too busy with domestic politics to watch this play out, other parties will do so for them and draw the appropriate conclusions./ In fact, it seems to us that this is almost more important to other countries in the region, like Australia, Singapore, India and certainly South Korea, than it is to Japan. Which is incredible!/ Q: If the Marines leave, could Japan fill the vacuum by enhancing its own defense capabilities?/ A: I think that will be a decision that will have to be made by the Japanese government and the Japanese people. But remember, what you’re losing is not just a given capability. You’re losing an alliance capability and the strategic connection, which eventually leads to strategic deterrence, that the Marine Corps’ presence provides./ This is assured, in the final instance, by the U.S. Marine Corps’ physical presence in the territory of Japan, which is Okinawa./ When you start disturbing that fundamental relationship, it leads to a range of other questions about the sustainability of the alliance. And I would suggest that the departure of the Marines would call into question the basic sustainability of this alliance as it is./ It would probably trigger a fundamental readjustment, necessarily, of this alliance. It would probably trigger major questions in our Congress about what our commitments are to Japan and why we have to have those commitments. I also think it would probably trigger a major reorientation of the regional security posture./ Japan will be the triple loser in any such event. But if Japan does not care, if its leaders are so distracted or have another plan, so be it.

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Relocation- Guam Bad

Okinawans themselves do not believe in the relocation to Guam because it would not satisfy their concerns; the base is too small Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

The Guam Agreement addresses the concerns raised by the Okinawans, including the need to reduce U.S. flight operations in a congested area, decrease the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, and return land to local authorities. [28] Yet, despite meeting each of these issues, the Guam Agreement faces continued opposition from Okinawa. For example, the Guam Agreement does exactly what the Okinawans have demanded: It reduces the U.S. military presence on the island. The FRF would be one-third the size of the Futenma air base. The planned redeployment of 8,000 Marines and 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to Guam would constitute a nearly 50 percent reduction of the Marine Corps forward presence in Japan. That redeployment would enable the return of 70 percent of the U.S. bases south of the Kadena Air Base…The Kan administration emphasized that the training agreement constituted a tangible reduction of the U.S. military burden on Okinawa and hoped it would facilitate implementation of the long-stalled FRF agreement. However, the agreement has had no impact on Okinawan demands. Indeed, Governor Nakaima continues to downplay the significance of the flight training movement, arguing, “That’s the only part of the military presence that has been reduced, and often those flights moved out are just replaced with new aircraft coming in. I won’t know the true outcome until the move has been completed.”[31]

The U.S. would lose money and security by transferring the base to Guam. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

The U.S. forward-deployed presence is a burden on the United States as well. There is a monetary cost to maintaining U.S. forces overseas, and—more important—the United States has pledged the lives of its sons and daughters to defend Japan. An alliance is about achieving objectives, not reducing burdens. Removing the Marine air base on Okinawa does not eliminate the alliance mission that necessitated the initial construction of the base.

Relocation is costly for Japan and the U.S. financially. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Remember that the budget sword cuts both ways. Tokyo should make it clear to Okinawa that Japanese expenditures for Okinawan development (contained in the Special Measures Law, which expires in 2012) are conditional on FRF relocation. Non-compliance by Okinawa could result in reductions in Japanese subsidies, particularly given increased Japanese budgetary constraints after the recent natural disasters. Similarly, U.S. budgetary constraints make it more likely that the Marine air unit would stay at Futenma unless progress is made soon.

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Relocation- Guam Bad

Relocation to Guam bad – seen as mistrust for Japan, hurts relations – only a substantial reduction from Futenma solves Shimoji, 2010 - born in Miyako Island, Okinawa, M.S. (Georgetown University), taught English and English linguistics at the University of the Ryukyus from April 1966 until his retirement in March 2003 (Yoshio Shimoji, "The Futenma Base and the U.S.-Japan Controversy: an Okinawan perspective," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 18-5-10, May 3, 2010)

How should we interpret this situation: Futenma's relocation to Henoko so urgently demanded by the U.S. government, on the one hand, and the U.S. military's Guam military development plan in which most of Futenma's operations are to be moved to Guam, on the other? What is the current obfuscation all about? One answer may be that the U.S. government is manipulating the situation in order to retain every right to a permanent military presence in Japan. This suggests that U.S. policymakers mistrust Japan and the Japanese people despite repeated statements that Japan is the U.S.'s most important ally. In other words, their "deterrence" is not only directed against North Korea, China or Russia, but also against Japan. When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many expected a substantial reduction of the U.S. footprint on Okinawa. The drawdown of U.S. troops in Europe augured well for Okinawa, or so it seemed to me. Then came the 1995 Nye Report and the new US policy based upon it, shattering Okinawan hopes and expectations. On the pretext that the U.S. military presence was a driving force for keeping peace and prosperity in this allegedly volatile region, it announced that the U.S. would continue to maintain bases and troops in East Asia at approximately the same level as before. William Cohen, Secretary of Defense under the Clinton administration, thwarted our hopes around 2000, when the two Koreas seemed to be reducing tensions on the peninsula and even, perhaps inching to reunification, by saying that there would be no U.S. military withdrawal from Okinawa even if peace was established in a unified Korean Peninsula. That the U.S. intends to perpetuate its military presence in Japan is evident from its insistence that not only Futenma's operations be transferred to a new high tech base at Henoko, but also that other facilities such as Naha military port, whose return was promised years before Futenma, must be relocated within Okinawa. The 2006 Road Map betrays Washington's real intention by accidentally stating, "A bilateral framework to conduct a study on a permanent field-carrier landing practice facility will be established, with the goal of selecting a permanent site by July 2009 or the earliest possible date thereafter." (Italics mine)

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Relocation- Guam Bad

Relocation to guam undermines the pivot and deterrence Lostumbo 14—director of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy (Michael, "Should the U.S. Move the Marines to Guam." The Diplomat. 2/28/14. thediplomat.com/2014/02/should-the-u-s-move-the-marines-to-guam/) For years Congress has been asking the Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Marine Corps for a complete implementation plan with detailed costs and a strategic rationale to justify moving roughly 5,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam. The congressional Government Accountability Office recently found, again, that the Marine Corps cost estimate for the move is “not reliable” and, in the 2014 Department of Defense authorization bill, Congress has again asked for strategic justification and credible cost estimates. The option to permanently base Marines on Guam should hinge on the benefits of the location and the costs. Guam scores poorly on both counts and better options exist. However, previous guidance provided to the Marine Corps constrains consideration of such options.¶ Operational considerations should weigh heavily in Marine Corps location decisions for large, permanent overseas bases. Specifically, these considerations should include the degree to which they facilitate deployment to likely contingency locations and the opportunities they offer for training. Guam scores poorly on providing these benefits. While it might seem that Marines based in the Pacific can get to an Asian contingency more quickly than Marines from Camp Pendleton in California, only forward-based Marines with dedicated sealift provided by collocated ships have a deployment advantage over U.S.-based forces; it takes a combination of Marines and appropriate transportation to generate response value. If Marines are based on a Pacific island without dedicated lift, the time to position the transport ships erodes any speed advantage that might be gained by the forward location. In such a case, the deployment time from the west coast of the United States would be similar to the deployment time from Guam for Asian contingencies. If prepositioned equipment were used instead, then again the deployment time would be similar whether Marines have to be fly from Guam or from the United States to marry up with the equipment. Similar arguments apply to security cooperation oriented training deployments.¶ There are other factors to consider, such as the potential deterrent value of forward forces, and their value as a demonstration of the U.S. security commitment to the region, in which case, the ally might arguably be expected to shoulder the additional costs. The Japanese government has offered to share some of the financial burden, but it will not cover the full cost of the Guam move. The Japanese government is trying to achieve a Goldilocks solution on Okinawa, keeping enough Marines there to maintain a strong U.S.-Japanese alliance and deter China, but also reducing their numbers in deference to local opposition to the U.S. troops on Okinawa. This, on the surface, is at odds with U.S. efforts to “pivot” to Asia.¶ To counter this perception of withdrawal, previous U.S. defense officials established an arbitrary metric focused on the number of Marines posted west of the International Date Line, which seems to be the dominant justification for selecting Guam and has prevented consideration of broader options. Unfortunately, the Marine Corps has arrived at a plan that is being measured in terms of how well it meets this political constraint rather than its combat power, response times, and costs. Instead, the United States and its friends and allies should adopt a more reasoned view of the pivot focused on well-explained capabilities not symbols. There are alternatives to Guam though that can achieve comparable combat capability for less cost. How much less?¶ Local costs influence the total cost of stationing military forces overseas and both the cost of living and construction costs tend to be greater on islands. A RAND study released in April captured the cost of basing forces overseas in a way that the Department of Defense had not previously done. This approach allows easy comparisons of the approximate costs of different overseas basing options. In short, we found that there is a real estate and cost of living premium paid in basing forces on a Pacific island. Including the promised Japanese government contribution, the one-time cost to build facilities on Guam for 5,000 Marines would be approximately $3.4 billion more than it would be to build needed facilities in the continental United States, considering both relative construction costs and the ability to leverage some existing infrastructure on large continental USMC camps. The annual recurring cost to maintain those forces would be between $80 million and $120 million per year above what would be paid to keep the same forces in the continental United States.¶ Even when factoring in the subsidy the Japanese government has agreed to pay in Guam, Guam is an expensive option, one that comes without proof that the investment would yield improved security. Marines also need training ranges to be ready to operate in these contingencies. Investments will have to be made on Tinian and Pagan to create training ranges near Guam in order to keep the Marines based there ready to deploy for military operations, which adds further to the costs of the Guam presence. Furthermore, if the Navy does not dedicate ships in Guam or close by in the region for those Marines to use for deployments, then Guam becomes more of a garrison than a launching pad for a quick reaction force. Finally, the quality of life for Marines on Guam may be lower than in the United States if the bulk of the force resides there on unaccompanied tours, meaning their families are not bought to live with them.¶ The United States might be willing to pay such premiums, if it brought compensatory benefits. Congress keeps asking if there are operational benefits justifying the expense of locating on Guam, a request that has so far gone unfulfilled. The benefits of establishing a permanent base on Guam look even less appealing in conjunction with the access Australia recently agreed to provide Marine combat forces.¶ In recent years the United States has been trying to improve the capabilities of its allies in Southeast Asia, and the Marine Corps presence in the region is closely tied to that goal. The USMC has started what eventually will be a regular deployment of up to 2,500 Marines to Australia for six months of the year. This will provide an opportunity to train extensively with the Australian military, and also for those Marines to travel to points in Southeast Asia for training and security cooperation, again if they have dedicated lift. This would augment the security cooperation activities already conducted by the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) coming from Okinawa, in essence providing two MEU size forces in the Pacific for much of the year.¶ Where does this lead? Decisions about the Marine Corps Pacific posture should be judged on the ability of forces to promptly deploy fully trained combat power from proposed basing locations. This combination of benefits offers a coherent strategic lens through which basing proposals should be viewed. Plans to

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keep a ready force in Okinawa with dedicated sealift provide quick access to Northeast Asia. Regular MEU-sized deployments to Australia offer both an option to train with a close ally and perhaps other partners, as well as access to Southeast Asia. This makes the added expenses of $80-$120 million per year to keep 5,000 Marines on Guam less attractive. Instead, that money could be saved by basing those forces in the continental United States, while sacrificing very little in terms of response time. The case for operational or security cooperation advantages has not been made to justify the higher cost of basing the Marines in Guam, rather than in the United States. If dedicated sealift assets through the stationing of an additional amphibious ready group in the region becomes a companion option, then it comes down to a judgment as to whether the higher cost of stationing the Marines in Guam would be worth the deployment benefit in the context of the Marine Corps’ overall plans for the region. Regardless, the U.S. should alter its arbitrary definition of how the Marine Corps contributes to the U.S. rebalance to Asia, defining contributions in terms of capabilities offered, with these capabilities explained and demonstrated to allies as part of a broader strategic communications effort.

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Relocation- Guam Good- China

Normal means is relocation to Guam – most important for deterrence, US concedes – key to deterring China Shimoji, 2010 - born in Miyako Island, Okinawa, M.S. (Georgetown University), taught English and English linguistics at the University of the Ryukyus from April 1966 until his retirement in March 2003 (Yoshio Shimoji, "The Futenma Base and the U.S.-Japan Controversy: an Okinawan perspective," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 18-5-10, May 3, 2010)

Note, however, that these lands will be returned only if their replacements are found somewhere within Okinawa: for example, Henoko for Futenma, the very question which is straining the bilateral relationship. The 2006 Road Map clearly states: "All functions and capabilities that are resident in facilities designated for return, and that are required by forces remaining in Okinawa, will be relocated within Okinawa. These relocations will occur before the return of designated facilities." This is the gist of the 2006 agreement particular to bases on Okinawa. However, a curious situation has developed over the U.S. Forces realignment. Two months after the 2006 Road Map was agreed, the U.S. Pacific Command announced the Guam Integrated Military Development Plan, and on September 15, 2008 the Navy Secretary, who also represents the Marines when dealing with Congress, submitted a report titled "Current Situation with the Military Development Plan in Guam" to the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services [7]. In April 2008, this plan was entirely incorporated into the "Guam Integrated Master Plan," and in November, 2009 a public hearing was held on a "Draft Environmental Impact Statement/ Overseas Environmental Impact Statement [8]." These documents show that the U.S. military considers Guam strategically most important in the Asia-Pacific region and plans to transform already existing bases there into a colossal military complex by expansion and development. The U.S. military's strategic thinking is apparently motivated by the rise of China, particularly by China's development of new types of long-range missiles. The plan includes re-deploying 8,600 Marines now stationed in Okinawa and relocating most of the Marine capabilities, including helicopter and air transport units in Futenma, to Guam.

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Relocation- Guam Good- North Korea

Relocation to Guam is less threatening to North Korea. APDF, 2008 (Asian-Pacific Defense Forum Staff, “U.S. Forces Realignment to Guam: Protecting the Pacific,” 1st Quarter 2008, http://forum.apan-info.net/2008- 1st_quarter/guam/1.html **In a June 2007 interview with Aljazeera International, Lt. Gen. Leaf discussed Guam realignment and the strategic importance of this U.S. territory. The questions and answers from that interview follow.**) Question: How much of a threat is North Korea, and will Guam be seen as threatening to their borders? Lt. Gen. Leaf: Of course if we move forces from Okinawa to Guam, they’re further from not closer to North Korea, so [North Korea] shouldn’t see that as a threat. We remain concerned about activity in North Korea – missile tests, the possible nuclear test, and other activity that requires the U.S. and the Republic of Korea alliance to remain strong and resolute, and to deter any possible aggression by [North Korea].

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Relocation- Henoko- Happening Now

Status quo relocation plans would reduce the number of troops in Okinawa by 50% and return 68% of the land. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral, & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasawaka Peace Foundation USA, & former consultant & Senior Japan Policy Analyst @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

By proposing to relocate the rotary-wing aircraft away from Futenma to Camp Schwab, moving roughly half the Marines out of Okinawa, and returning 68 percent of land occupied by U.S. forces to the Okinawa Prefectural Government, Tokyo and Washington believed they had gone a long way towards satisfying local Okinawan concerns. Japan had agreed to pay all of the relocation costs in Okinawa and roughly 40 percent of the costs of the new facilities in Guam. To the consternation of both governments, opposition has continued, both from an increasing proportion of Okinawans and from outside opponents, as well.

Construction on Camp Schwab for relocation from Futenma proceeds despite sustained protests from Okinawans. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London; 2/13/2016 (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

Given this safety issue, and pressurised by a citizens’ mass rally denouncing the chilling rape incident in September 1995 in which a 12-year-old schoolgirl was gang raped by three US servicemen, Japan and the US agreed Futenma should be returned to Okinawa in 1996, and Henoko was announced as the (originally planned to be much smaller) relocation site in November 1999. Residents of Henoko, who had already been protesting against this relocation plan, started their sit-in protest in April 2004. Furthermore, paddling canoes and divers also attempted to block seabed drilling investigations being carried out by the Naha Regional Defence Facilities Administration Bureau. With growing signs of more substantial construction work beginning in summer 2014, protesters began to gather in front of Camp Schwab to obstruct construction vehicles entering the Camp.

Abe government accelerating construction of Henoko. Yazawa, Hitotsubashi University & Seijo University Tokyo, & ex-president Japan Sociological Society; 7/16/2015 (Shujiro; Open Democracy; “The crisis of democracy in Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/shujiro-yazawa/crisis-of-democracy-in-japan)

The government is now hurrying to relocate the American military base in Futenma to Henoko, in Nago City, against the will of the majority of the Okinawan people. The will of the people of Okinawa is crystal clear: Okinawan people would like to relocate the Futenma base to somewhere else outside of Okinawa prefecture, hopefully outside Japan. But the Abe government has been accelerating preparations for building a new base in Henoko. Many Okinawans are protesting these relocation preparation activities by staging sit-ins at the construction site.

Relocation now- West Futenma House Area already given back. Blair & Kendall; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

Additionally, since the decision to move the air base to Camp Schwab in 2006, the Japan Ministry of Defense has spent $344 million on 22 projects to reconfigure Camp Schwab. Construction continued despite protests and legal wrangling (much work is needed to internally relocate the ground combat units currently based within Camp Schwab in order to make room for aviation facilities). Finally, some land returns have already been made, the most significant of which is the West Futenma Housing Area.8

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Relocation- Henoko- Happening Now

Henoko relocation set to begin in 2021. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasawaka Peace Foundation USA, & former consultant & Senior Japan Policy Analyst @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

The Guam portion of this plan has suffered its own political setbacks and delays. In Guam’s case, the pressures have come from skeptics in the U.S. Congress. The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), reflecting the opinions and objections of its then- Chairman Carl Levin, Ranking Member John McCain, and Senator Jim Webb, placed many funding restrictions on U.S. military construction on Guam.10 Most of the Senate restrictions centered on skepticism about the feasibility of the relocation plan and the seriousness of Japan’s commitment to it; they were lifted last year in the face of ample evidence that progress was being made on Okinawa.11 Marine units are scheduled to start leaving Okinawa for Guam in 2021, with the move completed by 2026. As they leave, the spaces they vacate on Okinawa will be repurposed for units moving from the southern part of the island.12

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Relocation- Henoko- AT: Court Case Blocks

Okinawan government rejected court settlement. Mainichi Japan; 2/4/2016 (“Gov’t to turn down settlement offers over U.S. base relocation plan to Henoko”; http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20160204/p2a/00m/0na/020000c)

NAHA -- The central government is set to reject the two proposals for settlement with the Okinawa Prefectural Government that were offered by the Fukuoka High Court Naha branch over the U.S. base relocation plan, sources close to the government said. The national government sued the prefectural government in November last year, demanding that Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga undo his revocation of approval for landfill work off the Henoko district in the city of Nago, which is a preparatory step for the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the coastal area. The court proposed the two settlement ideas after the third oral proceedings on Jan. 29. One resolution plan requests the central government to drop the lawsuit, suspend the base relocation work, and negotiate again with the Okinawa government. The other one proposes that Okinawa withdraw the revocation of landfill approval while the central government negotiates with the United States over plans to either return the facility in Henoko within 30 years of initial use, or make it into a shared military-private facility.

Japanese government will inevitable win the case. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral, & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA & Former consultant & Japan Policy Advisor @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

It is thought by informed Japanese sources that the issue of the land ll permit will end up in court after Governor Onaga’s reversal decree is overturned in a bureaucratic review process. According to these same sources, it seems likely that the Prefecture would lose in a court case, due to the wording of environmental statutes, the presence of planned environmental mitigation measures by the government, and the fact that large coastal land reclamation projects, such as the ongoing construction of a second runway for Naha airport, are commonplace on Okinawa. Such a court case should take from one to three months to run its course.

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Relocation- Henoko Bad

Futenma Unpopular/Relocation to Nago permanently damages relations, hurts regime credibility, and kills coral reefs and dugongs Johnson, 5/10/2010 - an American author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean war, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967–1973, and led the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley for years. He is also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (Chalmers, May 10th 2010, Los Angeles Times, “Another battle of Okinawa,” http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/051010/opi_637078807.shtml)

The United States is on the verge of permanently damaging its alliance with Japan in a dispute over a military base in Okinawa. This island prefecture hosts three-quarters of all U.S. military facilities in Japan. Washington wants to build one more base there, in an ecologically sensitive area. The Okinawans vehemently oppose it, and tens of thousands gathered last month to protest the base. Tokyo is caught in the middle, and it looks as if Japan's prime minister has just caved in to the U.S. demands. In the globe-girdling array of overseas military bases that the United States has acquired since World War II - more than 700 in 130 countries - few have a sadder history than those we planted in Okinawa. In 1945, Japan was of course a defeated enemy and therefore given no say in where and how these bases would be distributed. On the main islands of Japan, we simply took over their military bases. But Okinawa was an independent kingdom until Japan annexed it in 1879, and the Japanese continue to regard it somewhat as the U.S. does Puerto Rico. The island was devastated in the last major battle in the Pacific, and the U.S. simply bulldozed the land it wanted, expropriated villagers or forcibly relocated them to Bolivia. From 1950 to 1953, the American bases in Okinawa were used to fight the Korean War, and from the 1960s until 1973, they were used during the Vietnam War. Not only did they serve as supply depots and airfields, but the bases were where soldiers went for rest and recreation, creating a subculture of bars, prostitutes and racism. Around several bases fights between black and white American soldiers were so frequent and deadly that separate areas were developed to cater to the two groups. The U.S. occupation of Japan ended with the peace treaty of 1952, but Okinawa remained a U.S. military colony until 1972. For 20 years, Okinawans were essentially stateless people, not entitled to either Japanese or U.S. passports or civil rights. Even after Japan regained sovereignty over Okinawa, the American military retained control over what occurs on its numerous bases and over Okinawan airspace. Since 1972, the Japanese government and the American military have colluded in denying Okinawans much say over their future, but this has been slowly changing. In 1995, for example, there were huge demonstrations against the bases after two Marines and a sailor were charged with abducting and raping a 12-year-old girl. In 1996, the U.S. agreed that it would be willing to give back Futenma, which is entirely surrounded by the town of Ginowan, but only if the Japanese would build another base to replace it elsewhere on the island. So was born the Nago option in 1996 (not formalized until 2006, in a U.S.-Japan agreement). Nago is a small fishing village in the northeastern part of Okinawa's main island and the site of a coral reef that is home to the dugong, an endangered marine mammal similar to Florida's manatee. In order to build a large U.S. Marine base there, a runway would have to be constructed on either pilings or landfill, killing the coral reef. Environmentalists have been protesting ever since, and in early 2010, Nago elected a mayor who ran on a platform of resisting any American base in his town.

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Relocation- Henoko Bad- Happening Now/Environment

Relocation of Futenma to Henoko will require runways in Oura Bay. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapns & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/10/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “The legacy of empire”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

We next stopped by the US Marine base at Futenma that is totally surrounded by civilian neighborhoods - former US Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld once called Futenma the worst base on the planet. Seventeen schools encircle the base that creates endless noise and over the years planes have crashed into the neighborhoods. The plan is now to close the base and move its operations to Henoko (where we will protest in the early morning). The US is now building two- runways at Henoko that will jut out into pristine Oura Bay likely killing coral reefs and endangered sea mammals.

Japan already working on new airstrip in Oura Bay as part of relocation plan. Construction of the runways will destroy coral reefs and the feeding grounds for endangered Dugongs, dumping millions of tons of trash into the bay. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/12/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “Stop the Insane U.S. Plan for an Airfield on Oura Bay!”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

In the distance I could see massive dredging barges at the ready to begin tearing up the ocean floor in preparation for the construction of the twin runways that would be literally built on top of the pristine ocean. It is more than insane to imagine that this crystal clear water could have hundreds, maybe thousands, of tons of landfill dumped into the sea to place these landing strips out over what now is coral reefs and feeding grounds for the endangered Dugong sea mammal. [One Okinawan activist has informed us that the correct numbers are 21 million cubic meters of soil, equivalent to 3.5 million 10-ton dump truck loads will be dumped into the bay.] The proposed runway area, that has been marked off with these big floating orange barriers, is enormous and the whole idea is beyond human comprehension. (We were told the cost for each round orange plastic piece was $300.)

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Relocation- Henoko Bad- Environment

Environmental impact assessments conclude landfill airbase harmful to environmental preservation. Rabson, Prof Brown Univ; 9/3/2015 (Steve; The Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 13, Iss. 35, No. 3; “The World is Watching: International Scholars, Artists, and Activists Petition to Prevent a New U.S. Military Base in Okinawa”; http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-world-is-watching-international-scholars-artists-and- activists-petition-to-prevent-a-new-u-s-military-base-in-okinawa/5473518)

Governor Onaga has been in office for eight months. His most important action on the base to date has been appointment of a committee of environmental and legal experts to reassess procedures followed in filing the landfill permit. The committee’s report, filed in July, concluded that the landfill permit approved by former Governor Nakaima violates Japan’s Public Waters Reclamation Law by failing to “sufficiently take into account environmental preservation and disaster prevention” and by failing to meet the criteria for “appropriate and rational use of national land.” In short the landfill permit was legally flawed. The report was sufficiently damning that the Japanese government issued a one-month moratorium on base construction and entered negotiations with the Governor.

Henoko will be the largest US military facility in East Asia. Komatsu, UN Advocacy Coordinator @ International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination, & Karaman, AWID; 8/3/2015 (Taisuke & Semanur; Open Democracy; “In Japan: controversial US army base sparks outrage among local population”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/taisuke-komatsu-semanur-karaman/in-japan-controversial-us-army-base-sparks-outrage-among-local-popul)

Henoko, a suburb in northern Okinawa, was chosen to construct this highly controversial base. Its Oura bay hosts a diverse ecological system of dugongs’ sea grass beds and corals. The proposed military base will be the largest US military base in East Asia and will have an adverse impact on the ecological balance of the island, while taking more land away from the locals. To stop the construction plan, environmental and peace activists and concerned citizens are staging protests on and off shore. The survey conducted by a local newspaper and TV corporation in May 2015 shows that 77.2% of respondents oppose the construction plan, while 83% demand relocation outside Okinawa.

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Relocation- Henoko Good

Relocations plans should be accelerated- Japan and the US would get quick wins while improving the education, business and quality of life for Okinawans. Lt. Gen Gregson, Retired US Marine Corps; 2015 (Wallace; Sasakawa Peace Foundation; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

As a result, U.S. and Japanese plans call for relocating the capabilities of the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station to a facility at Camp Schwab in the northern part of the island, away from urban encroachment. The relocation of Futenma’s capabilities and the realignment of U.S. capabilities to Guam, Australia, and other locations will permit the closing off five bases south of Kadena Air Force Base and the return of 1,048 hectares (2,589 acres) of prime urban property—much of it fronting the ocean—to Okinawa and Japan for development. The bases that will close are Camp Kinser, Camp Lester, Kuwae Fuel Farm, the lower third of Camp Foster, and of course Futenma. Adm. Blair and James Kendall make a strong case for adjusting and accelerating the return of some of those bases. I endorse their recommendation for the concurrent, rather than consecutive construction of new facilities on Guam and Hawaii to take years off the timetable for relocating American forces from Okinawa. I agree strongly with their recommendation that the U.S. and Japanese governments create some “quick wins” for the Okinawan people by executing near-term land returns and co-locating American and Japanese units and staffs for better interoperability. It is also worth taking another look at the deployment of Marines to Australia from an operational point of view. By presenting an unvarnished look at U.S. history on Okinawa, and prescribing practical, achievable steps forward, the paper serves a valuable purpose. It is most important that we exploit the realignment and return of valuable property in Okinawa to create the conditions for enhanced education, business, and quality of life. Then, together, Japan and Okinawa will have the opportunity— and the obligation—to use Okinawa’s geographic destiny to enhance the Prefecture, sharpen Japan’s competitive edge in 21st century technology, and further the comprehensive security that will make our alliance stronger and more enduring.

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Relocation- Hokkaido Good

Anti-base sentiments are unique to Okinawa—Hokkaido populations will be more willing Battista 2005 [1/27/05, Captain B. Battista, “Now is the Time to Move from Okinawa to Hokkaido”, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a505629.pdf]

In 2002, the Government Accounting Office reported that “very few of the USMC combined arms and supporting arms training needs could be met on Okinawa.”3 This situation still exists today. Training has deteriorated on Okinawa due to concessions made by the US military. The concessions were a result of urbanization, the memory of the Okinawan people, and the peculiar nature of Okinawan politics. Like military bases in America, many bases on Okinawa that were once in rural areas have become surrounded by urban development — a process called urbanization. While the most controversial urbanization issue concerns Marine Corps Air Station Futenma4 , urbanization also hinders ground training. For example, due to noise pollution, live-fire training is canceled on days when local schools conduct high school or college entrance examinations. Also, accidental range fires threaten local communities near training area boundaries. Range restrictions due to urbanization restrict parachute training, certain small arms, and machine gun training.5 Live-fire artillery training is prohibited on the island. In 1996, initiatives from the Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO) curtailed all live-fire artillery training on Okinawa. Since then, Okinawa based artillery units have had to travel to various bases throughout Japan to conduct livefire training. This training comes at a high cost. The GOJ pays the transportation costs for artillery units to conduct 35 training days each year at designated locations6 throughout Japan.7 The relocation plan also calls for 12th Marines to be able to conduct regimental live-fire training at the relocation sites. This has not happened. Regimental sized artillery live-fire training has not occurred since relocation training was implemented. Okinawa’s recent history makes negotiating with locals difficult—for both local US commanders and the GOJ. Besides the cities bombed by Allied air strikes, and the now uninhabited island of Iwo Jima, Okinawa was the only area of Japan that experienced ground combat operations. In addition, Okinawans felt they were abandoned by the GOJ during the period of US military occupation in 1953 until Okinawa reversion to GOJ control in 1972. Due to these remembered experiences, Okinawans are more pacifistic than mainlanders and less willing to cooperate with US and GOJ military planners9 . This unwillingness hampers any Okinawa based solution to the training problem. Another issue that affects training is the peculiar structure of Okinawa politics. Unlike mainland Japan, Okinawan towns are extremely small. As a result, planners must deal with a jigsaw puzzle of political entities when negotiating training issues.10 Any of these political entities, in pursuit of their own special interests, can frustrate GOJ or US military plans. Following a “not in my backyard” agenda, local Okinawa officials have recently sought to obstruct the Futenma relocation project and the development of a shoot-house in the Central Training Area. A move to Hokkaido would provide units places to train without the issues faced by units on Okinawa. Hokkaido, with a quarter of Japan’s landmass but only 5% of the population,11 does not have the urbanization problems experienced by bases on Okinawa or even on the Kanto Plain.1213 Hokkaido residents do not have memories of the US invasion. Nor were they occupied by the US military following the Treaty of San Francisco. As a result the people of Hokkaido do not have a feeling of abandonment and resentment towards the GOJ like Okinawans do. Hokkaido residents are not as pacifistic as Okinawa residents either. Hokkaido towns are also larger than those in Okinawa so GOJ officials and base commanders would not have a large number of local officials with whom to negotiate training issues. A move to Hokkaido would monetarily benefit both local Hokkaido towns and the GOJ. Hokkaido communities surrounding the JSDF bases that are shut down will lose many of the benefits that those bases provided, including jobs for local citizens, and payments for JSDF’s land usage. If US units occupied those closed bases in Hokkaido, the benefits would return. Locals would get jobs on US bases and would receive payments from the GOJ as Okinawans did. The GOJ could also benefit from the move to Hokkaido. Since US artillery units would be able to conduct training on Hokkaido, the GOJ would no longer have to pay for relocation training.

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Relocation- Kyushu Good

Relocating U.S. presence to Kyushu eliminates the burden on Okinawa, preserves the Marines' effectiveness, and does not require new base construction Tomohiro Yara 12, Okinawa Times senior correspondent, Fall 2012, "Exploring Solutions to the U.S. Military-Base Issues in Okinawa," Eurasia Border Review, Vol. 3, No. 2, https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/publictn/eurasia_border_review/Vol32/yara.pdf

At the risk of opening Pandora’s box, it is imperative to find a way to enable the Marines to relinquish Okinawa without compromising the Japan-U.S. alliance, in a manner that will benefit the Marines. The issue could be solved immediately if mainland Japan, not only Okinawa, decided to accept the Marines. However, it is too late now to build a new U.S. military base on mainland Japan. It is necessary to set conditions favorable for the Marines in exchange for them leaving Okinawa. Although I am not a strategic or military analyst, I propose a set of recommendations based on years of experience in observing the Marines in Okinawa. There Is a Solution I believe that these proposals will drastically reduce the burden of the U.S. military presence on the people of Okinawa and also help strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance. Firstly, the routine functions and operations of the Marines in Okinawa should be clarified.4 (1) The Marines stationed in Okinawa travel to allied countries in the Asia-Pacific region to enhance military exchanges through joint military exercises. In recent years, they have also focused their efforts on civil affairs operations, such as repairing schools and roads or setting up field hospitals to provide medical care for locals in less affluent villages in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. They also provide emergency rescue operations for large-scale natural disasters, such as major earthquakes and tsunamis. (2) To provide a future U.S. presence in the Pacific region, the U.S. Marine Corps is set to network joint training centers in Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and South Korea, centering on Guam. (3) Ground combat units are dispatched to Okinawa from the U.S. for a six-month mission. After receiving approximately two and a half months of initial training they go on expeditions by amphibious warfare ships deployed from Sasebo. They visit allied countries to engage in planned military exercises and civil affairs operations. When they return to Okinawa, their six-month mission is complete and they are replaced by the next units. To continue these missions, the Marines do not have to stay in Okinawa. Those on a six-month rotation may be dispatched to Guam, not Okinawa, and achieve their missions by traveling to allied regions from Guam and carrying out their other duties from there. If they need to conduct joint military exercises with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, they can do so in larger areas, such as Hijudai in Oita Prefecture, the Fuji Maneuver Area in Yamanashi and Shizuoka, Ohjojihara in Miyagi and Yausubetsu in Hokkaido. The September 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs ran an article entitled “Tokyo’s Transformation” by political scientists Eric Heginbotham, Ely Ratner, and Richard J. Samuels. They theorized that the particular location of the Marines is “less critical, as long as training facilities and infrastructure are adequate.” All they have to do is change the rotations. Since this means that the U.S. Marine Corps will lose Okinawa, there will be certain damage to their prestige. But if it is possible to offset their losses, negotiations can be brought to a successful conclusion. The crux of my recommendations is to set conditions acceptable to the Marines. These conditions would include the provision of high speed vessels (HSV); the continuation of Japan’s financial support for U.S. forces that transfer from Okinawa to new areas; and the participation of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces in civil affairs operations and humanitarian operations by forming a “Joint Expeditionary Unit” with Pacific Marines. This will become a great opportunity to demonstrate a new form of the Japan-U.S. alliance in the Asia- Pacific region.

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Relocation- Yokota Good

Dual use at Yokota replaces the Futenma narrative with a "Yokota narrative" that makes basing and the alliance politically sustainable—-Japan says yes Dr. Patrick M. Cronin 12, Senior Advisor and the Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security; Paul S. Giarra, President of Global Strategies & Transformation and a retired Navy Commander; Zachary M. Hosford, Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security; and Timothy A. Walton, Associate of Delex Consulting, Studies, and Analysis, "Yokota: Civil-Military Use of U.S. Bases in Japan," October 2012, http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS_Yokota_Cronin.pdf

The United States and Japan should strongly consider making Yokota Air Base available for civilian aviation while simultaneously preserving military readiness and enhancing operational capacity. Doing so could lead to new infrastructure developments with both civilian and military benefits, help solve critical airport shortages for a close ally and potentially open the door to expanded U.S. military use of civilian aviation facilities across Japan. Such a dispersed approach to military operations is well suited to current security challenges and could effectively serve the interests of both allies. If successful, expanding civilian access to Yokota would also set a valuable precedent for other bases in the Asia-Pacific region. Yokota dual use could buttress both military and economic goals, and the timing seems to be right for such a project. Both Washington and Tokyo want to retain effective military bases in Japan, where the present domestic climate favors a strong alliance. Goodwill remains high in the wake of the alliance’s response to the triple disaster of March 2011, and current tensions in the East China Sea have underscored the importance of military cooperation. As a result of expert discussions over the past year, there is now a clearer understanding of the considerable infrastructure enhancements that would improve operational capacity for the U.S. military. Careful civil-military integration at Yokota Air Base could avoid undermining military control while adding more military capacity through facility improvements. These enhancements could be achieved by following well-established precedents and best practices of dual use, including the instructions governing dual use at Misawa Air Base. Operational hazards could be mitigated through a trial phase that restricts civil use to limited business aviation operations. Equally important, an agreement to open Yokota to some civil aviation could be tied to an agreement to make some civilian airports accessible to military forces during contingency operations. Dual use of the Yokota Air Base could be a “win-win” proposition for the United States and Japan. The United States could benefit through enhanced infrastructure and access to other civilian facilities in Japan, whereas Japan would benefit through increased airport capacity, which it desperately needs. e bitter public rancor in Japan regarding U.S. bases in Okinawa – the “Futenma narrative” – might be replaced with a positive “Yokota narrative,” in which both allies gain from a new and more politically sustainable approach to U.S. military bases in Japan.

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Relocation- Philippines Good

Increasing public support for bases in Philippines. McMillan, Social & Political Sciences @ Univ Canterbury; 1/24/2014 (Stuart; The Strategist- Australia Strategic Policy Institute; “Aid for Philippines brings security shift”; http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/aid-for-philippines-brings-security-shifts/)

Before the typhoon, the US had been trying to persuade the Philippines to again accept the stationing of US troops in the country. The last US troops left the Philippines in 1992 and all American military bases were closed. Although the US- Philippines mutual security agreement of 1951 remained intact, and reaffirmed in 2011, the proposal for US troops to be stationed within the Philippines was meeting some opposition, mainly on the ground that it was said to infringe Philippines sovereignty. The ready US response to the Philippines’ disaster appears to have changed perceptions. The US is now looked on as a power that offers help and hope. The result is that US troops will be stationed within the Philippines. There’s a certain convenience in this for the US because it didn’t want to say outright that it wanted troops in the Philippines as part of the bulwark against China. Now the troops can be said to be stationed there partly for humanitarian aid reasons.

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Relocation- AT: Virtual Presence

The virtual presence model creates regional instability. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

The ‘virtual presence’ solution calls for rotating forces, particularly US Marines, though it applies just as well to Air Force and US Navy units through the region for training, without actually having any bases in the area. However, without a single location serving as a ‘center of gravity’ from which military — and Marine — power is seen to derive, there would always be something ephemeral about its presence, and suggests the US is not really serious about its promise to defend Japan and its own interests. The ‘prepositioning’ school of thought claims US forces and Marines only need to have supplies and equipment staged on Okinawa, with troops flying out in the event of crisis. However, it is a truism that it is better to be located and to train in the region where you operate — just like a baseball team does best when practicing and playing at its home field. Also, pre-staged supplies and forward-based troops are viewed differently by adversaries. One is a vague promise of intervention, the other is a near certainty.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- China

Chinese provocations erode checks on conflict—the Japan alliance safeguards stability Schriver, Pres & CEO Project 2049 Institute; 2015 (CHINA'S MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS AND THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE, April, www.project2049.net/documents/2015_China_US_Japan_Capstone.pdf)

Focusing on the Future of the U.S.-Japan Alliance In light of China’s expanding capabilities, and the operational scope of its military operations, the U.S. and Japan have taken concrete steps to prepare for various contingencies that may arise from shifts in the regional military balance. In particular, China’s buildup of A2AD capabilities is intended to restrain U.S. and Japanese activities in the East and South China Seas and the Western Pacific. China’s increasing scope of activities in these areas threatens to erode the regional security status quo and raises the likelihood of what Japanese strategists have referred to as “grey zone” contingencies. In order to address these situations, Japanese strategists debate how and where to place their military assets. For example, should Japan deploy its assets closer to areas of possible contingencies to deter China’s “creeping expansionism,” or should it pull its assets back to protect them from attack? These are questions that occupy a large part of the Japanese strategic discourse today. In response to incidents related to Chinese claims over the Senkaku Islands, Japan has released two important strategic documents in the past five years. The first was the 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines, which prioritized the development of “dynamic deterrence” and the use of ISR assets to deter Chinese expansionism. In 2013, Japan introduced plans to develop a “dynamic joint defense force” for gray zone deterrence. In addition to utilizing ISR assets, the 2013 NDPG included plans to develop air and maritime superiority and strategic transportation capabilities for island defense. The U.S.-Japan alliance has taken steps to address regional security trends. The 2014 decision by Washington and Tokyo to revise their 1997 bilateral defense guidelines will prioritize the implementation of a seamless alliance structure through peacetime, grey zones, and full military contingencies. By comparison, whereas the U.S.- ROK alliance is centered on a single, integrated command structure, the U.S.-Japan alliance has no such mechanism or permanent body. The 1997 bilateral defense guidelines included a bilateral institutional coordination mechanism, but the shortfall of this mechanism was apparent in 2011 when it could not be activated during the Great East Japan Earthquake since this natural disaster did not directly involve the defense of Japan. The revision of the 1997 bilateral defense guidelines will also introduce new operational domains for alliance cooperation, such as cyber, space, missile defense and counter- A2/AD. Additionally, the revision may help clarify how the Japanese relaxation of arms export bans and changed interpretation to allow Japan’s exercise of collective self defense will affect U.S.-Japan alliance operations. Once the revision is finalized this spring, the U.S.-Japan alliance will be well-prepared for the current and future regional strategic landscape. In addition to bilateral alliance cooperation, Japan’s international outreach has complemented the U.S. “strategic rebalance” to Asia. Prime Minister Abe has visited all 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). His efforts to strengthen ties with Australia and India bring benefits for the U.S.-Japan alliance. U.S.- Japan- Australia and U.S.-Japan-India cooperation have created greater opportunities for the U.S. and Japan to align their strategic priorities in Asia. Although the U.S.-Japan alliance has a proven track record of effectiveness and resiliency, the lack of a robust political and security relationship between Tokyo and Seoul could pose challenges for the alliance. Fraught ties between Japan and South Korea complicates U.S. defense planning and hinders the U.S. ability to engage in robust U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation. While there have recently been modest advances in U.S.- Japan-South Korea cooperation, the possibility for close trilateral security coordination in the near future is not as promising as U.S. defense planners would prefer. Going forward, the U.S.-Japan alliance will remain indispensable for safeguarding security and prosperity in the Asia- Pacific in the 21st century. Beijing should realize that it has a critical stake in the success of the U.S.-Japan alliance, which has grounded the regional stability that fostered China’s meteoric economic growth. China’s military modernization and the uncertainty behind Beijing’s intentions require the U.S.-Japan alliance adapt to these shifts in the regional strategic landscape. The U.S. and Japan must continue to strengthen their alliance coordination, share a

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comprehensive China strategy, and share a long-term vision of order in the region. By aligning capabilities, operations, and strategic outlook, the U.S.-Japan alliance will remain the bedrock of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- China

Northeast Asia is the most probable scenario for conflict. Adams, The Epoch Times; 10/13/2014 (Shar; The Epoch Times; “Asian Cold War: Escalating Conflict in North-East Asia Bigger Threat Than War on Terror”; http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1014683-asian-cold-war-escalating-conflict-in-north-east-asia-bigger-threat-than-war-on-terror/)

The world may be focused on the “war on terror”, but the arms build up in North-East Asia poses a far greater threat to global stability, says Professor Desmond Ball, a senior defence and security expert at the Australian National University (ANU)./ A former head of ANU’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, Professor Ball is no lightweight when it comes to security concerns. It is Professor Ball’s expertise in command and control systems, particularly in relation to nuclear war, that underlies his concerns about North-East Asia./ “North-East Asia has now become the most disturbing part of the globe,” Prof Ball told Epoch Times in an exclusive interview./ China, Japan and South Korea – countries that are “economic engines of the global economy” – are embroiled in an arms race of unprecedented proportions, punctuated by “very dangerous military activities”, he says./ Unlike the arms race seen during the Cold War, however, there are no mechanisms in place to constrain the military escalation in Asia./ “Indeed, the escalation dynamic could move very rapidly and strongly to large scale conflict, including nuclear conflict,” said Prof Ball. “It is happening as we watch.”/ Arms Race/ Military spending in Asia has grown steadily over the last decade. According to a 2013 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report, China is now the world’s second largest military spender behind the United States, spending an estimated $188 billion in 2013./ Japan and South Korea are also among the world’s top 10 military spenders. When North Korea and Taiwan are included, North-East Asian countries constitute around 85 per cent of military spending in Asia./ But what is more disturbing, Prof Ball says, is the motivation for the acquisitions./ “The primary reason now for the acquisitions, whether they are air warfare destroyers, missiles or defense submarines, is simply to match what the other [countries] are getting,” he said./ While he believes it is likely that Japan would have embarked on military modernisation, he says it is China’s military provocation of countries across Asia that is fuelling the build-up./ Since China lay claim to all of the South China Sea, it has escalated territorial disputes with Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia./ What started with skirmishes between locals and Chinese fishing boats or navy vessels has now become territorial grabs – island building on contested rocky outcrops./ In a sign of things to come, the South China Morning Post reported in June: “China is looking to expand its biggest installation in the Spratly Islands into a fully formed artificial island, complete with airstrip and sea port, to better project its military strength in the South China Sea.”/ According to Filipino media, the artificial island falls within the Philippines’ 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone./ Prof Ball says China’s behaviour in the South China Sea is provocative, but “in the scale of what we are talking about, that is nothing” compared with conflicts in North-East Asia, where China and Japan are contesting claims over the Tokyo- controlled Senkaku Islands (claimed as the Diaoyus by China)./ Of the Senkakus conflict, Prof Ball says: “We are talking about actual footsteps towards nuclear war – submarines and missiles.”/ Chinese and Japanese activity in the Senkakus region has escalated to the point where sometimes there are “at least 40 aircraft jostling” over the contested area, he said./ Alarm bells were set off near the Senkakus in January last year when a Chinese military vessel trained its fire-control radar on a Japanese naval destroyer. The incident spurred the Japanese Defense Ministry to go public about that event and reveal another incident from a few days prior, when a Chinese frigate directed fire-control radar at a Japanese military helicopter./ Fire-control radars are not like surveillance or early warning radars – they have one purpose and that is to lock onto a target in order to fire a missile. “Someone does that to us, we fire back,” Prof Ball said./ Counter Measures Needed/ Prof Ball is recognised for encouraging openness and transparency, and for his advocacy of multilateral institutions. He has been called one of the region’s “most energetic and activist leaders in establishing forums for security dialogue and measures for building confidence”./ In his experience visiting China over the years, however, Prof Ball says gaining open dialogue and transparency with Chinese military leaders is difficult. He recounted a private meeting with a Chinese admiral shortly after the fire-control radar incident. Prof Ball had seen direct evidence of the encounter – “tapes of the radar frequencies, the pulse rates and the pulse repetition frequencies” – and wanted to know what had happened on the Chinese side and why it took place./ “In a private meeting, I asked the admiral why … and he denied it to my face,” Prof Ball said. The Chinese admiral would not even concede that an incident had happened./ “I don’t see the point of this sort of dialogue,” he added./ With so many players in the region and few barriers against conflict escalation, the North-

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East Asian nuclear arms race is now far more complex and dangerous than the Cold War, he says./ In the Cold War, there were mechanisms at each level of potential confrontation, including a direct hotline between the US and Soviet leaders./ “Once things get serious here, [there is] nothing to slow things down. On the contrary, you have all the incentives to go first,” he said.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- Climate

A strengthened U.S. Japan Alliance is key to enter into effective dialogue and cooperation to combat global warming Kent E. Calder, Director of Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS/Johns Hopkins University, 02/01/2010 “U.S. CLIMATE POLICY AND PROSPECTS FOR U.S.‐JAPAN COOPERATION”, )

Active U.S.‐Japan cooperation on energy and environmental issues has a powerful, unprecedented logic today, given prevailing political configurations in Tokyo and Washington, D.C. Both the Obama and Hatoyama Administrations place emphasis on these issue areas, and their general approaches are broadly similar. The Obama energy policy approach, for example, emphasizes downstream energy efficiency rather than upstream energy resource development. and also systematic long‐term reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Hatoyama priorities appear to be broadly congruent. Both administrations are also interested in broad, systemic approaches to energy and environmental problems, integrating technological innovation and mass‐transportation policy into solutions for energy and environmental questions. Both administrations also find multilateral cooperation congenial. U.S. and Japanese capacities in addressing energy and environmental issues are also complementary in many important respects. The U.S. has historically proven adept at technological innovation, and was a pioneer in nuclear and resource‐exploitation technology, such as off‐shore drilling. Japan is a global leader in promoting energy efficiency through technical innovation, as well as systems and product engineering, and in devising effective industrial standards. Given the pressing nature of global energy and environmental problems, the general congruence of underlying U.S. and Japanese approaches to these issues, and the strategic importance of strengthening the U.S.‐Japan alliance, the two countries could productively initiate a bilateral energy and environmental dialogue. The US currently engages in such bilateral dialogues with both China and South Korea, and the logic is strong for an analogous dialogue with Japan. The two countries can also, of course, productively cooperate in broader international fora, as they have in the COP‐15 process. Among the concrete topics on which the U.S. and Japan can productively consider energy and environmental cooperation are the following: (1) Demonstration projects, such as energy‐efficient buildings, that illustrate novel methods for reducing resource use, and thereby reducing global emissions; (2) Clean coal technology, where their capabilities are well‐matched, in an area of fateful long‐term importance for large‐scale energy consumers such as China and India; (3) carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology; (4) mass‐transit approaches, including high‐speed rail, which reduce use of resources; (5) product standards that promote energy efficiency; (6) civilian nuclear issues, including safety and storage questions, the closed fuel cycle, and the improvement and strengthening of multilateral non‐proliferation regimes; and (7) water use. Both countries can learn substantially from the other, thereby strengthening and broadening their vital bilateral relationship. Cooperation on energy and environmental matters, however, cannot easily serve as a substitute for cooperation in areas of hard security, such as host‐nation support, however, for both strategic reasons and do to the configuration of embedded political interests in both countries.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- Climate/Disease

Renewed focus is key to counter every transnational threat – including climate change and pandemics – the US and Japan need each other for successful climate talks in Paris this December Elgin-Cossart, Fellow @ American Progress; 4/27/2015 (Molly; American Progress; “Mindful of Both Past and Present Challenges, Japan and the United States Must Work Together to Achieve a Progressive Future”; https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2015/04/27/111819/mindful-of-both-past-and-present-challenges-japan-and-the-united-states-must-work- together-to-achieve-a-progressive-future/)

Another major objective for Prime Minster Abe will be to focus public attention on Japan’s global citizenship since World War II and to cast a forward-looking agenda for bilateral cooperation. While the focus for Prime Minster Abe and President Obama will likely be acute challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, they also should use this moment to think about how the United States and Japan can collaborate to promote inclusive prosperity and environmental stability not just in Asia but also globally. Given the two nations’ shared values and a commitment to human rights, human security, democracy, economic opportunity, and confronting climate change, this should be natural. With both nations wielding substantial clout in the United Nations, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the G-7, the G-20, and other critical elements of the global order, it is also practical. Elevating collaboration in these forums as a top pillar in bilateral relations should be a priority for both sides./ Investing in people and prosperity/ The United States and Japan have contributed substantially to economic development worldwide, as well as to the global good. The United States was pivotal in establishing international institutions such as the United Nations, and it is the world’s largest contributor of official development assistance globally. Following World War II, Japan was a major recipient of international assistance but became a donor nation within a decade. Today, Japan is the world’s fifth-largest bilateral aid donor, the largest contributor to the Asian Development Bank, and a generous funder of multilateral initiatives such as the U.N. Peacebuilding Fund and the U.N. Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict initiative. These efforts are vital to preserving the security, rights, and freedom of people worldwide./ Japan and the United States have been leaders in not only the quantity of assistance but also the quality. Their commitment to ending poverty and promoting health, food security, and other essential needs has been vital to global growth and progress. However, a new approach is needed: 21st century challenges—including ending extreme poverty, more broadly sharing the benefits of globalization, and combating climate change—demand 21st century solutions./ Despite great progress, significant challenges remain, and business as usual will not offer solutions. The challenge for global development is threefold:/ Ensure the rights and dignity of each and every person./ Help economies move from poverty to prosperity./ Work together to prevent and mitigate the effects of catastrophes—which know no borders—from pandemics to violent extremism to the effects of climate change and other environmental crises./ Shared values—including individual rights, building inclusive and prosperous economies and societies, and providing for the global good—unite the United States and Japan and provide the foundation to tackle these challenges together. From Southeast Asia to Africa, the potential for joint investment is great./ Crucially, the United States and Japan also realize that there is work to do at home too. Japan has unveiled ambitious plans to increase the number of women in its workforce, and the United States has taken significant steps toward universal health care and reducing carbon emissions. These domestic initiatives are integral to a new approach to development that sees development less as charity and more as sustainable global progress./ Investing in the planet/ In the past decade, natural disasters have been on the rise in the Asia-Pacific region, which presages the impacts of climate change and other environmental problems, such as deforestation, in the coming decades. Agricultural productivity is at risk; rising sea levels threaten to displace more and more people; and food and water scarcity coupled with pandemic exposure have the potential to create a global public health crisis. If the United States and Japan are serious about fostering another 70 years of growth and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, climate change mitigation and resilience, as well as sustainable natural resource management, must be at the heart of bilateral cooperation./ In terms of cutting emissions, the United States has already unveiled its international commitment and has reduced the carbon intensity of its energy consumption by 8 percent since 2005. Japan is expected to pledge a target 20 percent emission reduction by 2030 based on 2005 levels during the June G-7 summit. While dramatically reduced nuclear energy use in Japan makes aggressively reducing domestic emissions extremely challenging, the $4.5 billion that the United States and Japan have pledged to the Green Climate Fund will help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change and further reduce carbon pollution. Technology, research, and technical assistance are other areas where the United States and Japan can make a great difference. Delivering advanced low- and zero-carbon energy technology from sources such as wind, solar, and nuclear power for future generations has great potential as an area of cooperation for globally shared prosperity and environmental security./ Conclusion/ The United States and Japan cannot tackle the global challenges of the 21st century alone. Both have extensive partnerships and influence in regional and international bodies—from the United Nations to the G-20 and G-7, the Arctic Council, and the multilateral development banks. In the near term, Japan will lead the G-7 in 2016, an opportunity that offers tremendous potential. Working through these forums, the United States and Japan can collaborate with other nations to take action to build inclusive prosperity and tackle climate change. 2015 presents a particularly important opportunity to

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marry progress on climate, environment, and development with progress on both the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate Conference of the Parties.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- East Asia

Alliance prevents multiple flashpoints from escalating into nuclear war. Richard L. Armitage et al., 2000 Kurt M.Campbell, Michael J. Green, Joseph S. Nye et al. fmr. Dep. Secretary of State, CSIS, CFR, JFK School of Government at Harvard (also contributed to by James A. Kelly, Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Edward J. Lincoln, Brookings Institution; Robert A. Manning, Council on Foreign Relations; Kevin G. Nealer, Scowcroft Group; James J. Przystup, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University; “The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership”, Institute for National Strategic Studies Special Report, October, http://www.ndu.edu/inss/strforum/SR_01/SR_Japan.htm) Asia, in the throes of historic change, should carry major weight in the calculus of American political, security, economic, and other interests. Accounting for 53 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of the global economy, and nearly $600 billion annually in two-way trade with the United States, Asia is vital to American prosperity. Politically, from Japan and Australia, to the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia, countries across the region are demonstrating the universal appeal of democratic values. China is facing momentous social and economic changes, the consequences of which are not yet clear. Major war in Europe is inconceivable for at least a generation, but the prospects for conflict in Asia are far from remote. The region features some of the world’s largest and most modern armies, nuclear-armed major powers, and several nuclear-capable states. Hostilities that could directly involve the United States in a major conflict could occur at a moment’s notice on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. The Indian subcontinent is a major flashpoint. In each area, war has the potential of nuclear escalation. In addition, lingering turmoil in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, threatens stability in Southeast Asia. The United States is tied to the region by a series of bilateral security alliances that remain the region’s de facto security architecture. In this promising but also potentially dangerous setting, the U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship is more important than ever. With the world’s second-largest economy and a well- equipped and competent military, and as our democratic ally, Japan remains the keystone of the U.S. involvement in Asia. The U.S.-Japan alliance is central to America’s global security strategy.

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Japan Alliance- Impact- Missile Defense

US Japan cooperation is necessary for Joint Missile defense – it is key for ongoing tests Payne, 2010, Member of the Defense Science Board, the DoD Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, [Keith Co- chairman of the Nuclear Strategy Forum, Thomas Scheber, Principal Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons Program; March “U.S. Extended Deterrence and Assurance for Allies in Northeast Asia”; http://www.nipp.org/National%20Institute%20Press/Current%20Publications/PDF/US%20Extend-Deter-for%20print.pdf; Accessed 7/16/10]

In recent years, joint cooperation on ballistic missile defense has been growing in importance and activity. Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee (2+2) meetings typically included discussion of cooperative measures for BMD. In November 2007, the defense ministers from both countries met and agreed to advance joint efforts to cooperate on operational aspects. 154 In December 2007, a joint BMD test used a SM-3 interceptor fired from a Japanese destroyer, Kongo. This successful joint live-fire test marked a major milestone in missile defense cooperation with the United States. In November 2008, a subsequent BMD test involving an interceptor fired by a ship in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force was partially successful. On October 28, 2009, a Japanese destroyer, JS Myoko, fired an SM-3 interceptor missile which successfully impacted a medium-range ballistic missile about 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean.155 The United States and Japan are continuing to work together to increase the range and lethality of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor.156 Japan hosts an X-band radar which is an integral part of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). Japanese and U.S. forces cooperate in missile defense exercises and are continuing to improve interoperability between elements of each other’s defensive systems. The most recent Japan Defense White Paper calls for continued cooperation with the United States to further strengthen security arrangements on “defense operations.” Specifically, it calls for joint exercises and training to be enhanced, continued stationing of U.S. forces in Japan (but a “realignment of those forces”), cooperation on ballistic missile defense, and close collaboration with the United States in international security efforts. Consistent with this goal, the United States and Japan recently expanded the size and complexity of the annual exercise, Yama Sakura (Mountain Cherry Blossom). The exercise, conducted in December 2009 on the northern island of Hokkaido, included over 5,000 troops and involved ballistic missile defense training.157

Joint missile defense is key – North Korean missile threat destabilizes Asia causing war without it Klingner 2009-Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation [Bruce, “North Korea's Missile Gambit” February 17, 2009 WebMemo #2295, accessed July 17, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/02/North-Koreas-Missile-Gambit]

What the U.S. Should Do Emphasize that North Korea's actions are provocative, counterproductive, and call into question Pyongyang's viability as a negotiating partner. Highlight that North Korea's threatening belligerence, not U.S. "hostile policy" as Pyongyang claims, has hindered negotiations. Affirm U.S. commitment to defend our allies against any North Korean provocation, including missile launches or naval confrontation in the West Sea. Underscore Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' pledge to shoot down the North Korean missile if it approaches U.S. territory. Emphasize that North Korea's missile threat demonstrates the continuing need for the U.S., Japan, and South Korea to develop and deploy missile defense systems. It is ironic that President Obama's Secretary of Defense has suggested using missile defenses that Obama would likely not have funded had he been in office during their development. Declare that the U.S. is willing to resume negotiations to eliminate North Korea's missile threats to its neighbors. Such negotiations, however, must comprehensively constrain missile development, deployment, and proliferation rather than simply seeking a quid pro quo agreement--cash payments in exchange for not exporting missile technology. Nor should such negotiations deflect attention from Pyongyang's denuclearization requirements in the Six Party Talks.

March: Okinawa Page 39

Japan Alliance- Impact- Rearmament

The security alliance gives Japan no need for militarization, which could spark an arms race Eric, Vogel, Prof. @ Harvard U, 2003, Asian Studies Newsletter http://www.aasianst.org/Viewpoints/Vogel.htm)

Why is the Tokyo government ready to pay the support for the housing of U.S. troops in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan? Because Japan’s alternatives to a security pact with the United States, developing an independent military capacity to defend themselves or engaging in unarmed neutrality, are less attractive. An independent Japanese military capacity is likely to unnerve the Chinese and Koreans, and the prospects of an arms race between Japan on the one hand and China or Korea on the other, would be high; most Japanese would prefer to have better relations with China and Korea. Unarmed neutrality would leave Japan open to the intimidation of neighbors, including North Korea, something the Japanese public is not likely to tolerate in the long run. Given the alternatives, thoughtful people in the Diet and elsewhere in Japanese policy circles prefer an alliance with the United States. Japanese political leaders who need cooperation from other parties in Japan take a low posture and tone down their proclamations on controversial issues, but when the crunch comes they vote to keep the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. And that is why so many Japanese politicians support the Guidelines worked out between defense specialists in Japan and the United States to specify what Japan could do to respond in case of emergencies. What is the new role of the U.S.-Japan Security alliance after the end of the cold War? It is to be ready to respond in case of emergencies and to help keep a stable environment so that Japan, China, and Korea do not feel the need to start an arms race in order for each to achieve security. Regional stability is sufficiently important that the United States, having learned the cost of isolationism in 1914 and 1941, is willing to play a considerable role in guaranteeing regional security. Chalmers Johnson wants U.S. troops to pull out of Okinawa but he wants Japan and the United States to keep their treaty alliance. Unfortunately it is not possible to do both. If the United States is to respond quickly to emergencies in places like the Korean peninsula it needs to have troops and supplies readily on hand. The North and South Koreans both know that U.S. troops would defend South Korea if the North attacks because U.S. troops are in Korea and would be affected. Most Japanese believe that U.S. troops would fight to defend Japan. But if U.S. troops were not in Japan, many more Japanese would doubt the U.S. willingness to defend them, and the temptations to develop their own military capacity would be very real; Korea and China would be unlikely to stand idly by. The United States does not negotiate with Okinawa; it negotiates with the government of Japan, in Tokyo, and the Japanese government has chosen to keep bases in Okinawa. U.S. military officials in Okinawa have worked hard and continue to work hard to keep good relations with civilians in Okinawa and to keep incidents to a minimum. We do not live in an ideal dream world where everyone would be perfectly happy. But preserving security in Asia and avoiding a new arms race and regional conflict is too important to the lives of all Asians to be cavalier about advocating U.S. troop withdrawal from Japan without carefully considering the consequences.

U.S. Security Commitment provides a nuclear umbrella for Japan Michael, Green, Associate Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, 2007 (March 19, 2007. “Japan is Back: Why Tokyo’s New Assertiveness is Good for Washington” Foreign Affairs. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/japan_is_back_why_tokyos_new_a.html)

Pyle's analysis also provides an indirect but powerful counterpoint to the belief that Japan's development of nuclear weapons is inevitable in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test last October. It is true that some senior Japanese politicians now muse openly about developing nuclear weapons, but the same politicians and their predecessors also privately -- and sometimes not so privately -- ruminated about possessing a nuclear deterrent during the Cold War. Japan's leaders are looking at North Korea's nuclear test within the context of Japan's overall national power. Japan's power assets include a strong alliance with the United States, the extended U.S. nuclear deterrent, domestic political cohesion, and regional economic relationships -- all of which would be put at risk by a unilateral nuclear weapons program. The Japanese are not about to slide toward nuclear armament -- so long as Washington remains attentive to the credibility of its own nuclear umbrella and to its strategic commitment to Tokyo.

March: Okinawa Page 40

Japan Alliance- Impact- Stability

The alliance is critical to global stability but can't be taken for granted—withdrawal sustains the alliance Ennis, Reporter Toyo Keizai; 4/11/2012 (Peter; Dispatch Japan; “The US, Japan and Okinawa”; http://www.dispatchjapan.com/blog/2012/04/the-us-japan-and-okinawa.html)

All in Japan./ The US forward-deployed presence in Japan is courtesy of an independent Japan. And it’s good for Japan’s own security; that’s why it works, and why Americans should never take the alliance for granted; nor should Japanese officials./ American and Japanese officials have mismanaged this crucial relationship over the past few years. Both sides share irresponsibility. The Democratic Party of Japan was not really prepared to take charge in 2009. The US, at best, was not prepared to see the DPJ succeed; many in Washington wanted the DPJ to fail./ Unfortunately, the US continues to embrace dismissive attitudes toward Japan that are not far removed from the Occupation era./ Behind the scene, many US strategists argue that the US should cultivate the alliance; Japanese thoughts and opinions cannot be taken for granted. At the same time, somewhat-frustrated US officials say Japan would be best to not ignore regional and global responsibilities./ REBALANCE: The core of the new US approach to Asia started in July, 2010, with Hillary Clinton’s speech in Hanoi, warning China to not use force to resolve territorial disputes./ Then came the Sankaku dispute between Japan and China, in September 2010. The US, largely led by Kurt Campbell, did not flinch: immediate support for Japan./ But Campbell is restricted, lacking the power to break through the bureaucratic nightmare created by US military interservice rivalies. The problem is compounded by budget restraints; construction on Guam is far off-schedule./ Until to 2010 Senkaku flash, the Obama administration had invested in the notion of China as a “partner.” But the Chinese leadership saw a US in decline. The US offered a hand to Beijing. It was not totally rejected, but rejected enough to wake up the Obama administration: China is not an enemy, but certainly not a strategic partner./ Suddenly, Japan came back into the picture./ THE ASIA “TILT”: The rebalance from Iraq- Afghanistan to East Asia is real. Barack Obama is personally driving this shift in attention toward Asia. Those who know Obama know that this was on his mind from day-one of his administration. And the top tier of the National Security Council agrees. At the State Department, Clinton and her top Asia aides are fully on board./ USTR, with Wendy Cutler running the TPP policy, remain skeptical of Japan’s trade policy, but very-much open to talks. Cutler is trying to forge a consensus among key US business and labor constituencies to push ahead with TPP./ WHAT’S NEW: For 30 years, US Asia specialists, and many strategists, have been longing for a coherent, consistent US policy toward East Asia. Not much has happened./ Only now is the US: a) really engaging ASEAN; b) not dreaming of a partnership with China; and, c) being somewhat consistent in policy toward North Korea; d) all at the same time. A clear, consistant policy./ It is this consistence and commitment to the Pacific that the US has lacked, especially on trade, but overall strategic alliances: Too willing to overlook local concerns, acting more with a sense of privilege than partnership./ WHAT ABOUT JAPAN: The Obama Administration did a good job in response to the 3-11 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear crisis. The basic friendship between the two countries rose to perhaps an unprecedented level./ FUTENMA: But there is a particular problem – the US Marine presence on Okinawa – that threatens to undermine all that is good in the US-Japan alliance./ This impasse has to end./ The US-Japan alliance is critical to global stability./ But US officials are not managing the alliance with that sense of urgency, and ignore the political realities in Japan that occupy Prime Minister Noda./ The specific issue is the US Marine Air Station Futenma, which has been scheduled for closure for the past 16 years. Bureaucrats from the two sides agreed to build an alternative base further north, in the Henoko Bay, close to Nago city. But the local population opposed, and a stalemate ensued./ There was never a need for a new base. The US Marines have never -- ever -- explained why they need a new runway, except to privately say that the infamous Osprey might malfuction./ The solution to the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) has been clear for a long time, but turf wars between the US Air Force and the US Marines have blocked a solution. And a war-torn Obama administration has failed to intervene to resolve the silly inter-service rivalry./ THE SOLUTION: The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which includes 2,500 Marines and is tagged as ‘special forces capable,’ should remain. Those Marines would be available for quick deployments – either humanitarian relief or the securing of North Korean ports in the event of conflict. The MEU operates largely on its own, a component of, but not dependent on the total 18,000-manned 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force. The 31st MEU operates in close coordination with the USS Essex, out of Sasebo, in southern Japan. The helicopter unit, now based at Futenma, could be integrated into the huge Kadena air base that is managed by the US Air Force, or into a new heliport facility at Camp Hansen (US Marine), combined with pre- positioned supplies and equipment jointly maintained offshore on ships by the US and Japan. Regular joint training with Japanese forces -- and US access to Japanese facilities in the event of a regional contingency -- could be negotiated. All of the rest of the 3rd MEF could be based in Guam, Hawaii, or Camp Pendleton, close to San Diego, which will have plenty of space because of the scheduled reduction in overall Marine Corps ranks.

March: Okinawa Page 41

Japan Alliance- Impact- Stability

Japan-US relations key to East Asian stability, China-Japan, and China-US relations, deterrence of Korean and Taiwanese conflict Talmadge 2010 (6/22/10, Eric, Associated Press, “US-Japan security pact turns 50, faces new strains,” http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5islkPj_84APsquFWNdqr2kuTwDQwD9GG68080)

Uncertainty over a Marine base and plans to move thousands of U.S. troops to Guam are straining a post-World War II security alliance Japan and the United States set 50 years ago, but Tokyo's new leader said Tuesday he stands behind the pact. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he sees the arrangement as a crucial means of maintaining the balance of power in Asia, where the economic and military rise of China is looming large, and vowed to stand behind it despite recent disputes with Washington. "Keeping our alliance with the United States contributes to peace in the region," Kan said in a televised question-and-answer session with other party leaders. "Stability helps the U.S.-Japan relationship, and that between China and Japan and, in turn, China and the United States." The U.S.-Japan alliance, formalized over violent protests in 1960, provides for the defense of Japan while assuring the U.S. has regional bases that serve as a significant deterrent to hostilities over the Korean Peninsula or Taiwan.

March: Okinawa Page 42

Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Henoko Spillover

Opposition to Henoko could spillover and threaten support for Kadena Air Base. Sneider, Assoc Dir Research Asia-Pacific Research Center @ Stanford; August 2015 (Daniel; National Bureau of Asian Research; “Shinzo Abe and the Reality of Japanese Democracy”; http://www.nbr.org/publications/element.aspx?id=831)

The United States for its part needs to have a more realistic understanding of what can be accomplished in security cooperation and more broadly in alliance relations, given political realities in Japan. The potential implications include the following: The Abe government may not have the ability to deliver implementation of the planned construction of a replacement facility for the Marine air base at Futenma on Okinawa. Strong resistance from the local government has already led to a postponement, and there is a danger that anti-base sentiment on the island could escalate and threaten support for more strategic facilities such as Kadena Air Base.

Pushing Henoko leads to anti-base opposition spreading throughout Japan. Japan Times Editorial; 9/20/2015 (“Onaga’s challenge on Henoko”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/09/20/editorials/onagas-challenge- henoko/#.VspDV8fwyT8)

The national government may eventually win in the courts. A case in 1995 over then-Gov. Masahide Ota’s refusal to sign a document for forcible use of land for U.S. bases ended with the prefecture’s defeat in less than a year. But ignoring local sentiment and going ahead with the Henoko construction project will likely only harden opposition to the plan, possibly leading to wholesale antipathy toward the U.S. military presence in Okinawa. The Abe administration seems to think that executing the Henoko plan as quickly as possible will deepen Washington’s trust of Japan. But good relations between the two governments alone isn’t enough to sustain the bilateral security alliance. An explosion of strong anti-base emotions in the very prefecture that hosts the bulk of the U.S. military presence in Japan could end up shaking the foundation of the security setup.

Opposition to Henoko spills over to Kadena. Okamoto, President Okamoto Associates; 8/4/2015 (Yuki; Nippon; “The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/#auth_profile_0)

The DPJ administration looked at over 40 potential locations elsewhere in Japan, but in the end it was unable to find a replacement site, and in April 2010 Prime Minister Hatoyama apologized to the people of Okinawa, asking them to accept the relocation of the Futenma facility within the prefecture. But their willingness to do so was gone. It was as if they had been about to have a meal at a restaurant, albeit with some reluctance, when a DPJ big shot came barging in and cried, “The food here is lousy. There are lots of good restaurants out there, so let’s go to one of them.” He led the diners out, but of course there was no such restaurant to be found. The group ended up going back to the original place, but the food was no longer fresh, and nobody felt like eating. I have seen many activists from mainland Japan taking part in the campaign against the US military bases in Okinawa. Their objective is not limited to the complete reversion of the Futenma facility. By fomenting the local anti-base movement and promoting disruption, they seek to close down all the US bases, particularly Kadena, the biggest US Air Force base in the Eastern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, the deadlock between the national government in Tokyo and the prefectural government in Naha continues to drag on. And if one of the Ospreys were to have a major accident, Okinawa could explode, much as it did back in 1956, when an “island-wide struggle” broke out against the US military administration.

March: Okinawa Page 43

Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out

Even if the US doesn’t want to leave, their days ae numbered. US will get kicked out of Okinawa. Opposition to bases in Okinawa throughout Japan. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/11/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “We won’t give up the fight”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

Already we can see that from top-to-bottom the people of Okinawa are in serious revolt against the US military empire. It's days are numbered. Ordinary citizens are blocking base gates - city mayors and the governor of the island are using every legal means at their disposal to block base expansions. The media on Okinawa is covering the story practically every day on the front page. (See one example here) The right-wing Abe government in Tokyo is getting hammered in Okinawa. In Japan citizens are allowed to designate which of the nation's 47 prefectures (states) they want their taxes sent to. Many people in Japan, in solidarity with Okinawa, are designating their taxes be sent to the struggling people in Okinawa.

Okinawans are considering demonstrations at Kadena. Lummis, Former Marine stationed in Okinawa & Prof @ Tsuda College, & current lecturer @ Okinawa International University; 2/1/2016 (C. Douglas; Asia-Pacific Journal- Japan Focus; “Afterword: The Henoko protest holds the key”; Volume 14, Issue 3, Number 1; http://apjjf.org/2016/03/McCormack.html)

I also learned that they are racheting up the pressure on Camp Schwab, the base within which the new air facility is to be built. Until now they have been blocking only construction-related vehicles, and letting military vehicles through. The leadership, responding to pressure from below, has decided to abandon this rule, and to begin blockading US military vehicles as well. It seems the Marine Commanders don't like this at all. Instead of their usual practice of keeping a low profile, they have been coming out in force: MP police cars, observers on the hill behind the fence, people filming the action. Rumor has it that they are furious with the Japanese Riot Police for allowing this to happen. There is also talk of expanding the sit-in to the US Air Force's jewel of the Western Pacific, Kadena Airbase. If that happens, you can be sure that the Air Force will be as furious with the Marines as the Marines are with the Riot Police.

March: Okinawa Page 44

Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact

Continued resistance over Futenma could spillover through the rest of Japan in the form of grass-root movements that could not only threaten the very existence of the bilateral security alliance and the credibility and role of the U.S. in East Asia, but also isolate Japan in the Western Pacific through anti- base resentments Michael Auslin, Director of Japan Studies at The American Enterprise Institute, June 16, 2010 “The Real Futenma Fallout,” Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704324304575307471399789704.html) In particular, defense officials focused on Mr. Kan's promise to stick with a 2006 agreement with the U.S. to move a Marine air wing from one part of Okinawa Island to another. But even so, there remain fissures in the U.S.-Japan relationship that could erupt into further crises for the alliance. Senior Japanese military officials I've recently interviewed believe former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama set back Tokyo's relations with its own citizens in Okinawa by at least a decade by waffling on the 2006 deal, and that the opposition to U.S. bases in Japan, emboldened by the former prime minister's position, could endanger much broader bilateral military relations between the two countries. This bigger story has received almost no attention in domestic or foreign press, but needs to be understood by those dismissive of the recent spat's importance.The 2006 agreement to move the Marine air wing at Futenma to Camp Schwab in the northern part of the island, and 8,000 Marines to Guam from Okinawa, was just one part of a broader realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. In the view of senior Japanese military leadership, however, the actual centerpiece of the 2006 agreement is the expansion of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni, located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the west of Japan's main island, Honshu.MCAS Iwakuni already hosts several Marine air squadrons, including the only American F/A-18 Hornet squadron permanently based abroad. Under the 2006 agreement, the USS George Washington's fighters, which comprise the navy's only permanently forward- deployed air wing, will relocate to Iwakuni by 2014 from the more congested Naval Air Facility Atsugi, located close to Tokyo. In addition, a squadron of Marine Corps KC-130 tankers will also vacate Futenma for Iwakuni. In their stead, a squadron of Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces surveillance planes, P-3s, will leave Iwakuni for Atsugi. All this might sound confusing, but the planned realignment will in essence reduce the chances of catastrophic accidents happening in heavily populated areas at both Futenma and Atsugi, and will build up the less-populated Iwakuni base. Here's the rub: The U.S. Department of Defense has made it clear that, unless the entire 2006 realignment plan goes forward, no individual pieces will be set in motion. And it all depends on moving the Marine helicopters out of Futenma, which has long been a source of political contention between Tokyo and Washington. The Japanese government, moreover, is committed to moving its surveillance planes to Atsugi, but that move probably won't happen if the American carrier air wing stays put. Japanese military officials worry that this year's protests in Okinawa could have spillover effects, inspiring protesters around Atsugi to demand a reduced American presence, and possibly even agitating against the government plan to move Japanese planes there. Moreover, Iwakuni's mayor might reject the new burden of potentially hosting the George Washington's air wing. That, in turn, would embolden antinuclear protesters in Yokosuka, the U.S. Navy's main base, to step up their ongoing pressure to move the nuclear-powered George Washington, the Navy's only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, out of Japanese waters.This worst-case scenario would be a series of simultaneous, grassroots movements against the U.S. military presence in Japan that could potentially put fatal stress on the bilateral security alliance and effectively isolate Japan militarily in the western Pacific. Given Mr. Hatoyama's fate when he botched this issue, politicians now are more likely to respond to public demands or they will be replaced by those who do. The resulting political clash would either reaffirm tight ties with Washington or lead to endemic paralysis in Japan's national security establishment. Given that the U.S. has permanently forward deployed ships and planes only in Japan, any scenario like the one sketched out above could significantly weaken U.S. capability to operate in the western Pacific, and thus call into question U.S. credibility as the underwriter of regional stability at a time when a crisis is brewing on the Korean peninsula and China continues to flex its naval and air muscle. Anyone concerned about that scenario, even if unlikely, realizes that the next half-decade of U.S.-Japan relations will have to go back to basics: rebuilding trust in the relationship, agreeing on a common set of objectives in Japan's waters and throughout Northeast Asia, and strengthening a commitment to upholding the alliance's military capabilities.

March: Okinawa Page 45

Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Secession

Pushing US bases on Okinawa sparks a nationalist movement and calls for Okinawan independence. Ryall, 9-15-15 (Deutsche Welle, Governor puts Okinawa on collision course with Tokyo, Julian, http://www.dw.com/en/governor-puts-okinawa-on-collision- course-with-tokyo/a-18715361)

Ultimately, however, analysts say that the national government in Tokyo will turn to the courts to win the argument and push ahead with the development work at the US Marine Corps' Camp Schwab, close to the town of Henoko./ The danger is that by doing so, and even potentially suspending the governor's powers, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seen as being overly high-handed, which could alienate even more local residents than are already opposed to the US military presence in the islands. And that, some say, could fuel further demands for independence from Tokyo in a nascent Okinawan nationalist movement./ Message to the government/ "We believe the governor's actions have sent a strong message to the central government, that he will do everything in his power to prevent the construction of a larger base at Camp Schwab," Yasukatsu Matsushima, a professor at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, told DW./ "He has made clear his intention to cancel the previous plan and the people of Okinawa are very pleased about that," said Matsushima, who is the co-founder of an association dedicated to winning independence for an archipelago that - until annexation by Japan in March 1879 - had been an independent kingdom known as the Ryukyus./ "Our organization only has around 400 members at the moment, but the recent actions of the government in Tokyo have significantly increased interest in what we do and our calls for independence," Prof Matsushima said./ Hampering the 'pivot'/ As well as being divisive, the debate over the relocation of the US military personnel in Okinawa has been prolonged by the governor's move./ The plan was to shift several thousand of the troops from the US Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station out of the congested town of Ginowan, in central Okinawa, to other bases in the region, including around 8,000 personnel to the Pacific island of Guam./ Others were to be redeployed to northern Australia and South Korea, although the remainder would move to an enlarged Camp Schwab. Built on the coast, the base at present has insufficient air capability and the plan calls for reclamation work off the coast and the construction of two runways in a V-shaped configuration./ But the repeated delays in implementing the relocation plan also mean that Washington has been hampered in its "Pacific pivot," the policy of refocusing attention in everything from trade, diplomacy and closer cultural ties away from the Atlantic and towards the Pacific./ The most critical part of the policy, however, is the bolstering of Washington's military commitment to the region. At present, the US Navy operates a 50-50 split between its capabilities in the Atlantic and the Pacific; by 2020, fully 60 percent of the Pentagon's assets are projected to be in the Pacific./ Controversial base/ The plan has been controversial from the outset, with local residents strongly opposed to a massive influx of US troops with little in the town of Henoko to entertain them. Other concerns include the inevitable increase in noise pollution from flight operations, particularly at night./ Environmental groups have attempted to intervene in the dispute by pointing out that the reclamation work would destroy a protected coral reef and the feeding grounds of endangered dugongs./ Governor Onaga and the residents who voted for him say Okinawa shoulders too much of the burden of US troops stationed in Japan and that the functions of Futenma should be moved to mainland Japan./ The collapse of the most recent attempt to thrash out a compromise agreement between Tokyo and Okinawa has prompted the governor's decision to withdraw permission for more work at the Camp Schwab site; although the national government has made it clear it intends to forge ahead with the development./ "The government has already indicated that it will contest the governor's decision to rescind permission and the next stage will be the courts," said Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs./ Anticipated backlash/ Legally, the national government is ultimately able to step in to effectively take over the powers of the elected governor, Okumura pointed out. Tokyo has so far resisted the temptation to do that as it will inevitably trigger a backlash and accusations of undermining an elected local authority, but it may be the government's only option, the expert noted./ "I see no possibility of compromise that would be acceptable to either side," said Okumura. "The administration of PM Abe has too much riding on this - not least the defense arrangement with the US - while the governor is showing no signs of backing down," he added./ And while Tokyo will come out of the skirmish on top, it will inevitably leave a bad taste in the mouths of Okinawans, say experts. They stress that the islanders already believe they are the most neglected part of the nation; and the issue of bases might just be enough to encourage them to reconsider their allegiance to the rest of Japan.

March: Okinawa Page 46

Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Secession

Independent Okinawa would kick US out. McCurry; 2014 (Justin, The Guardian, Okinawa independence movement seeks inspiration from Scotland, September 14, Guardian Tokyo correspondent; http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/15/okinawa-independence-scotland-japan-us-military-base)

Like their allies in Scotland, activists here have been accused of endangering security and the economy. In an independent Okinawa, there would be no US bases and an end to subsidies from Tokyo. Fears the island would fall into Chinese hands were unfounded, said Tomochi, who regards Okinawans as ethnically different from mainland Japanese, with their own language and culture. "We would be far more likely to be invaded by Japan. China never invaded us for centuries when this was an independent kingdom," he said. The pro-independence movement envisages an Okinawa relieved of its heavy military burden, with a thriving economy based on trade with China and south-east Asia. Not all islanders are convinced, however. "I worry that an independent Okinawa wouldn't be able to survive economically or have the military strength to defend itself," said Okinawa resident Sayaka Zacharski, who opposes the base relocation. "Being part of Japan is the best way for Okinawa to survive in today's world."

Okinawan independence movement could resort to terrorist attacks against mainland Japan. UPI; 2/1/2013 (“Warnings of Okinawa terrorism”; http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2013/02/01/Warnings-of-Okinawa-terrorism/46911359715650/)

HONG KONG, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A former Japanese minister warned Okinawan resentment to a U.S. military presence on the island could lead to terrorism./ Shozaburo Jimi, a former Japanese minister for financial services and postal reform who served in the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, said there is an independence movement on Okinawa that could take violent action./ "Okinawa has long had a history of independence movements and movements for self- governance. I hope those things will not blaze up," he said at a news conference. "There's a possibility that (Okinawa) will say it will become an independent state. Domestic guerrilla (attacks) could occur as a result of separatist movements.''/ Jimi said "terrorist bombings" could hit Tokyo./ Japan annexed the Ryukyu archipelago, which includes Okinawa, in 1872. During World War II, U.S. forces invaded Okinawa. The battle, the last major U.S. Pacific campaign, lasted from April 1 until June 21, 1945./ The battle resulted in more than 62,000 U.S. military casualties, of whom more than 12,500 were killed or missing. Japanese military losses were estimated 95,000 combatants killed and 7,400 captured./ Civilians also suffered greatly during the assault, with an estimated quarter of the population killed./ The U.S. government returned the islands to Japanese administration in 1972. Under the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, the U.S. Forces Japan has maintained a presence of 27,000 personnel, including 15,000 U.S. Marines, and it is this ongoing U.S. military presence that concerns Jimi./ Okinawans have grown weary of the presence of U.S. military forces, saying Tokyo unduly burdens Okinawa by forcing it to host more than half of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel deployed in Japan./ Okinawans for years protested the heavy U.S. military presence due to accidents and crimes committed by U.S. soldiers, who aren't subject to local or Japanese law under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the United States./ Underlining Okinawan frustration, last Sunday about 4,000 people marched in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district to protest the presence of U.S. military forces. Takeshi Onaga, mayor of the prefectural capital Naha, told protesters, "Our anger has been boiled to its peak."/ Jimi noted that such frustration if not resolved could encourage Okinawans to press for secession from Japan, but, more worryingly, lead to domestic terrorism.

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Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Senkaku

China will test the US-Japan alliance and deterrent in the Senkaku Islands if we are kicked out of Okinawa. Okamoto, President Okamoto Associates; 8/4/2015 (Yuki; Nippon; “The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/#auth_profile_0)

The deterrent is ultimately a matter of perceptions: It depends on the belief of neighboring countries that the Japan-US security arrangements are certain to operate. Absent this belief, the Japan-US Security Treaty becomes no more than a piece of paper. So the core of Japan’s deterrent power consists of the ongoing maintenance of a close alliance with the United States that leaves no room for doubt in the minds of other countries in the region. If, however, a large-scale reduction of the US forces in Okinawa were to be conducted in the face of local turmoil without a sound basis in military thinking, it would create a big hole in the fabric of the deterrent. Neighboring countries would sense a power vacuum. Consider what has happened in the South China Sea: After the United States pulled out of Vietnam, China grabbed the Paracels, and after the Russians left, it pushed the Vietnamese off Johnson South Reef. And after the US forces left the Philippines, China took over Mischief Reef from that country. If the Chinese judged that the US military had been driven out of Okinawa, it would greatly increase the likelihood of their grabbing the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from Japan by force. And once they landed on these islands, it would become very difficult to dislodge them. Doing so would mean undertaking a combat operation that could well result in the first deaths in action for Japanese armed forces since World War II. Would Japan actually fight to get the Senkakus back? It is possible that the Japanese government would instead declare its intention to “negotiate persistently,” a line it has often used, and that the Senkakus would remain under China’s effective control indefinitely, just as Takeshima has since South Korea took it over in the 1950s.

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Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- Senkaku

Senkaku is the most likely scenario for war between Japan and the US, and would escalate to draw in the US and use of nuclear weapons. Perkovich; 2015 (Testimony before Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Hearing; Regional Nuclear Dynamics, February 25, Vice President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; George; http://carnegieendowment.org/2015/02/25/regional-nuclear-dynamics/i2y1)

These considerations can be applied to the issue that currently poses the greatest risk of potential conflict involving Japan and China, and implicating the United States as Japan’s protector. There is a cluster of islands and rock outcroppings in the East China Sea that Japan calls the Senkaku Islands and China calls the Diaoyu Islands. Japan incorporated the islands under the administration of Okinawa, in January 1895, during the first Sino-Japanese War. The United States took control of these outcroppings as a result of World War II, and returned them to Japanese control in 1972. China disputes Japan’s right to sovereignty over these islands. The United States does not offer a judgment on the disputed claims to sovereignty, but says that the islands fall within the territory the United States is obligated by treaty to help Japan defend. The Japanese government in late 2012 bought the islands from a private owner, explaining that it did so to prevent the nationalist governor of Tokyo from acquiring and developing them. Reflecting the logic of security dilemmas, China intensified its contestation over the issue, and deployed naval vessels and aircraft around and over the islands in order to manifest its claim and pressure Japan to proceed carefully. A non-trivial risk now appears that either state could act physically to change the status quo on or around these islands, and/or that the naval vessels or aircraft could collide, as happened with a Chinese fishing vessel and a Japanese Coast Guard ship in 2010. Such collisions could create a severe crisis that the highly nationalistic Chinese and Japanese governments could find difficult to de-escalate. Were such a crisis to occur when China and Japan are led by strength-projecting nationalistic figures, the United States would face excruciatingly complex challenges. The first priority would be to resolve the crisis diplomatically. But this could be very difficult to do, depending on the circumstances. Japan and China would dispute whose actors and actions were to blame for the precipitating action. If the United States did not take its ally Japan’s side, whatever the merits of the case, some faction in Washington would decry the abandonment of an ally. And, if Japan were at fault and the United States did not acknowledge this for political-diplomatic reasons, China would become even more determined to press its claims on this dispute and others that involve U.S. allies. If evidence held that China was at fault, the political-diplomatic position of the United States would be simpler, but then the United States and Japan would likely find themselves in a potentially escalating conflict with China. In either case, the United States and Japan would need to have the conventional military means to prevent China from creating new “facts on the ground,” for example by physically taking control of the islands. Failure to ensure this initial defense could create a situation where the United States and Japan would feel compelled to fight China to reverse its gain. Such a conflict could escalate and expand to a wider naval battle or blockade contest as each leadership would feel its credibility and political survival at stake. Were the United States and Japan not prevailing, someone in Washington or Tokyo would at least raise the prospect that the conflict could escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. After all, that’s how nuclear deterrence is supposed to work. Yet, would even implying a nuclear threat be advisable and therefore credible? Would and should the United States be willing to risk nuclear war over uninhabited rocks in East Asia that 99 percent of the American people have never heard of and could not find on a map? Recall, the issue here would be first-use of nuclear weapons: if China, despite its commitment and force posture of no-first-use, took steps signaling that it would break the nuclear taboo, U.S. recourse to retaliatory nuclear weapons reasonably would be on the table. But threatening to initiate the use of nuclear weapons in conflict that erupted over these disputed outcroppings—no matter how far it escalated— would constitute a profound over-reaction.

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Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Impact- North Korea

Kadena critical to preventing conflict with China and North Korea. Alternative bases don’t solve. Axe, Defense Analyst @ the Diplomat; 6/28/2010 (David, “Why Allies Need US Base,” http://thediplomat.com/2010/06/why-allies-need- okinawa-base/?allpages=yes)

The decision to stick with the 2006 deal represented the belated recognition on Hatoyama’s part that ‘there was no other good option’ for the strategically-vital Marine presence and for the US-Japanese alliance in general, according to Michael Auslin, an Asia expert with the American Enterprise Institute. In that context, the prime minister’s vague election promise to Okinawan base-detractors was a ‘miscalculation.’ So, will the Futenma dispute also prove the undoing of Hatoyama’s successor, Naoto Kan, who has so far stayed quiet on the base issue? If anything, the crisis over Futenma underscored the lasting, even growing, importance of US military facilities in Okinawa—not only for the United States, but also for Japan and other US allies. As China’s economic and military rise continues and tensions mount over North Korea’s nuclear programme and its alleged sinking of a South Korean warship, the US and its Asian allies need Okinawa more than ever. ‘The US, South Korea and Australia have been very vocal to Japan, saying, “Hey, be careful what you’re doing,”’ Sheila Smith, an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, says. ‘This isn’t a good moment to be taking large numbers of US forces out of Japan.’ Aside from US forces in South Korea (which are exclusively focused on the North Korean land threat) there are just two significant concentrations of US troops in East Asia: in Okinawa and on the Pacific island of Guam. Okinawa lies just an hour’s flight time from both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan; Guam, by contrast, is 1000 miles from any potential theatre of war. ‘It may be easier for us to be there [in Guam], as far as the diplomatic issue is concerned,’ says Air Force spokesman John Monroe. ‘But if we’re in Guam, we’re out of the fight’ due to the distance. For combat forces to be capable of reacting quickly to the most likely crises, Okinawa is the only realistic option. Without its 2 Okinawan air bases and their 3 roughly 10,000-foot runways, the US military—and by extension, US allies—would depend almost entirely on a handful of US aircraft carriers for bringing to bear aerial firepower in East Asia. That might be a realistic option, except that China has lately deployed several new classes of anti-ship weaponry specifically meant for sinking US carriers, including the widely-feared DF-21 ballistic missile and a flotilla of stealthy fast-attack vessels. In recognition of Okinawa’s growing importance, the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars in the past decade modernizing forces and facilities on the island. The US Army deployed Patriot air-defence missiles capable of shooting down enemy aircraft as well as ballistic missiles, a favourite weapon of both China and North Korea. Kadena got extensive new storage bunkers for bombs, missiles and spare parts, allowing the base to support potentially hundreds of aircraft flown in from the United States during an emergency. In 2007, the US Air Force began stationing Global Hawk long-range spy drones and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters at Kadena. The Raptors represent perhaps the greatest improvement. Indeed, in the minds of US planners, in many ways Okinawa’s most important function is to support the F-22s. In a 2009 study examining a simulated air war pitting the United States and Taiwan against China, the California-based think-tank RAND concluded that a wing of F-22s could shoot down 27 Chinese fighters for every Raptor lost in the air. F-22s flying from Okinawa could also clear the way for air strikes on ground targets in China or North Korea, according to Lieutenant Colonel Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron, an F-22 unit based in Virginia that routinely sends Raptors to Kadena. ‘There are a lot of countries out there that have developed highly integrated air- defence systems,’ Tolliver says. ‘What we need to do is take some of our assets that have special capabilities…and we need to roll back those integrated air defence systems so we can bring in our joint forces.’ The base’s ability to host F-22s and follow-on aircraft is ‘probably the most important thing about Kadena,’ Monroe says. ‘Because of our capability to stage forces out of here—this is a huge runway—we do believe we have unmatched air power.’

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Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out Solvency

Our argument is reverse causal- stopping Henoko relocation would increase relations and the alliance, making a kick out of Kandena unlikely. Karnell, Masters Japanese Studies @ Stockholm Univ; 2015 (Mattias; “The US Marine Corps and Anti-base protestors in Okinawa, Japan: A study of the Takae Movement”; http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822179/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

Beyond the issues of morality and respect is the issue of viability. As the eruption of anger in Okinawa in 1995 showed, the US-Japan security alliance is in fact rather unstable, as it is so dependent on bases being located on Okinawa and on Okinawan sentiment being ignored. Moving the bases away from Okinawa would make it much easier politically for the US to maintain some kind of military presence on Okinawa, including key facilities such as Kadena Air Base. It does not make sense politically to take the great risk of another explosion of anger amongst Okinawans by continuing to force so many bases upon them. Anger towards the Henoko plan, for example, has built up over the past decade. Just one spark is needed to ignite a demonstration of anger on an epic scale. If this spark were to eventuate, the US may not be able to host any bases at all. On top of the FRF at Henoko taking an additional number of years to be built (if it does get built), the risk of maintaining so many bases against the will of Okinawans is another reason why it would be in the interest of the US military to substantially reduce its footprint on Okinawa.

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Pro- Withdraw Inevitable- Solvency- Kick Out

Only withdrawing from Futenma can prevent a reverse island hop and still anti-base movements across Japans. Past NIMBY movements prove they have the ability to force Pentagon planners to pull out. John Feffer, the co-director of foreign policy in Focus at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, March 6, 2010, Asia Times, ”Okinawa and the New Domino Effect,” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/LC06Dh01.html, ) SM Reverse island hop Wherever the US military puts down its foot overseas, movements have sprung up to protest the military, social, and environmental consequences of its military bases. This anti-base movement has notched some successes, such as the shut-down of a US navy facility in Vieques, Puerto Rico, in 2003. In the Pacific, too, the movement has made its mark. On the heels of the eruption of Mt Pinatubo, democracy activists in the Philippines successfully closed down the ash-covered Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Station in 1991-1992. Later, South Korean activists managed to win closure of the huge Yongsan facility in downtown Seoul. Of course, these were only partial victories. Washington subsequently negotiated a Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines, whereby the US military has redeployed troops and equipment to the island, and replaced Korea's Yongsan base with a new one in nearby Pyeongtaek. But these not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) victories were significant enough to help edge the Pentagon toward the adoption of a military doctrine that emphasizes mobility over position. The US military now relies on "strategic flexibility" and "rapid response" both to counter unexpected threats and to deal with allied fickleness. The Hatoyama government may indeed learn to say no to Washington over the Okinawa bases. Evidently considering this a likelihood, former deputy secretary of state and former US ambassador to Japan Richard Armitage has said that the United States "had better have a plan B". But the victory for the anti-base movement will still be only partial. US forces will remain in Japan, and especially Okinawa, and Tokyo will undoubtedly continue to pay for their maintenance. Buoyed by even this partial victory, however, NIMBY movements are likely to grow in Japan and across the region, focusing on other Okinawa bases, bases on the Japanese mainland, and elsewhere in the Pacific, including Guam. Indeed, protests are already building in Guam against the projected expansion of Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam to accommodate those Marines from Okinawa. And this strikes terror in the hearts of Pentagon planners. In World War II, the United States employed an island-hopping strategy to move ever closer to the Japanese mainland. Okinawa was the last island and last major battle of that campaign, and more people died during the fighting there than in the subsequent atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined: 12,000 US troops, more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians. This historical experience has stiffened the pacifist resolve of Okinawans. The current battle over Okinawa again pits the United States against Japan, again with the Okinawans as victims. But there is a good chance that the Okinawans, like the Na'vi in that great NIMBY film Avatar, will win this time. A victory in closing Futenma and preventing the construction of a new base might be the first step in a potential reverse island hop. NIMBY movements may someday finally push the US military out of Japan and off Okinawa.

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Pro- Japan Alliance- 1P

Relocation plan makes the US-Japan alliance unsustainable and is one of the largest vulnerabilities. Tatsumi, Senior Associate East Asia Program @ Stimson Center & Senior Fellow @ Canon Institute for Global Studies; 6/24/2015 (Yuki; The Diplomat; “Abe’s Okinawa Problem”; http://thediplomat.com/2015/06/abes-okinawa-problem/)

Theoretically, Abe can counter these moves by trying to enact a Special Measures Law that would allow the central government in Tokyo to proceed with the relocation without having to subject the process to the approval by the governor and/or mayor, essentially overriding their authority. There is precedent for this — in 1996, the Japanese government revised the Special Measures Law to practically allow the Japanese government to continue to rent the land for U.S. military bases and other facilities from private landowners regardless of the owners’ request for the land to be returned. However, doing so prematurely would damage the Abe government as it has the risk of triggering anti-U.S. base sentiment across Japan. The approval rating for Abe’s cabinet is on the decline since the government hit a major speed bump in its deliberation of national security legislation after three constitutional scholars unanimously argued that the proposed legislation is “unconstitutional.” Under the circumstances, Abe will not want to force the issue. The current situation, where Futenma Air Station’s ultimate fate remains in limbo, is unsustainable. As Tokyo’s relationship with Okinawa remains deadlocked with no real prospect of a breakthrough, Futenma remains, as it was 20 years ago, one of the most tangible vulnerabilities for the political sustainability of a U.S. military presence in Japan, and the U.S.-Japan alliance writ large.

Reducing the burden on Okinawa frees up resources and makes relations more effective. Mochizuki, Prof GWU, & O’Hanlon, Fellow @ Brookings; 2013 (Mike & Michael; Rebalance to Asia, Refocus on Okinawa: Okinawa’s Role in an Evolving US-Japan Alliance; “Okinawa and the future of US marines in the Pacific”; http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/chian/naha_port/documents/h24reporten-1.pdf)

As the United States and Japan look to a new phase in their relationship, with President Barack Obama beginning a second term and change likely in Japanese political leadership soon, they have some serious work to do. What the late great Ambassador Mike Mansfield called the greatest bilateral alliance in the world, bar none, a generation ago remains great. It features two of the world’s three largest economies, that are also two of the world’s best in the high-technology sectors; it bridges enormous cultural and geographic expanses because for all their differences, the Japanese and American peoples share common values and a desire for peace; it affords America irreplaceable basing and staging options while protecting Japan in one of the world’s most dynamic and turbulent regions. Yet it is underperforming. For more than a decade, the biggest issue within this alliance of giants has been what to do about 18,000 Marines, a relatively small force, on the very small island of Okinawa, and what to do about one particular Marine Corps airfield there. Japanese domestic politics are the immediate cause of the impasse in solving the problem, but much larger strategic and diplomatic stakes are at play as well. As long as the alliance stays bogged down over this matter, it will gradually and ineluctably atrophy, and it will be increasingly hard to describe it as the world’s greatest or most important. What to do? The bases in Japan are all highly useful, but only some are crucially important in a strategic sense in our judgment. A number of capabilities presently located in Japan out of convenience could be downsized without harm to the alliance’s posture, largely because alternatives exist that are militarily comparable or superior. A good analogy might be with the Obama administration’s Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense in Europe, whereby a technologically superior new approach also partially mitigated a diplomatic problem with Russia. Here the situation is different of course, but there do appear to be ways to reduce the Marine Corps footprint on Okinawa even further than now contemplated— and bring some of the Marines back to main American bases rather than Guam, as a cost-saving measure—while actually improving net military responsiveness for Asian contingencies. We develop these ideas below, while also addressing a number of other nettlesome matters within the alliance.

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Pro- Japan Alliance

Okinawa will be the Achilles heel of the alliance if relocation plans continue. McCormack, Prof Australian National Univ & Coor Asia-Pacific Journal; 1/18/2016 (Gavan; Asia-Pacific Journal- Japan Focus”; Volume 14, Issue 2, Number 1; http://apjjf.org/2016/02/1-McCormack.html)

As I have noted elsewhere, the crisis today pits the "irresistible force" of the nation state against the "immovable object" of the Okinawan resistance and, in that sense, it has a certain tragic quality. Prime Minister Abe has staked so much on completing and handing over the new facility to the US Marine Corps that it is almost unimaginable that he could ever abandon it. Governor Onaga is in a similar, if opposite, position. Even if he were to submit to a court ruling, and withdraw his opposition (which, for reasons already given above, seems unlikely), far from resolving matters that would further infuriate the Okinawan people and heighten their resentment of their own government and of the base system. The supposed linchpin of the regional security system would then become its Achilles heel.

Okinawa situation hurts US-Japan alliance. Relocation plans are going too slow. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral, & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, & former consultant & Japan Policy Advisor @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

The political situation on Okinawa is deteriorating and is caustic to the U.S.-Japan Alliance. The tandem solutions offered by the Futenma Replacement Facility and Okinawa Consolidation Plan are well thought-out and offer the only realistic solutions to the challenges of alleviating an overbearing U.S. presence on Okinawa and providing security for U.S. and allied interests in the Asia- Pacific. In addition, with the exception of the Australia moves, the relocation of Marine forces from Okinawa will improve readiness by providing better training opportunities, with little penalty paid in terms of reaction time to potential crisis locations in East Asia. However, implementation is glacially slow, which only feeds the resentment felt by Okinawans. The planned turnover dates for parcels of land on Okinawa are generally highly optimistic, “best-case” estimates. Delay in one element, whether on Okinawa, Guam, or Hawaii, will cause significant delays elsewhere. The political opposition to a continued major U.S. presence on Okinawa is gaining strength, and dramatic action is needed to turn the situation around.

Anti-base attitude in Okinawa destabilizes US-Japan alliance. Viergever, International Relations @ Leiden Univ; 7/3/2015 (Marnix; MA Thesis Leiden Univ; “The US-Japan Security Alliance and Okinawan Anti-Base Identity: Did enhanced military cooperation between the United States and Japan have led to a decline of Okinawan base opposition?”; https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/34950/Viergever-MA-Thesis-US-Japan-Alliance-and-Okinawan-Base-Opposition-Final- Version.pdf?sequence=1)

Many local government officials in Okinawa share the concerns of the citizens about US- Japan base politics and base opposition is therefore also evident in their actions. After several local protests against the use of MV-22 Osprey aircrafts by the US military in Okinawa, the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly unanimously passed a resolution in July 2011 to demand the withdrawal of the plan to use Osprey aircrafts at the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (Ryū kyū Shinpō 2011). Furthermore, in October 2012 Okinawan Governor Nakaima Hirokazu visited Washington DC and argued that moving the Futenma base outside of Okinawa will encourage an early resolution of the base relocation issue (Ryū kyū Shinpō 2012). On the other hand, there are also officials in Okinawa who promote the construction of US bases. For example, local officials of the Henoko community have worked together with the American and Japanese authorities since the 1960s to encourage the building of US military bases, including the Futenma replacement facilities. This was of course in exchange for rental payments and other monetary compensations in order to stimulate the economy of the rural Henoko region (Williams 2013, 977-8). Nevertheless, the current mayor of Nago, Inamine Susumu, opposes the construction of base facilities in Henoko and his re-election in January 2014 illustrates the local support for his anti-base policy (Johnston 2014). All in all, the strong base opposition in Okinawa, as demonstrated by public opinion polls, local

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protests and anti-base attitudes of politicians, continued from 2010 to 2014 to serve as a destabilizing factor in the US- Japan alliance. Since Okinawa is administered by local officials who are able to take positions that are in contrast to national policy or general public opinion, a local agreement about the base situation in Okinawa is necessary to solve the issue of base opposition in the US-Japan alliance (Potter 2013, 172).

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Pro- Japan Alliance

Okinawa sucks the oxygen out of broader alliance objectives—the plan frees up focus that's essential to an effective alliance. Good, ABC News; 12/28/2013 (Chris; Why the Okinawa Base Relocation Matters, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/12/why-the-okinawa- base-relocation-matters/)

"This issue has sucked a lot of oxygen out of the alliance management for too many years," a Japanese official said, calling the base "one of the biggest issues between Washington, D.C., and Tokyo" at times in years past. The U.S. and Japan can move onto more "future-oriented work," the official said. Among those future-oriented issues are Chinese territorial expansion, as seen in the recent announcement of an air- defense identification zone (ADIZ); maritime issues; the threat of North Korea; trilateral cooperation with Japan and South Korea, two nations at odds with one another, but which share a U.S. interest in North Korean containment; and negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership (TPP). All of those are major elements of U.S. strategic maneuvering in Asia, and all require work with Japan. Realigning U.S. forces in Japan is seen as "the spine of the rebalance" to Asia, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on a conference call Friday. "It will free up a lot of senior-level attention," including that of President Obama, Hagel, Kerry, and their Japanese counterparts, the defense official said. A "seemingly unsolvable" problem, the Futenma base has been a "real thorn in the side of the alliance relationship," said Sheila A. Smith, an Asia-Pacific expert and senior fellow for Japanese Studies. "What our government now wants to do is focus more broadly on a host of strategic issues between the U.S. and Japan that include not just force posture issues, but how do Japan and the U.S. understand the changing strategic environment in Asia," Smith said. The relocation of Futenma will allow 9,000 U.S. marines to move off Okinawa, with 5,000 of them moving to Guam, the Associated Press reported, fulfilling another element of the "rebalance," according to Smith: a more dispersed U.S. military posture in the region, with Marines able to respond more readily to humanitarian/environmental disasters and in the event of conflict between North and South Korea. The relocation of Marines is "absolutely critical to the United States' ongoing rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region and our ability to maintain a geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable force posture in the region," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement Friday.

Anything short of getting rid of Futenma makes alliance collapse inevitable and cooperation ineffective— keeping the base creates cycles of resentment. Eldridge, Former Prof @ Osaka Univ; 2012 (2.3.12, Robert, "The Okinawa "Base Problem" Today", http://www.nippon.com/en/in- depth/a00501/)

While the United States recognizes the political reasons and the practical necessity of relocating Futenma, particularly as it is located in the middle of a crowded city of 90,000, it is up to the central government and prefectural and local governments to make it happen. Due to the finger-pointing among the central government, Okinawa Prefectural Government, and Nago City, the planned location of Futenma Replacement Facility, there has been no movement in any direction in about a decade. Indeed, one could argue that the situation has only gotten worse. If this remains the case, the FRF could go the way of the early 1970s decision to relocate Naha Military Port—at the time of this writing, the port’s relocation remains incomplete. Indeed, the inability to follow through on the relocation of Futenma compounds the other issues and perceptions of those problems. This then causes the discussion about Okinawa to become more contentious and emotional, and turn into a vicious and endless cycle devoid of objectivity and reason. It becomes nearly impossible to reach a middle ground or look at the issues dispassionately and solutions open-mindedly.

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Pro- Japan Alliance

Local Okinawan blockage of the relocation plan blind-sided relations and will continue to cause damage until resolved. Auslin; Dir Japan Studies @ American Enterprise Institute; 3/23/2015 (Michael; Commentary Magazine; “Abe trip on; Okinawa base off?”; https://www.aei.org/publication/abe-trip-on-okinawa-base-off/)

Yet dealing with democracies is always tricky (just ask Iran’s mullahs), and U.S.-Japanese relations have just been blindsided again. In this case, it is local opposition in the far southern island of Okinawa to a long-planned transfer of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the congested southern part of the island to the less-populated north. Okinawa’s new governor, elected on an anti-base campaign, today ordered construction on the base stopped, ostensibly due to reports of damage to undersea coral reefs from the drilling needed for landfill. The on-again, off-again base issue once again is hanging fire, and the longer it goes on, the more trouble it will cause for U.S.-Japan relations.

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Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover

Mishandling Okinawa collapses relationship. Clausen, Ph.D. IR @ FIU; 10/18/2013 (Daniel; The Diplomat; “The US-Japan Security Relationship: Drift or Longevity?”; http://thediplomat.com/2013/10/the-us-japan-security-relationship-drift-or-longevity%E2%80%A8/)

First, let’s examine the arguments for continued drift in U.S.-Japan security ties. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there is no longer a singular threat that holds the alliance together. Instead, there are number of potential threats that Washington and Tokyo are apt to see differently. Differences in the threat perception of Chinese military modernization, North Korea, weapons proliferation and terrorism may drive the countries further apart. Depending on the threat, entrapment in the other partner’s problems may be more worrying than the actual threat itself. The issue of how to manage the network of U.S. bases in Japan, most notably the controversial Futenma Airbase, seems to be a source of eternal concern. In addition to these issues, different perceptions of the utility of military force in the world and different views over Japan’s historical role in the region (such as its past colonial rule and the “comfort women” issue) remain sources of contention between the two partners./ As U.S.-Japan Security Treaty supporters often point out, however, U.S.-Japan bilateral security relations have been surprisingly durable. This durability has been strengthened by nearly fifty years of cooperation in the region, by joint military training, and by the accumulated experiences and personal networks of officials on both sides of the relationship. For all their differences in culture, the breadth and depth of the shared interests is remarkable. Both countries have an interest in the socialization of China into a responsible power, in preventing worst- case scenarios on the Korean peninsula, and in maintaining a durable international system./ The strongest threat to the U.S.-Japan security relationship isn’t that the two parties will gradually drift apart, but rather that a key event – and the failure of leaders to adequately address it – will lead to the early demise of the Security Treaty./ Indeed, in the post Cold War world, very significant events have already occurred. The most dramatic, the 2011 earthquake in Japan and September 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., in fact ultimately served to strengthen the foundations of the security relationship. By all accounts, Operation Tomodachi was an unqualified success both in terms of the material assistance it provided and as a public advertisement of the continuing relevance of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. Similarly, Japan’s (and particularly Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s) unflagging support for the U.S. in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks significantly boosted trust among the two partners and proved to critics the durability and flexibility of the relationship./ The 1995 rape incident, where an Okinawan schoolgirl was raped by three U.S. servicemen, was another key event. Like the earthquake and 9/11, a crucial failure of leadership might have fatally injured the relationship, leading to spiraling protests and popular calls for the U.S. to close their network of bases. Luckily, top political leaders (Prime Ministers Tomiichi Murayama and Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton and Ambassador Walter Mondale) and professional alliance managers on both sides managed the issue in ways that attenuated the protests and reaffirmed ties./ In each of these cases, crisis became the backdrop for adaptation and renewal.Trend lines may be important, but perhaps the most important variable will be how leaders respond to challenges in the future. As in the past, the quality of leadership on both the U.S. and Japan sides will be tested in crises big and small. Quality leadership will lead to the renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and its re-imagination for a turbulent era. A failure of leadership, however, could result in its early demise.

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Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover

Current alliance trajectory creates a vicious cycle where Japan greatly resents any disagreement with the US because of over dependence. Hughes, Prof Intl Pol & Japanese Studies; 7/21/2015 (Christopher; Asia-Pacific Journal; “An ‘Abe Doctrine’ as Japan’s grand strategy: New dynamism or dead-end?”; http://www.globalresearch.ca/an-abe-doctrine-as-japans-grand-strategy-new-dynamism-or-dead-end/5465317)

The first problem for the bilateral relationship within this contradiction is that Abe’s hopes for more equal ties with the US cannot by definition materalize as long as Japan continues to lock itself into dependency on the US in a range of political, economic and security affairs. Abe’s attempts to strengthen Japan’s great power profile through deepening integration into the military alliance can only really spell dependency. Japan’s gearing of its security doctrines and capabilities in the proclamation of collective self-defense and the revised Defense Guidelines in the service of US-Japan alliance curtails rather than builds genuine security autonomy. The Abe administration’s determination to construct the Futenma Replacement Facility in Okinawa and the long-term presence of US foreign troops on Japanese soil again indicates a relationship of dependency, as does the constant seeking of security reassurances from the US in regard to Japanese control of the Senkaku islands in its dispute with China. Hence, the reality is that the Abe Doctrine is in many ways reducing Japan’s autonomy in international affairs, and this will only be compounded as its revisionism leaves it more isolated in East Asia with a limited range of other feasible regional partners even when taking into account the burgeoning relationship with Australia. Japan will thus only become more susceptible to US pressure, so breeding concerns over alliance dilemmas of abandonment and entrapment, and potential resentment against the US rather than correcting that tendency. The second problem wrapped up within this third great contradiction, is that whilst the Abe Doctrine may actually be continuing to cede Japanese autonomy to the US and even if Japan might acquiesce in the vulnerabilities and to an extent the resentment that this relationship creates for the security benefits it generally provides, nevertheless this relationship is still likely to be fraught with other difficulties borne of ideological incompatibilities and tensions. Japan’s illiberalism under the Abe Doctrine and fascination with revisionism, as seen in dealings with past statements on colonial history, Yasukuni, and revisiting Occupation reforms, has the potential to place Japan and the US at genuine loggerheads. This type of dynamic has already been witnessed over the US dissatisfaction with Abe’s questioning of the Kōno Statement on the ‘comfort women’ issue and the necessity felt by the US to push Japan back into line on the issue. The consequence of the Abe Doctrine’s seeking autonomy and status through the bilateral alliance—in fact a process of a failed logic leading to enhanced dependence on the US, coupled with enhanced ideological incompatibilities between the US and Japan—is to lock Japan more into the US alliance, and again thus more into the post-war system, and to again generate probable resentment at Japan’s essential subjugation to the US. Resentful Realism redux? In conclusion, therefore, the Abe Doctrine, although a bold attempt by the prime minister to break out of a pattern of a perceived decline in Japan’s international presence and generate a new path for grand strategy, has a strong probability of ultimate failure due to problems in execution and conception. The policy is clearly wrongheaded in attempting to tackle Japan’s international security problems by predicating its approach on an ideological revisionism that contains the potential to undercut cooperation with East Asia and the US. Instead, a truly liberal approach that conversely emphasizes more genuinely Japan’s successes of the post-war period and is borne from the reforms of the Occupation, a desire to remove history from the agenda of ties with East Asia and the US, and conceives of a more autonomous security policy less fettered to that of the US, might actually function as a more effective alternative to Abe’s brand of foreign policy Until Japan corrects the radical revisionism of the Abe Doctrine, the likely outcome for Japan’s foreign and security policy is not a strong and cooperative Japan but one that may be characterized by ‘Resentful Realism’.[vi] In contrast to ‘Reluctant Realism’ that sees a comfortable alliance with the US, careful calibration of ties with East Asia and China, and contribution to a stable balance of power, ‘Resentful Realism’ might see a Japan driven by fear of China, lack of trust in the US, and a continuing desire for the reassertion of national pride and autonomy.[vii] The fact that Japan will be unable to achieve confidence and security given the structures and doctrine promoted by Abe will only aggravate tensions and mean that Japan will be a more unpredictable ally and player in general in the East Asia region, so posing risks for

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regional ties and security, and Japanese security—the very opposite of what an ‘Abe Doctrine’ originally promised to deliver for Japan’s grand strategy.

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Pro- Japan Alliance- Spillover

History proves Okinawa could damage the alliance as a whole. Lind, Prof Govt @ Dartmouth; 4/2/2015 (Jennifer; National Interest; “Could Okinawa derail US-Japan relations?”; http://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-okinawa-derail-us-japan-relations-12526?page=show)

Though the March symposium showed that the allies have made tremendous progress toward Reischauer’s goal of an “equal partnership,” noticeable exclusions remain. Although in 1962 a bold Tachiya brought the issue of Okinawa onto the stage, this time it wasn’t invited back. A second symposium panel focused on the theme of JFK and foreign policy, but paid relatively little attention to contemporary alliance challenges—and no attention to Okinawa. Peculiar, for two reasons. First, although the eventual return of Okinawa to Japan was legislated in 1971, it was actually an important accomplishment of the Kennedy administration. Reischauer believed that a crisis over Okinawa could happen at any time, and would damage or even destroy the alliance. So as ambassador he devoted tremendous energy to negotiating the reversion of Okinawa with both the U.S. military and the Japanese. This effort floundered for a while after the president’s assassination, and was not realized until the Nixon years. But Reischauer’s contribution was an important Kennedy-era legacy, and thus a strange omission from a panel on that topic. But that’s the problem with non-events; though always eager to assign blame for a crisis that did happen, we forget to confer praise for one that didn’t. Okinawa also belonged on that stage because it still remains a vexing challenge in the U.S.-Japan alliance. In the past few years, as Japan’s dispute with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands grows more heated, with aircraft and ships from each side circling around the disputed islands, Shinzo Abe’s government has emphasized the dangers that Chinese military modernization and territorial claims pose to Japan. In this environment, the U.S.-Japan alliance and Okinawa’s bases acquire even more significance than in the past. But also in the past few years, Okinawa’s anti-base movement has accelerated, and in general alliance managers face a more complex political environment. In fact, just a few days after the symposium, Okinawa’s governor, Takeshi Onaga, brought the issue back into the headlines. Japan’s Defense Ministry had begun preliminary exploration and drilling on a facility that would replace the U.S. Marine base at Futenma. Tokyo and Washington view the move as essential to create a sustainable U.S. presence, because it moves the Marines out of a potentially dangerous urban location. But Okinawans didn’t want the facility moved to a different part of Okinawa—they wanted it off the island completely, and elected Governor Onaga on that platform. On March 22 he issued a deadline of one week to stop the drilling, or lose the permit. Tokyo ignored him, describing his demand as “very regrettable,” and suspending the governor’s work stoppage order. Onaga responded by vowing, “I will knuckle down and respond to this in keeping with the will of the Okinawans.” What happens next? “Once again,” wrote DC scribe Chris Nelson, “the base relocation issue threatens to blow up in our face.” The Okinawans are, in Carol Fulp’s words, becoming visible. They’re shouting louder and louder—and want to be onstage too. Averting an alliance crisis over Okinawa was Reischauer and Kennedy’s challenge. Averting another one is ours.

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Pro- Japan Politics- 1P

Japanese and Okinawan opposition to Henoko relocation- public opinion polls, voting, and protests. Viergever, International Relations @ Leiden Univ; 7/3/2015 (Marnix; MA Thesis Leiden Univ; “The US-Japan Security Alliance and Okinawan Anti-Base Identity: Did enhanced military cooperation between the United States and Japan have led to a decline of Okinawan base opposition?”; https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/34950/Viergever-MA-Thesis-US-Japan-Alliance-and-Okinawan-Base-Opposition-Final- Version.pdf?sequence=1)

Though Japan and the United States enhanced security cooperation in the years 2010-2014, anti-base resistance continued in Okinawa and is visible in public opinion polls, voting behavior, protests against base policies, and attitudes of local governmental officials. In May 2012, 40 years after the reversion of Okinawa to Japan, research on public opinion in Okinawa shows that many locals are against the current base policies of Tokyo and Washington. Approximately 90% of the Okinawans are against the relocation of the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko. Most of them are in favor of moving the base outside of Japan (39%) or outside of the prefecture (29%). In comparison, more than 60% of the citizens in the main islands of Japan call for the relocation of the base outside Okinawa or Japan, but still 68% of the Japanese oppose relocation of the U.S. bases in Okinawa to their own regions. At the same time, 70% of people in Okinawa see the current distribution of US forces in Japan as unfair, whereas no more than 30% of people on the main islands of Japan see things that way (Ryū kyū Shimpō 2012). Not only public opinion polls, but also voting behavior in Okinawa illustrates that anti-base sentiment in the prefecture is much stronger than in mainland Japan. In the gubernatorial elections of November 2014, the anti-base candidate Onaga Takeshi won around 51% of the votes and defeated Nakaima Hirokazu, the former Okinawan governor backed by the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, who received only about 39% (Fitfield 2014). Moreover, even though the LDP remained the largest party in Japan after the December 2014 general elections, opposition candidates won all the four seats of Okinawa (Webb 2015). Both election outcomes reflect the frustration of Okinawan voters about the Japanese and American base policies, and confirmed Potter’s statement that it is political suicide to take a pro-base position in Okinawa (Potter 2013, 169). Not only public opinion polls, but also demonstrations and protests against the base politics of Tokyo and Washington demonstrate the base opposition among the people in Okinawa. Over 100,000 citizens participated in a rally against MV- 22 Osprey deployment in Okinawa, which was organized by over 150 different organizations. The major turnout was the result several Osprey crashes in Japan in the same year, which significantly increased the safety concerns about the aircraft in Okinawa (Ryū kyū Shinpō 2012). In April 2013 over 10,000 citizens in Okinawa protested against the Japanese government during the 61st anniversary of the restoration of Japanese sovereignty, after the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect in 1952. The celebration of Japanese sovereignty is controversial among Okinawans because the United States’ occupation of Okinawa lasted until 1972. The participants not only demonstrated against the commemoration ceremony held by the Japanese government, but also aimed to make a statement against the Abe cabinet for ignoring the wishes of the Okinawan people to reduce the US military footprint in the prefecture (Ryū kyū Shinpō 2013). Moreover, approximately 18,000 people in Okinawa also opposed the move of Futenma base to Henoko in a sit-in protest that marked 150 days in December 2014 (Ryū kyū Shinpō 2014). The strong activism against the base politics of Tokyo and Washington that occurred in Okinawa in 1995 is also demonstrated in the period 2010-2014. As anti-base movements in Okinawa are progressively working together, their protest campaigns have also become more organized and effective. In addition, because the Okinawan base opposition protest is receiving increasingly Japanese and international media coverage, policy makers in Washington and Tokyo are more pressured to revise their current base politics regarding Okinawa (Cooley 2014)

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Pro- Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition- Henoko

80% of Okinawans oppose relocation to Henoko. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

Of course, the movements are not all perfect. People all over from Okinawa (and beyond) come to Henoko and participate in the struggle, but those who take part in direct action are still in the minority, considering the public opinion polls show that 80% of Okinawan people are opposed to the new US military base in Henoko. The diversity of people and groups involved means that tensions between different individuals and groups can arise. When I shared my uneasy experience of hearing some rather xenophobic chanting while I was there, Aihara told me that the values of different generations and nationalities can clash in the struggle. However, at the same time, she believes, this can be solved by deepening communication between different groups and individuals as the movement is open to change and wishes to be more inclusive. Indeed, when retired US soldiers recently visited Henoko and joined the protest, they requested that no anti-American chants be used, and this was respected, reiterated and transmitted to all the participants by the leader of the day.

Mayor of Nago City and governor of Okinawa elected on anti-base platform. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/11/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “We won’t give up the fight”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

At 5:00 pm we arrived in Nago City to meet with Mayor Inamine who a few of us from VFP had met in Washington last year when Okinawan leaders traveled to DC to lobby against the Henoko runway project. Mayor Inamine stood by a huge map of the city on his office wall and pointed out four areas where he is using his powers to block requests for base expansion operations. He reported that 80% of the people in Okinawa are opposed to US bases and that he and the current Gov. Onaga were elected because of their opposition. The mayor reported that Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Washington were trying to drown Okinawan citizens demands - it's a classic power struggle which is now before Japan's Supreme Court for resolution. The question: Can Tokyo overrule local elected officials who are implementing the will of the people?

The Okinawan people want the bases gone and they have elected several anti-military base candidates in recent elections. Fogarty 2010 ( Philippa “Environmental fears over US base plan in Okinawa” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific- 11404406. October 2010)

In recent months local lawmakers have also become a potent opposition force - a significant shift. Henoko is part of Nago city, and in 1997 Nago residents rejected the base plan in a referendum. The mayor at the time, Higa Tetsuya, however, accepted the plan and the sizeable subsidies that came with it on behalf of the city nonetheless. Evidence of the investment is clear, in grand civic halls dotted round the area. But opponents say that the subsidies, while benefiting the construction sector and keeping pro-base lawmakers in power, failed to deliver a substantive economic boost. Mr Inamine was elected mayor on an anti-base platform in January 2010 amid a wave of optimism that Tokyo would move the base out of Okinawa altogether. He says it is time to develop the eco-tourism and agriculture sectors rather than relying on base- linked subsidies. Ahead of local elections on 12 September, base opponents helped marshal support for anti-base candidates. Sixteen were elected, giving Mr Inamine a clear majority in the 27-seat city council. "A mountain has moved," wrote the Ryukyu Shinpo. The two governments should respect the democratic process and "make a decision that respects the will of the people of Henoko" Mr Inamine hopes that local voices will now start to be heard. "The Japanese government has considerable power and legally we have little power. But the people who live here have roots, history - and to protect what we have we are working together," he said. Around Futenma, some think the people of Nago are being selfish. "People think: 'This base here is dangerous, so why are you prioritising the sea over people's lives?'" said one lady

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living near the base. But the entrenched opposition in Henoko is something that - to the dismay of Tokyo and Washington - is not going away.

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Pro- Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition- Futenma

Ginowan Mayor wants Futenma closed within 5 years. Johnston, Japan Times; 2/3/2016 (Eric; Stripes; “Calls emerge for more talks on closing Marine base on Okinawa”; http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/calls-emerge-for-more-talks-on-closing-marine-base-on-okinawa-1.391978)

OSAKA, Japan (Tribune News Service) — The newly re-elected mayor of the Okinawan town hosting U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has called on the prefectural governor to reopen negotiations on closing the controversial base within five years. The request follows reports that a judge in a lawsuit between Okinawa Prefecture and the central government over constructing a replacement facility for Futenma in the Henoko district of Nago is urging both parties to agree to one of two possible settlements. Ginowan Mayor Atsushi Sakima, who has the support of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet and who takes no public position on the relocation of Futenma within Okinawa Prefecture, met Tuesday with Gov. Takeshi Onaga, who backed his opponent and is trying to stop the Henoko project. Sakima urged the governor to reconvene a group of national, prefectural, and Ginowan leaders that seeks to close Futenma within five years. “Five years is the limit and it’s necessary to deal with the problem quickly,” Sakima reportedly told Onaga.

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Pro- Japan Politics- Japanese Opposition

Tens of thousands surrounded the Diet in simultaneous protest against Henoko relocation with others in Osaka, Sapporo, Nagoya, Okayama, & Toyama. The Japan Times; 2/21/2016 (“Diet surrounded by 28,000 as synchronized protests in Japan rip Futenma base move in Okinawa”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/21/national/politics-diplomacy/diet-surrounded-28000-synchronized-protests-japan-rip-futenma-base-move- okinawa/#.Vs25VMfwwU0)

Thousands of protesters surrounded the Diet on Sunday to oppose the long-fought plan in Okinawa to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma as simultaneous rallies took place nationwide to mobilize thousands against the unpopular project. Organizers said about 28,000 people ringed the Diet building, chanting “Never allow the construction of a new base” and “Protect Henoko,” the district further north in Okinawa where the replacement base is being built. Opposition rallies were held simultaneously in the cities of Toyama, Okayama, Sapporo, Nagoya and Osaka.

Thousands protesting in Tokyo against relocation plan for Henoko. Asahi Shimbun; 11/30/2015 (“Protesters stage massive rally in Tokyo to oppose U.S. base relocation in Okinawa”; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201511300058)

Thousands of people from all walks of life protested in Tokyo on Nov. 29 the Abe administration's push for the relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa within the southernmost prefecture. Held at the outdoor Hibiya music hall in Chiyoda Ward, the rally against relocating Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from Ginowan to the Henoko district of Nago was attended by an estimated 4,500 people, including those unable to enter the packed venue, the organizers said. Addressing the crowd was dietary specialist and author Nahomi Edamoto, who criticized the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for forcing through the relocation plan. Edamoto also talked about how the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster led her to start thinking about the importance of food, which supports people's lives. Others who spoke at the rally included residents of Okinawa and a student activist belonging to the Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy-s (SEALDs) who recently visited Nago. “It is grossly wrong if the administration thinks it can press forward with the relocation plan by imposing its authority and by spending money,” the female SEALDs member said. “We stand firmly against the plan because we know what is important.” The legal battle over the relocation plan between the central government and Okinawa Prefecture intensified after the land minister filed a lawsuit with the Naha branch of the Fukuoka High Court on Nov. 17. The lawsuit demanded that the central government be authorized to override Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga's rescinding of local government approval of reclamation work off Henoko.

Opposition to bases in Okinawa extends outside of the island. 30% of protesters are from outside Okinawa. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London; 2/13/2016 (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

Protest activities are organised and led by people in Okinawa, as their lives are/have been most under threat. However, local activists urge people outside Okinawa to join them, and ask for their support. There is, indeed, a constant flow of visitors. Kamoshita maintains that about 30% of those who sit in front of the gates of Camp Schwab are those from other parts of Japan, and more people from outside participate in other protest activities. I, too, visited Henoko in June 2015, although very briefly, and met many people like myself. What we all shared was the understanding that the struggle in Henoko is not simply an Okinawan question, but a vital issue for the whole of Japanese society. Many visitors stay for a prolonged period, become regular visitors or even completely relocate to Okinawa, as Aihara and Kamoshita did a few years ago.

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Pro- Japan Politics- Impact- Opinion Key to Security

Japanese popular opinion is critical to security in the first island chain. Lt. Gen Gregson, Retired US Marine Corps; 2015 (Wallace; Sasakawa Peace Foundation; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

Now, we are in a new era, but strategic geography remains relevant. Japanese and U.S. defense capabilities along the island chain bounding the East China Sea are vitally important. But it is equally important that these islands be thriving, successful communities as well as convenient locations for security capabilities. Security along this critical part of the “first island chain” must be comprehensive, addressing development as well as defense. To do that, we need to link elite deliberations among security professionals and alliance managers in each nation with those of government and community stakeholders in the Prefecture.

Failure to give in to the public destabilizes the alliance—it creates a rift between Okinawa and the central government that makes cooperation unsustainable The Mainichi; 11/17/2014 ("Return Futenma base relocation negotiations to square one"; http://3coco.org/a/modules/d3pipes_3/?page=clipping&clipping_id=8278)

If the central government ignores the results of the latest election and goes ahead with the relocation as planned, the gap between mainland Japan and Okinawa will only widen, and could produce a decisive rift. Okinawa cannot accept an excessive burden of hosting military bases while feeling that it is being discriminated against. Conflicting positions are certain to destabilize the Japan-U.S. security alliance./ The central government has direct control over security, but this doesn't mean that it can disregard the will of the people. If security policies don't win understanding from locals or the public as a whole, then they will not stand. In situations like this, in which central government policy and the will of the people clash, the government should make an effort to close the divide. However, it has not sufficiently fulfilled its responsibility in this regard. On the contrary, Onaga's victory was fueled by intense anger from people in Okinawa over the way the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proceeded in connection with the Futenma base issue./ Nakaima was elected in the previous gubernatorial election after promising to relocate the Futenma base outside Okinawa Prefecture. But at the end of last year, he approved the central government's application to proceed with landfill work off Henoko in recognition of the government's economic stimulus measures -- a violation of his public pledge. The pride of the people in Okinawa was hurt by the central government's tactics, under which the government appeared to think it could win Okinawa over if it provided money in the form of stimulus measures./ With the problem having become so complicated, it is unrealistic to adhere to the current relocation plans. This summer, the central government started a drilling survey on the seabed off the coast of the Henoko district in line with its land refill plans. It has indicated that it will go ahead with the relocation to Henoko regardless of the latest election results, but the survey should be called off./ However, if the Henoko relocation plans are taken back to the drawing board, this must not result in the Futenma base being left where it is. The whole point of the Futenma relocation is to remove the danger posed by the base, which, with its close proximity to residential areas, has been described as the most dangerous in the world. The Abe administration has promised to halt operations at Futenma within five years, and it must make an effort to lighten the burden posed by hosting U.S. military bases. At the same time, it must not cut back the yearly budget of over 300 billion yen that it has promised to provide Okinawa in the form of stimulus measures./ Eighteen years have passed since an agreement was made on returning the Futenma base. It is probably no easy task to renegotiate an issue over which Japan and the U.S. have made repeated agreements, but if the Japanese and U.S. indeed see eye to eye on the deep influence of public opinion in Okinawa, then discussions will naturally progress to a new stage./ The Japanese and U.S. governments say that relocation of the Futenma base to Henoko is the "only solution." However, the view that this is unrealistic has emerged within U.S. Congress. Senator John McCain and others proposed that Futenma be consolidated with the U.S. military's Kadena air base. This summer, meanwhile, Joseph Nye, former U.S. deputy to the undersecretary of state for security assistance, pointed out the weaknesses of U.S. military bases on Okinawa, and sought revisions to the deployment of U.S. military forces in Japan. So even in the United States, objections have emerged./ The role that the Japan-U.S. security

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alliance has in providing stability for Japan and other countries in Asia is large. Considering China's military expansion and maritime advances, and the situation in North Korea, it is necessary to maintain the deterrence provided by U.S. military forces in Japan./ The Japanese government must address friction with Okinawa and seek new negotiations with the U.S. to devise a solution -- even if this is for the worthy purpose of smoothly operating the Japan-U.S. security alliance. Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Ginowan Election = Support for Henoko

Election of new Ginowan mayor does not mean Okinawa supports Henoko relocation. McCormack, Pro Australian National Univeristy & Coor Asia Pacific Journal; 2/1/2016 (Gavan; The Asia Pacific Journal- Japan Focus; “The Ginowan mayaoral- Okinawan currents and counter-currents”; Volume 14, Issue 3, Number 1; http://apjjf.org/2016/03/McCormack.html#sthash.4k0oMTJv.dpuf)

The Abe government expressed delight at the outcome as if it were a vote for its Henoko plans. Much of the media, national and international, followed this interpretation, seeing it as an Abe victory resulting from a pro-government, pro- Henoko shift on the part of the Okinawan people. The record, as this paper argues, is that this was not at all the case. The Ginowan result did indeed, however, signify a shift in the long-running confrontation between the national government and the people and representative institutions of Okinawa, from "Advantage All Okinawa" of 2014-15 to "Advantage Abe." The rebound already noted in Abe government support figures in early 2016 coincided with the Ginowan result and presumably was in part attributable to it, suggesting that the "Abe advantage" is likely to flow through to government-supported candidates in the forthcoming prefectural and national elections. The victory will also be used by the government to warrant the coastguard and riot police using increased levels of violence in the ongoing confrontation with anti-base citizen protesters at Henoko and on Oura Bay. However, despite that use, what the people of Ginowan decided in the January 2016 election was above all else: get the Marine Corps out of Futenma, urgently and quickly. They said nothing about building a substitute for it whether at Henoko or anywhere else. Sakima did not so much as utter the word "Henoko" during his campaign.

Ginowan election was not a win for relocation to Henoko- exit polls show residents still oppose. Asahi Shimbun; 1/26/2016 (“Editorial: Ginowan election result does not mean public support for Futenma move to Henoko”; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201601260025)

But it would be premature for the Abe administration to view the election outcome as a sign of public support for its proposal to build a military facility in Henoko to replace the Futenma base. During his election campaign, Mayor Sakima did not clarify his stance toward the relocation issue. He only promised to ensure that the Futenma base will be closed and eliminated as quickly as possible. In other words, he deliberately kept the controversial relocation plan out of the focus of his election campaign. In exit polls by The Asahi Shimbun, 34 percent of the voters surveyed expressed support for the relocation plan, while 57 percent voiced opposition. When interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun, one citizen who voted for Sakima said, “I want to see (the Futenma base) moved out of the prefecture.” Another said, “As a Ginowan citizen, I voted for preventing the Futenma base from remaining where it is, but as a resident of the prefecture, I’m opposed to the relocation of the base to Henoko.”

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Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Joint US-Japan Basing Decreases Opposition

Joint operations don’t generate more support for bases in Okinawa. Viergever, International Relations @ Leiden Univ; 7/3/2015 (Marnix; MA Thesis Leiden Univ; “The US-Japan Security Alliance and Okinawan Anti-Base Identity: Did enhanced military cooperation between the United States and Japan have led to a decline of Okinawan base opposition?”; https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/34950/Viergever-MA-Thesis-US-Japan-Alliance-and-Okinawan-Base-Opposition-Final- Version.pdf?sequence=1)

Though US-Japan security relations considerably improved during 2010-2014, US base opposition in Okinawa continued to be a destabilizing factor in the alliance. The three case studies illustrated that base opposition in Okinawa continued even though the American and Japanese governments were able to enhance military cooperation. The shift in Japanese Prime Ministers did not change the Okinawan resistance against the relocation of the Futenma base. Furthermore, although Operation Tomodachi significantly improved favorable views among Japanese citizens about the US-Japan alliance, Okinawan media severely criticized the political use of the joint disaster relief operation by the United States. And even though a large majority of the Okinawan citizens are concerned about the military developments of China in the region, most Okinawans favor a diplomatic solution instead of a military buildup. As the section about the development of base opposition in Okinawa illustrated, the anti-base movement in the prefecture is becoming increasingly better organized and influential, as their case is largely exploited by the Japanese and international media. Moreover, local politicians in Okinawa are also increasingly protesting against US-Japan base policies. US base opposition in Okinawa shows thus not only disapproval about the Futenma relocation and use of Osprey aircraft, but also demonstrates the growing distrust among Okinawans towards Tokyo and Washington. This thesis used constructivism to expose the differences in security norms between citizens and mainland Japan and the prefecture of Okinawa about the US military presence in Japan. Constructivism shows how identity plays an important role in shaping ideas, norms and actions of actors, and in this case exposes the reasons why anti-base sentiment in Okinawa is severely different compared to the citizens in mainland Japan. In addition, constructivism has also demonstrated that base opposition in Okinawa was able to shape the base politics of the United States and Japan. However, in contrast, enhanced security cooperation between the US and Japan did not affect the anti-base movement in Okinawa. Therefore, this thesis concludes that Okinawan base opposition is hardly affected by general security developments between the US and Japan, but continues to develop as long as Okinawa’s local identity is shaped by the base politics of Washington and Tokyo.

March: Okinawa Page 69

Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Mainland Won’t Accept Basing Relocated Marines

Relocation plans to Kagoshima were rejected because the Japanese government gave false documents to the former Prime Minister Hatoyama that intentionally misled him on how far away the US military would allow helicopters to be stationed from Marines on the ground. Nikaido, Asahi Shimbun; 2/23/2016 (Isamu; Asahi Shimbun; “Document found that led Hatoyama to drop Futena relocation outside Okinawa”; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201602230041)

Former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama likely scuttled his plan in 2010 to relocate functions of a contentious U.S. base in Okinawa to Kagoshima Prefecture, based on a classified government document citing U.S. military regulations forbidding such a move. The internal Japanese government document, obtained recently by The Asahi Shimbun, cites a U.S. military “standard” that stipulates a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter unit should not be based more than 65 nautical miles, or 120 kilometers, from its training grounds. But U.S. Forces Japan denies the existence of such an operational standard, raising the possibility that the document was compiled only to pressure Hatoyama to scrap his plan to move functions of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Tokunoshima island. “I remember being briefed by the Foreign Ministry and other government officials (on the U.S. operational regulations),” Hatoyama told The Asahi Shimbun. “I was told that it was impossible to relocate the units to outside a radius of 65 nautical miles from their training grounds, and it was the biggest factor behind my decision to give up the Tokunoshima relocation plan."

March: Okinawa Page 70

Pro- Japan Politics- AT: Protester Fatigue

Protests are sustainable- decentralized networks of resistance already formed. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London; 2/13/2016 (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

Anti-military base protests in Okinawa are no ordinary political struggle, and this is what Aihara and Kamoshita hope to convey through their talks in cities in the UK, Germany and Poland. Various anti-US military base groups and other groups and individuals in Okinawa have formed associations, such as Shimagurumi Kaigi (All Okinawa Council) and the Okinawa Peace Citizen’s Network for collaboration. While Yamashiro Hiroji, the Chairman of the Okinawa Peace Movement Center, is often considered as the leading figure of the struggle, there is no fixed hierarchical structure in the movement, and decisions are made democratically amongst participating (core) groups as they take it in turn to lead the protest each day.

March: Okinawa Page 71

Pro- Japan Economy- Basing Costs

Japan spends tens of billions on US basing every year. Feffer, Editor Foreign Policy in Focus; 10/29/2015 (John; “After Empire”; http://www.johnfeffer.com/after-empire/)

Okay, so they’re already rearming, in part in response to the same threat perceptions that Frank identifies. Are they still freeloaders, as Frank suggests? Japan by no means gets a free ride from the Pentagon. It’s generally covered around 75 percent of the costs for maintaining U.S. bases in the country (compared to percentages around half that by Germany and South Korea). The debate is in the news (in Japan at least) because Washington is currently trying to get Tokyo to increase its share even as the Abe government is petitioning for a reduction. This comes after Washington has already pressured Tokyo to cover the costs of a new military base in Okinawa that the vast majority of the residents there oppose. As David Vine writes in his invaluable new book Base Nation, Today, Japanese sympathy payments subsidize the U.S. presence at an annual level of around $150,000 per service member. For 2011 alone, Japanese taxpayers provided $7.1 billion, or around three quarters of total basing costs. In addition to agreeing to pay $6.09 billion to help close Futenma and move marines off Okinawa, the Japanese government agreed to contribute around $15.9 billion toward a larger set of transformations involving bases in Okinawa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Iwakuni, Japan.

March: Okinawa Page 72

Pro- Japan Economy- Conversion

Bases in Okinawa take up land needed for farming. Kato, Prof Waseda Univ; 5/14/2014 (Norihiro; New York Times; “The battle of the Okinawans”; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/opinion/kato-the-battle-of-the-okinawans.html?_r=0)

According to a statement protesting the relocation of Futenma signed by prominent scholars and peace advocates in January, Okinawa Prefecture constitutes just 0.6 percent of the total land mass of Japan, yet it houses 73.8 percent of the American military bases in the country. The bases occupy almost one-fifth of Okinawa Island alone, including prime farming land. This part of Japan is, one might say, the netherworld to which the Japanese government has tried to banish its awareness of its subordination to the United States.

March: Okinawa Page 73

Pro- Japan Economy- Dependence

Many Okinawans are dependent on rental payments from the Japanese government. Rabson, Prof East Asian Studies @ Brown; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

Nevertheless, dependence on the military bases did not end in Henoko. In 1997, “military landowners” received a total of 140 million yen (about $1.4 million), an estimated 800,000 yen ($8,000) annually per individual.28 “Before reversion rental payments were low, “ recalled a Henoko resident in 1998. “But today they are essential to our livelihoods.”29 Yoshida Kensei wrote in 2001, Henoko is now a sleepy hamlet of 1,500 people, with dilapidated reminders of its boomtown past at its front and in the old village at its rear. Its inhabitants depend partly on agriculture (vegetables, fruits and livestock) and fishing, but mainly on [income] from the military base (i.e., land rentals and employment), public and private construction projects, and small family stores.30 Asked in a November, 1994 interview for his opinion of then Governor Ôta Masahide’s plan for “reduction and consolidation” of the bases, Henoko’s mayor called it a “nuisance” (meiwaku). His opinion was shared by other local government officials, business leaders, and youth whose incomes depended on “rental” payments for land on the two bases, enterprises servicing the military, or jobs on the bases in service, maintenance, or construction.31

Okinawa is trying to break free of base reliant economies. Yoshitoshi, Research Associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute @ Dokkyo Univ; 6/19/2015 (Taira; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A historical perspective on the US military presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

To some extent, of course, the conservatives do focus on the economy while the progressives are more interested in shutting bases down. So ideally, if Okinawa gains a prosperous economy free of US bases, then the chief issues dividing the two sides would dissipate, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see them becoming even less polarized. Indeed, the end of the Cold War opened the possibility of a withdrawal of US forces from Okinawa, and fiscal measures taken by Tokyo were reducing local businesses’ reliance on the US military. Breaking free of a base-reliant economy and seeking the reduction and consolidation of US military installations now became realistic goals for conservatives and progressives alike, thus drawing the two sides closer together. An awareness of such changes in the political mindset is crucial to an understanding of shifts in Okinawa’s public opinion.

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Pro- Japan Economy- Relocation- Henoko

Relocation of Futenma to Henoko won’t help the economy- benefit of income from bases outweighed by loss in tourism. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/11/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “We won’t give up the fight”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

The mayor told us that "We don't want to take the part of victimizers in a war. During the Vietnam War US bombers took off from here. It so offended us." He also stated what we heard from our other meeting with the mayor of Yomitan Village two days ago - "Okinawa does not prosper from US bases. Less than 5% of our island income comes from bases. The new runway has a flight path that would go directly over a popular tourist resort that attracts 200,000 people each year. If the Henoko runway gets built they won't come back anymore."

Basing prevents conversion of land for economic development. Gagnon, Dir Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; 12/10/2015 (Bruce; Organizing Notes; “The legacy of empire”; http://space4peace.blogspot.tw/2015_12_06_archive.html)

Our final stop for the day was to meet the Mayor Ishimine and other officials from Yomitan village that at one time had 70% of their land taken by the US for a series of military bases. Some of the land has been returned to the village so now the US controls 47% of their land. They showed us an extensive powerpoint of their efforts to convert the former military lands into health centers, art centers, senior citizens centers and more. Mayor Ishimine told us: "No base in nearby Henoko is our first priority. Eventually we want to erase all bases in Okinawa. US bases are hindering our economic development. If the bases were closed we could do even better. The mainstream media on mainland Japan are very cold to us - the media there is under the control of the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe government."

Status quo relocation in exchange for economic development treats north Okinawa as a trash bin and continues the history of domination and exploitation. Rabson, Prof East Asian Studies @ Brown; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

The 1996 proposal for relocating the Futenma MCAS sharpened divisions of opinion in Nago City and inside Henoko. The stage was set when Governor Ôta, long-advocating a reduction of the U.S. military presence, surprised many by tacitly agreeing in December, 1996, to the joint U.S.-Japanese government plan for relocating Futenma MCAS to Henoko in exchange for Japanese government subsidies for economic development of Okinawa Prefecture.34 Nago City residents, 72 percent of whom believed there was economic inequality in Okinawa, viewed this as a continuing marginalization of poorer northern districts by the wealthier and more politically powerful southern and central districts. Nago Mayor Higa Tetsuya condemned Governor Ôta’s decision at the time, saying “the northern region is not a trash bin of military bases.” He evoked Okinawa’s past history of domination and exploitation of northern areas by south-central Okinawa, a pattern that goes back to the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom when resources of firewood and water were extracted for use in other regions.35

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Pro- Japan Economy- Tourism

Bases are an eye-sore that hurts tourism in Okinawa. Return of bases allows economic conversion and increases jobs and marketing opportunities. Seiji, Prof Law Seiki Univ; 6/19/2015 (Endo; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A Historical Perspective on the US Military Presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

For most of the postwar period, Japan has had conservative governments, and these administrations worked hard for Okinawa’s return. Following reversion, they focused less on eliminating the bases and more on providing economic benefits to local residents in exchange for a continued US military presence. These benefits were offered in much the same way that public works projects were implemented around the country by postwar administrations to drive economic growth. The island’s conservative forces were receptive to such economic measures, and it was to them that the government directed the benefits. I think it would be fair to describe Onaga Takeshi, who was elected governor in November 2014, as a conservative politician. His supporters are also basically conservative. The fact that such a politician has now become a highly vocal and visible opponent of US bases is a telling sign that the formula of providing benefits in exchange for acquiescence on the American presence no longer works. There’s a fairly logical economic dimension to this shift. Tourism has become a major industry in Okinawa, and many resorts have been successfully developed and marketed. The community centers and the like that were built with government funds, on the other hand, may have temporarily provided construction jobs for local workers, but they haven’t engendered sustained economic growth, and the outlays needed to maintain them have become a drag on local finances. As Okinawa’s popularity as a resort grew, the US bases become an eyesore, so rather than contributing to the local economy, they came to be seen as a detriment to the prefecture’s growth and self-reliance. Statistics bear out the fact that the return of US bases in Okinawa has had positive economic repercussions, leading to new jobs and new marketing opportunities. Income from land leased to the US military is often just a fraction of the gains that have been realized from the effective utilization of former bases. These findings have convinced the Okinawa people— both conservative and progressive—that economic growth is not something to be gained in exchange for the continued presence of US bases; even bigger growth can be expected if the Americans return the land. This is the reality in Okinawa today.

March: Okinawa Page 76

Pro- Japan Leadership

US Marines are useless, straining alliance commitments and blocking Japan’s regional leadership Doug Bandow 2010, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and Senior Policy Analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President Campaign, holds a B.A. in Economics from Florida State University and a J.D. from Stanford University, 2010 (“Okinawa and the Problem of Empire,” The Huffington Post, March 25th, Available Online at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11617) In fact, there's no reason for the U.S. to do either. Allies are a means to an end; the defense of America, not allies, is America's vital interest. Sometimes protecting other nations is necessary for U.S. security, as during the Cold War. But that world disappeared long ago. Enemy threats are far fewer and allied capabilities are far greater. True, politicians and analysts alike routinely term America's alliances "cornerstones" and "linchpins" of U.S. security, regional stability, and world peace. In reality, today's alliance are unnecessary at best and dangerous transmission belts of conflict and war at worst. Consider Japan. President Barack Obama says that "America's commitment to Japan's security is unshakable," but does that mean the U.S. forever must defend that nation? The 1951 military treaty committed Japan to "increasingly assume responsibility for its own defense against direct and indirect aggression." In fact, Tokyo is capable of defending itself. Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada recently expressed doubt that "Japan on its own can face up to such risks" as China, but Tokyo needs a deterrent capability, not superiority. That is well within Japan's means. Certainly the U.S. would be far more secure if its allies and friends created forces to discourage aggression and worked together to encourage regional stability, rather than depended on Washington. If the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force located on Okinawa is not needed to defend Japan, then what is it for? South Korea vastly outranges the North on virtually every measure of power and can do whatever is necessary to deter North Korean adventurism. There also is much talk, offered unceasingly and uncritically, about maintaining regional stability. But what invasions, border fights, naval clashes, missile threats, and full-scale wars are the Marines preventing?

US Commitments act as a disincentive to Japan’s more active role in East Asia Preble 2006 [Christopher, director of foreign policy studies @ Cato institute, Cato institute, “Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship” April 16 2008, p. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa566.pdf

These numbers make clear that Japan already plays an active role in world affairs, in spite of the constitutional restrictions on the use of military force. What Japan has lacked for much of its history since the end of World War II is the incentive and the will to take responsibility for its own security—and for regional security—to a degree commensurate with its economic power and interests. The U.S. security guarantee serves as a disincentive for change, and U.S. policy has therefore impeded the development of Japan’s indigenous military capabilities, capabilities that might prove useful to both countries in the future.

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Pro- Japan Leadership- Impact- North Korea

Japan taking an active role in the North Korea situation is comparatively better than being hamstrung by the US – Japan could contain North Korea by itself Preble 6 [Christopher, director of foreign policy studies @ Cato institute, Cato institute, “Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship” April 16 2008, p. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa566.pdf Finally, with respect to the ongoing crisis on the Korean peninsula, the danger of nuclear proliferation in East Asia, combined with continued ill-will engendered by the abductee controversy, suggests that the Japanese would likely be dealing far more harshly with the North Koreans than they are now were it not for the United States. At least one recent poll suggest that the Japanese are less concerned about the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons than are many Americans,92 but, objectively, Kim Jong-il does pose a more urgent security threat to Japan than he does to the United States. The North Korean crisis may have provided the catalyst for a fundamental shift in Japanese strategy and policy, but it cannot be viewed in a vacuum. Although the steps thus far taken by Koizumi against North Korea have not satisfied a segment of the Japanese population, many of whom remain more concerned about the emotional abductee issue than about the objective security threat, China’s rise poses a more important challenge to Japan’s security over the medium to long term.93 For now, given the urgency of the North Korean threat to Japan, and befitting Japan’s emergence as a normal power, it would be natural for Japan to take a leading role in attempting to end North Korea’s nuclear program. As other regional threats become more serious, however, many Japanese may come to resent U.S. policies that appear to impede their reasonable efforts to defend themselves. Continued strong opposition within Japan to the use of the military for offensive ends suggests that unilateral preemptive action by Japan against North Korea is highly unlikely. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to expect that Tokyo would wait for U.S. permission to respond to a direct attack. It is only slightly more plausible that the Japanese would refrain from using force in response to credible evidence of an imminent threat. Military action against North Korea, even if it were found to be a legitimate exercise of the right of self-defense, would certainly stir regional animosity. That is a reflection of the difficult balancing act that Japan must play vis-à-vis other potential allies in the region, chief among them South Korea. North and South Koreans alike harbor deep resentment toward the Japanese. Koreans were the victims of horrible crimes at the hands of the Japanese, of which the notorious abuses inflicted on Korean “comfort women” were only the most infamous. Although U.S. policymakers should rightly be concerned about regional hostility toward Japan, such concerns are not more worrisome than the crisis in the here and now, when an impoverished and increasingly des- perate North Korea might be tempted to sell nuclear materials to terrorists. Short of offensive military operations against Pyongyang, Japan has other means for defending itself from North Korean nuclear weapons independent of the United States. Japan has cooperated with the United States in the construction of an anti-ballistic missile system, but the further development and deployment of such a system need not depend on U.S. support. If active countermeasures for dealing with regional security threats were deemed insufficient, the Japanese might even take the fateful step of developing their own nuclear deterrent.94 In short, a Japanese military, operating independent of the United States but still constrained by the pacifist impulses of the Japanese public, could prove a credible deterrent to offensive actions by North Korea against Japan proper and might also succeed in convincing the DPRK to abandon its nuclear ambitions, in contrast to U.S. economic and diplomatic pressure, which has been completely ineffective. Beyond the North Korean crisis, Japanese military power might prove instrumental for dealing with future serious challenges to the regional security order.

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Pro- US Hegemony- Off Shore Balancing

Scaling back US presence in Japan transitions to more a more efficient off-shore balancing model – military technology can compensate for the need for troops in Japan Sakaguchi ‘9, (Daisuke, The Realignment of U.S. Forces in Japan and its Impact on the Interdependent Relationship between Japan and the U.S., in NIDS Security Report #10 (December 2009), http://www.nids.go.jp/english/publication/kiyo/e2009.html date accessed 6/23/10)

Robert L. Rothstein explains that “In an alliance relationship between a large nation and a small nation, from the outset intrinsic imbalances exist in various issues in terms of maintaining and preserving the alliance. While the small nation demands debate as an absolute right, the large nation seeks to decide the degree of debate according to the small nation’s capacity to contribute when it comes to actual problem solving.”32 If the scale of U.S. military bases in Japan contracts and the U.S.’ degree of dependence on Japan decreases, Japan’s ability to negotiate with the U.S. would be expected to decline. (2) Realigning U.S. forces with the goal of reducing dependence on allied nations Accompanying the end of the Cold War, George F. Kennan argued that the U.S. should reduce its offshore involvement.33 In addition, the U.S.’ traditional offshore balancing – whereby the balance of power within regions is left to the nations making up the region, with the U.S. intervening only when the balance cannot be maintained – also came to be revisited as a grand strategy. This strategy involves boosting nuclear weapons and the power of long-range mobility, and withdrawing U.S. forces from offshore bases, enabling the U.S. to make itself safer while not relinquishing regions of vital importance to large, rival nations.34 Possibly due to the influence of this point of view, the U.S.’ military transformation and the GPR also aim to reduce dependence on allied nations. Following the Transformation Planning Guidance,35 in which the U.S. government ordered each of the armed forces to create a roadmap for reform every year, the U.S. Air Force is exhibiting the concepts of global mobility and global strike. The former means to “launch an operation anywhere in the would in the minimum time” and the latter means to be able to strike “an important target” within a number of hours or a number of minutes, wherever that target may be in the world. As a result of progress with innovative military technologies, demonstrable improvement is occurring in information-gathering capacities, troop mobility and the might and accuracy of fire power. However, the most important point of all is that technological progress such as this will diminish the value of offshore bases and the degree of dependence on them. Among adherents to the revolution in military affairs, many believe that once it is possible to attack potential enemies around the world from the U.S. mainland or ocean, offshore bases will be unnecessary. For example, even if a change in the political climate saw an allied nation suddenly deny the U.S. the use of bases, if it were possible to immediately project military strength from the U.S. mainland to locations in which forward-deployed forces were not present the impact would not be major.36 In fact, at the time of the Iraq War, Turkey denied the U.S. military the use of bases and Austria denied the U.S. military passage through its airspace, and these experiences are a strong motivator for reviewing approaches to offshore bases.37 Regarding the issue of realigning U.S. forces, Richard Hawley, a retired U.S. Air Force general who makes proposals on approaches to the Air Force’s military strength in the Asia- Pacific region, says the reason Guam is an important operation base is that “In the Iraq War [the U.S.] was unable to get permission from Turkey to use bases and this proved a hindrance to constructing an Iraq northern front, but political problems do not arise in the U.S. territory of Guam.”38 Furthermore, the high cost of stationing troops offshore and improving the working conditions of military personnel who have to live away from their families for long periods are issues that the U.S. military needs to resolve quickly. Going forward, progress in military technology is likely to become an alternative means for compensating for the withdrawal of bases. The “sea basing” being pursued by the Navy and Marine Corps is one such example. A sea base involves viewing a ship positioned on the coast like a base on land, with an attempt to utilize it not only for support for ground offensives and troop landings, but also as a supply point and as a place for repairing equipment, massing and training troops, and other uses.39 The advantage of sea bases is that they are safer than land bases and are not restricted by political and diplomatic restraints, thus allowing the U.S. military to function independently. The goal of reducing dependence on forward-deployed bases forms a backdrop to this concept also.40 With modern threats it is not possible to specify beforehand the regions in which conflicts are likely to occur. In order to deal with this situation, the U.S. military prepares for various contingencies and regardless of where in the world a conflict looks set to break out it must be able to deploy military force there rapidly. The goal of the military transformation and the GPR can be perceived as boosting the readiness of military forces to prepare for unforeseen situations. This indicates a fundamental change in forward-deployed bases and troops; their role could be said to be starting to shift and to center on a means of deploying rapidly to areas of conflict, not just on the defense of allied nations and neighboring regions.41 As a result of the abovementioned changes in the military, it is becoming possible to deploy troops rapidly and the need to station large forces offshore in advance – and the dependence on offshore bases – is gradually weakening. Once the concepts of global strike and sea basing become reality the goal of offshore bases for determent and containment will fade and they are likely to become nothing but relay points for projecting military force onto a conflict area smoothly.42

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Pro- US Economy- Basing

The need for the bases is outdated. They served a purpose in the Cold war, but now they are too costly for Okinawans as well as for U.S. taxpayers. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans- again-say-no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014

Washington’s defense commitments and force deployments should be adapted to circumstances. The Cold War required an unnaturally aggressive U.S. military presence overseas. But America’s enemies have collapsed and allies have prospered. There’s no longer any need for Washington to defend Japan and its neighbors. Which eliminates the only excuse for burdening the Okinawan people with America’s extraordinary military presence. After nearly 70 years Okinawans deserve relief. So do Americans, who pay to defend most of the globe.

March: Okinawa Page 80

Pro- Colonialism

Bases in Okinawa are the residue of Japanese defeat in WW2 and undemocratic. Taira, Lecturer Hosei Univ, & Research Associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute; 8/26/2015 (Yoshitoshi; Tokyo Foundation; “Okinawa’s inconvenient truths”; http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2015/okinawas-inconvenient-truths)

Having set the stage in this manner, we are now ready to ask the uncomfortable questions Okinawa raises about the character and achievements of postwar Japan. Broadly speaking, these boil down to two basic issues. The first is, how should we assess the outcome of Japan’s efforts to sweep away the “residue” that embodied its status as a defeated nation? To put it more bluntly, how do the Japanese as a people reconcile themselves to the fact that Okinawa today preserves the very image of Japan as a defeated nation? Can they continue to tolerate the situation in Okinawa even though it vividly preserves the same emblems of defeat that they so zealously swept from the main islands? These questions go to the very core of Japan’s character as a sovereign state since the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The second question is, how does Japan, as a democratic state, explain the fact that Okinawa, which accounts for a mere 0.6% of Japan’s total land area, houses 73.8% of the US military installations (exclusive use facilities) in Japan—in other words, that the burden of the bilateral alliance (the provision of bases) falls overwhelmingly on the people of this one tiny prefecture? Since sovereignty lies with the people in a democracy, the people must have the collective will to defend their own country and share the burden of defense equally. In this sense, the second question also goes to the very core of Japan’s development as a democratic state over the past 70 years of postwar history. What all of this means is that the implications of the current base controversy go far beyond the immediate question of whether to build a replacement facility for Marine Corps Air Station Futenma elsewhere in Okinawa. It also means that the issue has relevance not merely for Okinawans but for Japan as a whole. The Henoko relocation plan raises in distilled form the uncomfortable question of the nature of postwar Japan as reflected in the image of Okinawa today.

Japanese government uses land payments to divide and conquer protest movement. Rabson, Prof East Asian Studies @ Brown Univ; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

Although weakened by agreements reached between the military and these communities, the protest movement succeeded in forcing the U.S. government to abandon the hated “lump-sum” policy recommended to Congress, and to make more equitable rental payments to all landowners. Sixteen years later, the Japanese government increased rental payments sharply after Okinawa’s 1972 reversion to Japan. Applying the earlier American tactic of raising compensation to split the movement, the Japanese government’s policy enriched a large coterie of “military landowners” (gun-jinushi) in Henoko and elsewhere, making them dependent on Japanese government “rental payments”. Nevertheless, protests have continued by “antiwar landowners” (hansen-jinushi) and others who have picketed the bases, staged symbolic actions to reclaim their land inside, and demonstrated at the Japanese government’s Defense Facilities Agency in Naha.

Many bases sit on stolen land- bayonets and bulldozers. Mitchell, Japan Times; 3/30/2015 (Jon; Japan Times; “The battle of Okinawa: America’s good war gone bad”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/03/30/issues/battle-okinawa-americas-good-war-gone-bad/#.VsVQDMfwwU1)

Known locally as the time of “bayonets and bulldozers,” in the early 1950s U.S. troops drove Okinawan farmers from their land to make way for new or expanded military bases. One of the most infamous of these confiscations took place on the island of Iejima in 1955, where American troops first tricked residents into signing voluntary evacuation papers before dragging those who refused from their homes, bulldozing their farms and slaughtering their livestock.

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Pro- Democracy

Okinawan basing is undemocratic. Yoshitoshi, Research associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute @ Dokkyō Univ; 6/19/2015 (Taira; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A historical perspective on the US military presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

The latter issue is raised by the fact that recent elections for the mayor of Nago, governor of Okinawa, and the House of Representatives were all won by candidates strongly opposed to the Henoko relocation plan. Now, if Japan is a democracy, can the central government in Tokyo continue to ignore these expressions of the popular will? An even more fundamental question for a democracy is equality in sharing the burden of defending a nation. Unless we analyze the current situation in Okinawa from these two angles, we’re going to find ourselves going around in circles.

The only thing that will satisfy the Okinawan people is complete removal of military bases; it is the most democratic option. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans-again-say- no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014)

Three years later the Democratic Party of Japan took power and promised to address Okinawans’ concerns. The party also advocated a more equal bilateral security partnership. But the Obama administration proved to be as intransigent as its predecessor, thwarting the efforts of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose party was divided. He eventually resigned. Since then Tokyo has attempted to implement the relocation agreement, despite strong local opposition, with about 80 percent of Okinawans against the Henoko scheme. Last year Tokyo gained the support of Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima. However, a week ago Naha Mayor Takeshi Onaga defeated Nakaima on an anti-base platform, declaring: “The new military base will not be built.” In fact, Onaga may only be able to slow the planned move. But he is looking for legal ways to revoke the landfill permit granted by his predecessor. Onaga announced that “I will do everything possible to prevent the construction of a new base in Henoko. Futenma needs to be moved out of the nation and out of the prefecture.” Onaga’s victory was welcomed by Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine, who won reelection last January and visited Washington a couple of years ago to lobby American policymakers against the plan. “It’s going to be huge for us,” he said, with city and prefectural governments working together in opposition. Before the election Yoshihide Suga, chief cabinet secretary, claimed that the controversy was “an issue of the past.” But Onaga’s victory demonstrates the depth of popular feeling. Nakaima had flip-flopped in favor of the relocation plan in return for $2.6 billion in economic aid from Tokyo and enjoyed strong support from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Onaga shifted the other way, campaigning against Tokyo’s attempt to buy off islanders and attacking America’s presence for impeding Okinawa’s development. Onaga won with a 100,000 vote margin in a four-way race with about 700,000 votes cast.

Relocation plan ignores local autonomy and democracy. The Japan Times; 2/23/2016 (“Diet surrounded by 28,000 as synchronized protests in Japan rip Futenma base move in Okinawa”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/02/21/national/politics-diplomacy/diet-surrounded-28000-synchronized-protests-japan-rip-futenma-base-move- okinawa/#.Vs25VMfwwU0)

“The central government is trying to force through landfill work to move the base to Henoko, but justice and righteousness are on our side,” Nago Mayor Susume Inamine said at the rally in Tokyo. “We can never tolerate a government that ignores democracy and local autonomy,” the mayor said.

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Pro- Democracy

Trials against Takae protesters are an anti-democratic suppression of dissent that will make ordinary people reluctant to protest. Karnell, Masters Japanese Studies @ Stockholm Univ; 2015 (Mattias; “The US Marine Corps and Anti-base protestors in Okinawa, Japan: A study of the Takae Movement”; http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822179/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

In 2008, 15 people, including an 8-year-old girl who had barely been at the scene (charges later dropped against her) were prosecuted by the ODB for obstruction of traffic. Specifically, the ODB filed a provisional disposition: those who would be found guilty in this trial would move on to the “main trial”. The ODB had for more than a year not been able to perform much work at the front entrance of the site N-1, where two helipads are planned to be constructed, due to the protestors blocking access to the site. In a democracy, if there is strong opposition towards a project, especially in the form of a sit-in demonstration, authorities would surely at least consider suspending the project. The ODB, however, disregarded this opposition, instead deciding to take them to court. It is obvious that the ODB aimed to intimidate the protestors, most of them farmers leading relatively simple lives. In the end, Masatsugu Isa and Gentatsu Ashimine were the only two out of the fourteen taken to court to be found guilty by the Naha District Court. As a result, they proceeded to the “main trial”. The Fukuoka High Court parroted the Naha District Court, saying that "the aim of this trial should be considered as (the State) trying to secure authority/control over the land in question." The court openly dismisses the claim that the State brought the residents to trial in order to try to suppress or restrict the protest movement. As Tatsushi Yokota (one of the lawyers representing the residents) points out, when the State takes dissidents of state policy to court, ordinary people will not know what degree of protest is allowed by the law. Thus, ordinary citizens will be reluctant to make public their opposition by protesting.281 As a result, it should have been clear that the trial could have a suppressing effect on the movement in Takae.

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Pro- Discrimination

Structural discrimination against Okinawans treats them as if they are expendable. Shimbukuro Jun, Prof Education Univ Ryukyus; 8/3/2015 (Nippon; “Okinawan Identity and the Struggle for Self-Determination”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04501/#auth_profile_0)

But Okinawa has not been treated as an integral part of Japan since World War II, and the awareness of this “structural discrimination” has had a growing impact on Okinawans’ sense of allegiance and identity. Ever since the Battle of Okinawa (1945), Japan’s leaders have treated the islands as an expendable appendage to be cut off and sacrificed for the good of the mainland. “Uchinanchu” identity and the drive for self-determination are a natural outgrowth of the Okinawans’ long postwar struggle to regain the rights and autonomy they lost as the result of this betrayal.

Okinawan’s disproportionate burden is a form of discrimination. Okamoto, President Okamoto Associates; 8/4/2015 (Yuki; Nippon; “The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/#auth_profile_0)

The people of mainland Japan do not fully understand the troubles that the Okinawans have experienced or the sense of discrimination that they feel. When reminded that a whopping 74% of the area occupied by US military bases in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa, one of the smallest of the country’s 47 prefectures, people think, “That’s not fair,” but they do not do anything about it. And the reason the figure for Okinawa has risen so high is that since its reversion to Japanese administration in 1972, the reductions in the US military presence in Japan have been largely on the mainland. Over the decades since then, the area of the bases on the mainland has been slashed by 65% with the closure of a number of major facilities in places like Tokyo and neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture, while the area they occupy in Okinawa has been trimmed by only 20%. It will not be easy to reduce the 74% figure. Just closing bases in Okinawa will reduce the denominator as well as the numerator, so the share will not change that much. In order to lower the figure substantially, base closures in Okinawa will need to be accompanied by increases in the area of bases on the mainland. But, with the exception of Iwakuni, no sites on the mainland have agreed to take on some of the burden currently borne by Okinawa. All we hear is words about the need for better balance. When Hashimoto Tōru was governor of Osaka, he suggested moving a base there, but no other prefectural governor has said anything similar. The emotional rift between Okinawa and the mainland is deep. In the final months of World War II, the Japanese military sacrificed Okinawa as a pawn for the defense of the mainland and forced local residents to act as human shields against the advancing American forces. This memory has left the Okinawans profoundly distrustful of their mainland compatriots.

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Pro- Environment- Bases

Ingredients for Agent Orange were stored in Okinawa and released many toxic chemicals. Mitchell, International Peace Research Institute @ Meiji Gakuin Univ; 11/25/2013 (Jon; Asia-Pacific Journal; Volume 11, Issue 47, Number 6; “Okinawa- The Pentagon’s toxic junk heap of the Pacific”; http://apjjf.org/2013/11/47/Jon-Mitchell/4039/article.html)

In June 2013, construction workers unearthed more than 20 rusty barrels from beneath a soccer pitch in Okinawa City. The land had once been part of Kadena Air Base - the Pentagon’s largest installation in the Pacific region - but was returned to civilian usage in 1987. Tests revealed that the barrels contained two ingredients of military defoliants used in the Vietnam War - the herbicide 2,4,5-T and 2,3,7,8-TCDD dioxin. Levels of the highly toxic TCDD in nearby water measured 280 times safe limits.1 The Pentagon has repeatedly denied the storage of defoliants - including Agent Orange - on Okinawa.2 Following the discovery, it distanced itself from the barrels; a spokesperson stated it was investigating if they had been buried after the land’s return in 19873 and a U.S. government-sponsored scientist suggested they may merely have contained kitchen or medical waste.4 However, the conclusions of the Japanese and international scientific community were unequivocal: Not only did the barrels disprove Pentagon denials of the presence of military defoliants in Japan, the polluted land posed a threat to the health of local residents and required immediate remediation.5 * * * The Pentagon is the largest polluter on the planet.6 Producing more toxic waste than the U.S.A.’s top three chemical manufacturers combined, in 2008 25,000 of its properties within the U.S. were found to be contaminated. More than 100 of thee were classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as Superfund sites which necessitated urgent clean-up.7 Although Okinawa Island hosts more than 30 U.S. bases - taking up 20% of its land - there has never been a concerted attempt to investigate levels of contamination within them. Unlike other nations with U.S. bases such as South Korea and Germany, the Japanese government has no effective powers to conduct environmental checks, nor does the Pentagon have a duty to disclose to the public any contamination that it knows to exist.8 To date, most incidents of pollution have only become known when individual service members divulge details to the media or, as in the case of the barrels uncovered in Okinawa City, the Japanese authorities conduct tests following the return of military land. Despite their limited scope, such disclosures offer a disturbing window into the contamination of Okinawa. Over the past seven decades, the island’s sea, land and air have been contaminated with toxins including arsenic, depleted uranium, nerve gas and carcinogenic hexavalent chromium. These substances have poisoned Okinawan civilians and U.S. troops alike - and it is highly probable that they are damaging the health of those living on the island today. But, regardless of these risks, the Pentagon continues to do everything it can to evade responsibility for the damage its bases cause.

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Pro- Environment- Dugongs

Only 50 Okinawan dugongs exist in the status quo. Military bases are killing them and driving them out of their natural habitat. Dugongs only reproduce a few times in a lifetime, so forcing them out of their habitats is akin to forcing them into extinction. Teh 2015 (Ian, “A US Military Base Could Kill Off Japan’s Last Dugongs.” http://www.vice.com/read/a-us-military-base-could- kill-off-japans-last-dugongs. November 25, 2015)

Okinawa is an island on the most southern end of Japan. To mainland residents, it's mostly known as a place for tropical holidays and the foreign military. In fact, 74 percent of American military facilities on Japanese soil are in Okinawa. This is despite the fact Okinawa only accounts for 0.6 percent of Japanese territory. Once called the "Galápagos of the East" Okinawa is also the last remaining home for Japanese dugongs. It's estimated that around only 50 of these animals still exist and of that number most are concentrated in a feeding ground around Henoko Bay. Unfortunately, this is where the US Military wants to expand two aircraft runways into the bay. The dugongs, it's assumed, will starve while another 262 other endangered species will also be affected. To find out how local residents and protesters feel about this, we spoke to photographer Ian Teh who was contracted by Greenpeace to cover Okinawa's recent protests. VICE: Hi Ian, can you tell me why dugongs live in just this one bay? Ian Teh: Because ironically the presence of this military base, Camp Schwab, stopped any further development around the bay. This preserved it as almost pristine and this expansion will destroy the last bit of land that isn't that developed in Okinawa. So the dugongs won't be able to go elsewhere? I'm no specialist on that, but Japanese dugongs are sensitive. They follow a trail through the sea grass every day to the bay. If the bay isn't there, it's likely they'll starve. Why are there so few Japanese dugongs left? They're completely herbivorous and they move slowly. This makes them prone to being killed by other predators. Then after the war, it was humans that tended to kill dugongs for food. There was a lot of malnutrition in Okinawa after the war. And then finally they breed slowly. They only give birth to a single calf only a few times in a lifetime and that calf remains with the mother for a year and a half. All this makes it difficult for the species to survive if their environment is affected.

Henoko could drive dugongs into extinction. Brody, Earth First International Program; 12/26/2015 (Jacob; Earth Justice; “Fighting to protect the dugongs of Japan’s Henoko Bay”; http://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-december/fighting-to-protect-the-dugongs-of-japan-s-henoko-bay#)

The construction plans for the new base call for dredging and dumping large amounts of landfill into Henoko Bay, destroying the seagrass beds on which the dugongs rely for food. Construction and operation of the base will cause serious contaminant pollution from sedimentation and run-off, equipment and aircraft fuels, waste and ordinance storage. Noise and light pollution will also harass the quiet-loving dugong. These threats put the Okinawa dugong in real danger of extinction.

Concern for dugongs drives Okinawan opposition to US bases. Teh 2015 (Ian, “A US Military Base Could Kill Off Japan’s Last Dugongs.” http://www.vice.com/read/a-us-military-base-could- kill-off-japans-last-dugongs. November 25, 2015)

Can you tell me about the island? What's it like to live there? It's pretty sleepy. You wouldn't know there's anything going wrong until you get to Camp Schwab and you see pickets and people demonstrating. Most of the protesters are retired and I think for them it's very much about the legacy. They're worried their children won't grow up in a beautiful place like they did. So the protesters are locals? Most are locals. Some do it for the dugongs, but others want the base out because they feel it's a frontier for tensions with other countries. It's multifaceted, but it almost always comes down to the environment. How have the police responded to demonstrators? When I've been there, they've seemed very polite and professional. The protesters are the same and they all use non-violent tactics. Generally you would find these elderly people linking arms to block trucks coming into the base that might be carrying building equipment. And the police come out, riot police, and

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they physically lift these people out. It's quite professional, but I think that's partly because the police are locals. So people sympathize with the protestors? If you just took the Okinawan public, a poll was made and 80 percent opposed the building work. You've got local politicians against this thing. So it's very unusual for the Japanese government to override the voice of the people.

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Pro- Environment- Dugongs

Bases will drive Okinawan manatee into extinction. Fogarty 2010 ( Philippa “Environmental fears over US base plan in Okinawa” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific- 11404406. October 2010)

But there is support from environmentalists who say the base would devastate marine life and destroy one of the last feeding grounds of the Okinawa dugong. So too from local lawmakers. "A new base would have a considerable impact on the lifestyle and culture of the local area, and also on sea life," says Mayor Susumu Inamine. "The people who are sitting- in at Henoko, the people who oppose the base are not political - they are there because their lifestyle is threatened."…Eight thousand US marines would move to Guam, Futenma would be closed and the land returned. A replacement facility would be built in Henoko. The current plan is for land to be reclaimed off Camp Schwab to support either one or two 2km-runways. On paper, it makes sense. The area has high unemployment and - near the base site - few residents. Supporters say the base will provide jobs while impacting on far fewer people. But many residents oppose the plan. Environmentalists say the proposed landfill would harm rare marine life - turtles, coral - in the area. They say it will directly affect the last known feeding ground of the Okinawa dugong. Dugongs feed on sea grasses that grow in the clear, sun-lit waters around the Henoko area. Their feeding trenches - dugongs leave empty channels as they eat their way along the sea bed - are monitored in two bays about 4 km from the planned base. Taro Hosokawa of the Dugong Network Okinawa says the whole area should be given special protection. Manatee-like mammals also known as sea cows Critically endangered - current population estimated at less than 50 Known to feed in west coast area around Henoko; populations may exist at two other locations in Okinawa island Bigger dugong populations live in Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines "Of course the base will have an effect," he says, citing problems like aircraft noise, pollution and damage to sea grasses caused by the landfill. "Looking at the current situation, even if they don't make the base, the Okinawa dugong will become extinct. But if they build the base, it will happen faster."

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Pro- Environment- Impact- Biodiversity

Okinawa is a rich place for biodiversity. It is home to manatees, sea turtles, 1,000 species of fish that are distinct, and 1,000 types of mollusks—all of which the bases endanger. Shaw 2005 (Jeff “Marines and Manatees A Proposed U.S. Base in Okinawa Threatens Endangered Dugongs” Feb. 2005. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/mediaarchive/Propsed%20US%20Base%20in%20Okinawa%20Threatens%20Dugongs.pdf)

Plans are in place for a first-of-its-kind sea-based heliport for the U.S. Marines. Built directly on top of a sensitive coral reef, the mammoth air station’s runway will reach a mile into the Pacific Ocean. Peter Galvin of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) says that the heliport would smother the life support system of multiple endangered species—among them the critically endangered dugong (manatee), sacred to locals. Only 50 of these genetically distinct creatures survive in the region, comprising the northernmost population. Along with five other environmental groups from Okinawa, mainland Japan and the United States, CBD has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Department of Defense seeking to stop the sea base. “Okinawa is sometimes called the ‘Galapagos of the East’ because of the incredible species diversity found there,” says Galvin, a biologist. “Clearly, this is not the place for another military base.” “The coral reef is going to be destroyed, the dugong habitat is going to be destroyed, and there’s going to be pollution in what is a pretty clean body of water,” predicts Jonathan Taylor, a professor at California State University-Fullerton. “There’s also going to be tremendous noise pollution, which will affect wildlife inland.” Besides the dugong, base construction could push other endangered animals over the brink, scientists and activists fear. “The Henoko Sea is very rich in biological diversity,” says Makishi Yoshikazu of Okinawa Environmental Network, a local activist group at the forefront of a growing social movement on both sides of the Pacific. Three endangered species of sea turtle—the green, hawksbill and loggerhead—lay eggs on beaches near the base site. Reefs in Okinawa support more than 1,000 species of fish, attracting scuba divers from all around the world to the warm, clear waters. The variety of marine life divers can see here is second only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Off the coast of Henoko village, where the new base is slated for construction, surveys recently uncovered 1,000 types of mollusks—including several that were previously undiscovered. Okinawan scuba guide Tanahara Seishu says Henoko’s sea is critical dugong habitat. Based on his photographs of “dugong trenches”—fissures in the sea grass left by feeding animals—he concludes, “Henoko is the main feeding ground of the dugong.”

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Pro- Environment- Impact- Dugongs

Manatees are a keystone species because they act as ‘indicators’ that warn biologists of potential diseases and pollutants that are in marine ecosystems that we may not otherwise be aware of. Manatees are a ‘sentinel’ species that guards the ecosystem. If they die, the fate of fish, dolphins and humans hangs in the balance. George Mason University 2012 (“Manatees reflect quality of health in marine ecosystems, longterm study finds.” October 2, 2012. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121002145450.htm)

"Manatees are the proverbial 'canaries in the mineshaft,' as they serve as indicators of their environment and may reflect the overall health of marine ecosystems," says Alonso Aguirre, executive director of the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation and coauthor of a paper on this research published recently in PLoS One journal, in collaboration with scientists of University of California-Davis, USGS and Sea to Shore Alliance. Aguirre calls them a "sentinel species," which means they are early warning indicators of environmental change. Because they may be highly susceptible or highly resistant to different environmental stressors, manatees can indicate a severe environmental change before other species or humans are affected. "Studying them may help us predict a change that has the potential to be devastating to an ecosystem or a habitat if left unaddressed," Aguirre says. The study was conducted in a small fishing community that is beginning to prosper and gain more tourists in southern Belize. It documented changes in a relatively pristine area with low human impact as researchers saw the effects of human influence, more stress, boat strikes and other changes occurring as time went on. Researchers like Aguirre are focusing on discovering the systemic health threats to marine vertebrate species, including marine mammals, as they relate to marine ecological health. There has been an unprecedented number of emerging and re-emerging diseases in dolphins, coral reefs and marine turtles in recent years. "The single species approach may provide a series of "snapshots" of environmental changes to determine if animal, human or ecosystem health may be affected," says Aguirre. The researchers captured the animals to tag and track them before releasing them back to their habitats. Health assessments were conducted based on clinical exams, ultrasonic fat measurements, hematology, blood biochemistry, and urine and fecal analyses. The team was able to collect close to 200 blood samples between 1997 and 2009. In addition, aerial surveys by helicopter were conducted twice a year to monitor population numbers. Aguirre, also a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University, said, "This longterm study, unique within marine mammals, provides insight on the baseline health of this species now threatened primarily by human encroachment, poaching and habitat degradation."

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Pro- Gender

In 1945, American forces occupied Okinawa murdering, raping, and abusing hundreds of thousands of Okinawans. 84 days later the battle ended for the US, but not for Okinawa. Over 60 years later Okinawa continues to live under the legacy of gender violence imposed by US military presence. Mercier, Writer @ On the Issues; 1997 (Rick; On the Issues; “Way off base: the shameful history of military rape in Okinawa”; 1/31; http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1997winter/w97_Mercier.php)

As I continue walking up the street, however, I spy a crack in the commodity-spectacle. Outside a surplus shop, a wall mural depicts a startled, larger-than-life woman clutching a bath towel against her nude body. Beside her in big, bold letters is the store's name: Surprise Attack. The connection between militarism and sexual violence could not have been articulated more clearly, and it is especially apt in light of the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in September 1995./ That crime was no isolated incident. Four months earlier, a 24-year-old woman was beaten to death with a hammer by a U.S. serviceman. In 1993, a soldier raped an Okinawan woman, then escaped while in the custody of U.S. military police. There have been at least 34 murders committed by U.S. military personnel since 1955, when six-year-old Yumiko Nagayama was abducted, raped, and murdered by a U.S. Air Force sergeant. Twenty-three of the victims have been Okinawan women or girls (another was a woman serving in the U.S. military)./ A glance at the litany of crimes reveals a correlation between U.S. military action in Asia and violence directed against women in Okinawa. During the Vietnam War era, 17 women were murdered by military personnel who were on R and R leave, were training for combat, or were somehow already involved in the war effort, which in Okinawa included daily B-52 sorties originating from Kadena Air Force Base. Eleven of the victims worked serving soldiers as bar hostesses or sauna attendants - occupations that helped keep the GIs happy and thus maintained their willingness to kill in other Asian countries. It was in this way that the military's violence in Southeast Asia - often initiated in Okinawa - boomeranged back to Japan's remote island prefecture, where Okinawan women became the victims of deadly attack./ Suzuyo Takazato, a member of the Naha city assembly and a longtime women's activist in Okinawa, has made it her lifework to educate people about militarism and violence against women and to organize concerned citizens around the issue. Speaking at a demonstration after the rape of the 12-year-old schoolgirl, she denounced the idea that all U.S. soldiers needed was a little more sensitivity training: "Education does not help because the military itself is a form of structural violence. A soldier may be a good son to his mother, or a good husband to his wife. However, once he is integrated into the military, he...is trained to inflict violence.... Teaching humanity in the military is a gross contradiction. The military is a place for teaching brutality."/ WOMEN'S ACTIVISTS IN OKINAWA ARGUE THAT ACTS of violence by U.S. military personnel against Okinawan women should be considered war crimes. They cite the Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which states: "Rape that takes place in a situation of armed conflict constitutes a war crime and under certain circumstances it constitutes a crime against humanity." Okinawan women contend that similar consideration should be given to sexual violence that occurs in the context of a long-term military presence./ The rape of the schoolgirl "represents only one in a continuing series of innumerable assaults committed against girls and women that began the day the U.S. military forces landed on Okinawa fifty years ago," assert Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence, a group formed in fall 1995. They have appealed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to conduct a human rights investigation in Okinawa. "There is a lack of recognition regarding ...human rights violations committed against women and children in those places around the world where, as in Okinawa, there exists a foreign military presence," they wrote to Dr. Radhika Coomaraswany, special rapporteur for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. In their request to the U.N., the group points out that during the postwar occupation, which lasted until 1972, Okinawans were deprived of the right to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. military personnel or dependents. The U.S. military occupation government that ruled Okinawa until its reversion to Japan also failed to keep accurate records of such crimes./ Takazato says the U.N. has still made no official response to the request. In the meantime, Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence will conduct its own investigation, sending out surveys and seeking Okinawa residents' accounts of human rights violations by U.S. military personnel dating back to the invasion of Okinawa by U.S. forces in the spring of 1945./ Sexual violence by military forces began in Okinawa when Japanese troops arrived during World War II. To serve the 100,000 soldiers deployed throughout the Okinawan islands, the Japanese military government set up 130 military brothels in houses, public buildings, barracks, storehouses, even caves. Between 400 and 500 Okinawan women and approximately 1,000 Korean women were compelled to become "comfort women," or sexual slaves, for Japanese soldiers. One Okinawan war survivor recalls the plight of Korean comfort women once U.S. troops came ashore: "[There] were a large group of Korean women hiding together.... The Japanese soldiers had used these young women as prostitutes before the Americans landed. After the battle started, the soldiers drove the women away...with no food and no protection."/ A historian commissioned by Okinawa Prefecture estimates that more than 10,000 rapes occurred during 84 days of fighting. After the battle was over and U.S. forces had established control of Okinawa, community bells were rung whenever U.S. troops were spotted approaching villages, and young women were hidden from soldiers. In the case of comfort women who survived the battle, many performed the same services for the new occupation forces that they had for the Japanese./ Prostitution was legal in Okinawa during the U.S. occupation government, and the Yaejima Approved Prostitution Zone was established three months after the outbreak of the Korean War. A survey conducted in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, revealed that 7,400 women were involved in prostitution around the bases. This meant that one in every 40 to 50 Okinawan females between the ages of 10 and 60 was selling her body to earn a living. During this period, according to Takazato and other women who prepared workshop materials on militarism and sexual violence for the Beijing Conference, "income from women working in prostitution ...exceeded income from production of the main agricultural crops of sugar cane and pineapple."/ Today, the strength of the yen has curtailed base-related prostitution in Okinawa, but the military still considers it an important and acceptable outlet for barracks-crazy soldiers. This was made apparent when, in the wake of the September 1995 rape of the schoolgirl, the commander of all U.S. military operations in the Pacific publicly lamented the judgment of the soldiers who were charged as suspects, reasoning that for the price of the rental car used to carry out the attack, "they could have had a girl."/ THE PEOPLE OF KlN TOWN, WHO ARE INVOLUNTARY hosts to more than 21,000 Marines, have a pretty good idea of the danger posed to Okinawan women and girls by U.S. military personnel. Kin Town is where the September 1995 rape occurred, and over the years several other highly publicized sexual assaults and murders have been reported in the small village. In 1985, a 40-year-old woman was abducted and raped there by two soldiers. Two junior high school students going for a swim at a Kin Town beach were stoned until they lost consciousness and then raped by a Marine in 1975. The rape of the junior high students had followed an incident the year before in which a 17-year-old woman and her uncle were ambushed by three soldiers who beat the uncle unconscious and gang-raped the woman. Between 1965 and 1971, four women from Kin Town were believed to have been murdered by U.S. servicemen, though there is record of only one conviction by U.S. military courts./ These incidents represent only a small portion of what Kin Town residents have had to endure. On top of all the unreported sexual assaults are the military-related accidents that have injured or killed citizens, and the environmental damage caused by live artillery drills in the area. One accident involved a 73-year- old woman who was crushed by a tank while combing a village beach for bullets. In another notorious incident, a 55-year-old woman was shot to death in Kin Town by a U.S. sergeant who testified that he had mistaken her for a wild boar. The defendant was acquitted by a military court./ The suffering forced upon residents of Kin Town and other Okinawans could not have been imposed on Japanese citizens who live on the mainland. The concentration of the bases in Okinawa must be viewed as a manifestation of the discrimination that Okinawans have faced from mainland Japan ever since Okinawa was annexed in the 19th century. Many Okinawans feel that

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this discrimination was responsible for the Imperial Army's decision to use Okinawa as a buffer during the final months of World War II./ About 150,000 Okinawans (one fourth of the island's population) died during the battle in Okinawa, which Okinawans call the "Typhoon of Steel." After the battle, U.S. troops put survivors into detention camps and seized the best land in Okinawa, mostly in the central part of the island where the bulk of Okinawans lived. The U.S. military continued confiscating land until the mid-'50s./ In 1952, the first "all-island struggle" emerged to resist the escalating enclosure of land by the U.S. occupation government. During the '60s and early '70s, Okinawans protested against the Vietnam War and the storage of poison gas at Okinawa bases. Citizens also started a grassroots reversion movement, believing that this would lead to the removal of the bases. Today, despite more than four decades of resistance, 20 percent of the main island lies behind chain-link fences and barbed wire erected by the U.S. military./ The anti-base movement showed its strength in October 1995 with a demonstration of 85,000 people (nearly 7 percent of the prefecture's population - equivalent to a 560,000-person march in New York City). The U.S. and Japanese governments, after years of ignoring Okinawans, finally took notice, but have sought to limit the terms of the public debate to a question of giving back some land to Okinawans and reducing irritants such as noise pollution. As a Japanese Defense Agency official told a Japanese newspaper, "At any cost, we want to avoid repetition of the past, when anti-base movement groups campaigned for removal of bases across the country."/ The April agreement between the U.S. and Japanese governments to consolidate the bases in Okinawa was played up as a good faith effort to wipe away some of what U.S. Ambassador Walter Mondale has called the U.S. military's "footprints" in Okinawa. The media in the United States bought the U.S. and Japanese governments' line. The Washington Post reported that the decision to close down the Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station "solves the most contentious issue between the United States and residents of Okinawa."/ Kin Town residents, however, might disagree with the Washington Post's interpretation of the April accord, for what they learned (and what the Post did not report) was that one of the conditions for closing Futenma Air Station was the construction a new heliport somewhere else in Okinawa. Camp Hansen in Kin Town was named as a possible relocation site for the heliport, but strong local opposition caused officials in Tokyo and Washington to drop it from their list of options./ The prevailing view in Okinawa is that the April agreement is deeply flawed and that it may in fact lead to a greater entrenchment of the military presence in the prefecture. "If they build a new heliport, the bases will stay here," says Etsuko Une, who works at a museum adjacent to Futenma Air Base. "Okinawa belongs to Okinawans, not to the U.S. military."/ WHILE OKINAWANS PERSIST IN THEIR FIGHT against the U.S. and Japanese governments, so do the crimes against women and girls by U.S. military personnel. In January 1996, a 14-year-old American girl was allegedly raped at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa by a 24-year-old airman. In another rape reported in March in Chatan Town, Okinawa, the assailant was identified as a foreign man. In mid-September, two soldiers were questioned in connection with the beating and robbery of a female bar manager in Ishikawa village, near Kin Town./ Recent crimes involving U.S. servicemen in places other than Okinawa also testify to the threat posed to women by the military. In September, a U.S. soldier stationed in Korea confessed to killing a Korean prostitute. In Japan's Nagasaki Prefecture this summer, a Navy petty officer from the amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood reportedly molested a Japanese girl. The Belleau Wood, home-ported at the U.S. Navy base in the Nagasaki town of Sasebo, is the flagship of an amphibious squadron established in 1992 for deployment of Marines from Okinawa to "hot spots" around the globe./ Okinawans have learned from experience that this unending chain of crimes against women and girls is inseparable from the institution of the military. The mass destruction carried out by the military has always coexisted with and presupposed systematic gender violence. Indeed, as the actions of the Japanese and U.S. militaries in Okinawa have shown, exploitation and violence directed against women is acknowledged within the military as a key to reproducing the capacity of men to carry out mass violence. Okinawans are doing us a great service by attacking the U.S. military locally, and by making general critiques of the character of the military. We owe it to them to add our voices and our actions to their struggle, which ultimately is about a lot more than just what goes on in Okinawa.

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Pro- Gender

Today, military presence in Okinawa represents and enacts the continuation of endless violence – bodies, lands, and communities are treated as disposable, justified by the constant fear of insecurity, and gender violence is ignored in favor of upholding a national security state. Kirk, Founder International Women’s Network Against Militarism, & Feffer, Korean Studies Fellow @ Stanford & Editor Foreign Policy in Focus; 2008 (Gwyn & John; Foreign Policy in Focus; 3/14; “Gender and US bases in Asia Pacific”; http://fpif.org/gender_and_us_bases_in_asia-pacific/)

The power dynamics of militarism in the Asia-Pacific region rely on dominance and subordination. These hierarchical relationships, shaped by gender, can be seen in U.S. military exploitation of host communities, its abuse and contamination of land and water, and the exploitation of women and children through the sex industry, sexual violence, and rape. Women’s bodies, the land, and indigenous communities are all feminized, treated as dispensable and temporary. What is constructed as “civilized, white, male, western, and rational” is held superior to what is defined as “primitive, non-white, female, non-western, and irrational.” Nations and U.S. territories within the Asia-Pacific region are treated as inferiors with limited sovereignty or agency in relation to U.S. foreign policy interests that go hand-in-hand with this racist/sexist ideology./ The imbalance of power in gender relations in and around bases is mirrored at the alliance level as well. The United States controls Hawai’i through statehood; Guam is a colonial territory; and the United States is the dominant partner in alliances with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. The expansion and restructuring of U.S. bases and military operations in the region depend on these imbalances of power, which are rooted in histories of annexation, colonization, exploitation, and war./ The Asia-Pacific region is a major part of the worldwide network of U.S. bases and facilities that support the global war on terror and enables the United States to extend its reach far beyond its own shores. The war on terror is only the latest justification for U.S. military presence in communities that have little say over the activities of armed outsiders. This network in turn depends on a set of interrelated phenomena – violence against women and girls, violation of local people’s self-determination, and abuse and contamination of the environment – that reinforce gender stereotypes./ Military Violence against Women/ Violence against women is pervasive at U.S. bases in the region and in prevailing military culture and training. The case of Okinawa is especially shocking. In the past 62 years, there have been 400 reported cases of women who have been attacked, kidnapped, abused, gang-raped, or murdered by U.S. troops. Victims have included a nine-month old baby and girls between six and 15 years old. Most recently, in February 2008, Staff Sgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott, aged 38, of Camp Courtney in Okinawa, was arrested and charged with raping a 14-year-old girl./ In November 2005, several Marines stood trial for raping a Philippine woman, “Nicole” (a pseudonym) near Olongapo (Philippines). One man, Daniel Smith, a U.S. marine, was convicted of this crime and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment in the Philippines. However, he was transferred to U.S. custody immediately after conviction. Philippine and U.S. organizations contend that this case illuminates the negative impacts of the U.S.- Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which undermines Philippines national sovereignty./ Violence against women recurs around U.S. bases in Asia. A particularly brutal rape and murder of a Korean woman in 1992 led to street demonstrations in Seoul and the formation of a new organization, the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea, to document crimes and help victims claim redress. Activists in Guam are justifiably concerned that such violence will rise in their communities with the proposed increase in U.S. Marines stationed there./ Military personnel are trained to dehumanize “others” as part of their preparation for war. Their aggressiveness, frustration, and fear spill over into local communities, for example in acts of violence against girls and women. Although most U.S. troops do not commit such violations, these incidents happen far too often to be accepted as aberrations. Racist and sexist stereotypes about Asian women – as exotic, accommodating, and sexually compliant – are an integral part of such violence. These crimes inflame local hostility and resistance to U.S. military bases and operations, and have long-lasting effects on victims/survivors. Cases are seriously underreported due to women’s shame and fear or their belief that perpetrators will not be apprehended./ This pattern of sexual violence reveals structural inequalities between Asian communities and the U.S. military, encoded in Status of Forces Agreements and Visiting Forces Agreements. The military sees each crime as an isolated act committed by individual soldiers. Local communities that protest these crimes see gendered violence as a structural issue that is perpetuated by legal, political, economic, and social structures./ Military prostitution continues despite the military’s declared “zero tolerance” policy, affirmed in Department of Defense memoranda and Executive Order 13387 that President George W. Bush signed in October 2005. These days, most women working in clubs near U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan/Okinawa are from the Philippines due to low wages, high unemployment, and the absence of sustainable economic development at home. These governments admit Philippine women on short-term entertainer visas./ Servicemen are still protected from prosecution for many infringements of local laws and customs. The sexual activity of foreign-based troops, including (but not exclusively) through prostitution, has had serious effects on women’s health, boosting rates of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental illness. U.S. Navy ships visit the Philippines for R & R and make stops at Pattaya (Thailand) where the sex-tourism industry flourished during the Vietnam War./ Violation of Local People’s Self-Determination/ The expansion of U.S. military bases and operations has had a huge adverse impact on local communities at social, economic, political, and environmental levels. Host governments and local business elites are complicit in this. They equate progress and economic development with U.S. corporate and military interests instead of addressing the effects of U.S. militarism on local communities. The United States uses political and economic control to exert military force in the Pacific region. Allied nations trade sovereignty for militarized “security.” Japan and South Korea both pay for upkeep of U.S. troops and the restructuring or expansion of U.S. bases in their countries./ Guam has yet to attain full self-government through a UN-mandated political process that requires the full cooperation of the United States. The exploitation of Guam’s colonial status has allowed massive military expansion, slated to cost $10 billion, and without consent of the indigenous people. The expansion will transform the island into a forward base with the establishment of a Global Strike Force and ballistic missile defense system. It will also significantly alter the population. The expected transfer of military personnel from Okinawa and other parts of Asia will boost the population by 21%. Although the local business elite welcomes this expansion, many people oppose it. They are also against the resulting economic dependency that is designed and imposed by U.S. foreign policy./ Okinawa is only 0.6% of the land area of Japan, yet houses 75% of U.S. military facilities in that country. There are 37 U.S. bases and installations in Okinawa, with an estimated 23,842 troops and 21,512 family members. The U.S. military proposes to build a heliport in the ocean at Henoko, (northern Okinawa), despite a 10-year campaign against it by Okinawan people and international environmental groups./ Similarly, Korean activists opposed major base expansion at Pyoungtaek, south of Seoul. However, U.S. military officials convinced the Korean government to invest millions of dollars to pay for this expansion as well as a new bombing training site./ Hawai’i is a major tourist destination, but the U.S. military installations occupying 25% of the land area continue to be invisible to most visitors and even to local people. Current examples of the military camouflaging itself in the everyday are the Superferry and the University Affiliated Research Center, both “joint-use” operations for the military and civilians. Rendering the military a normal part of daily life serves U.S. dominance and superiority as truths that cannot be challenged. In tourist brochures Hawai’i is personified as an exotic woman, nearly naked, clad in a hula skirt and lei. Such images make women seem available for exploitation, much as the military treats the land as available for misuse./ Another example of the extension of U.S. military domination is the greater involvement of local armies, such as joint exercises with the armed forces of the Philippines, the New Mexico Guard, and the Guam Army National Guard, as part of the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program. This allows state National Guards to partner with foreign countries and

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is expected to expand in the coming years within the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asian countries./ The Asia-Pacific region is part of the worldwide network of U.S. bases, facilities, refueling and R & R stops, and reserves of potential recruits that all support the global war on terror. Bases in Hawai’i, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan/Okinawa serve as key training grounds for the Iraq War. Moreover, Guam, Diego Garcia, South Korea, and Okinawa are among the transit points for troops and military supplies for the war./ Abuse and Contamination of Environment/ The military misuse of the land is part of its dominance over local communities. In many places, military training has caused fires, left the land littered with unexploded bullets and bombs, and pulverized bombing training targets./ In Hawai’i, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, the U.S. military has taken no responsibility for cleaning up contamination caused by its operations. This includes heavy metals (mercury and lead), pesticides (dieldrin and malathion), solvents (including benzene and tuolene), PCBs, pesticides, and JP–4 jet fuel. The resulting toxic health effects on local communities are compounded as the years go on without remediation of contaminated land and water./ In Korea, environmentalists are urging National Assembly members to secure U.S. commitment to clean up the pollution on the many bases slated for closure there, or this will be an expense borne by Korean taxpayers. The proposed heliport at Henoko (Okinawa), meanwhile, threatens the dugong, an endangered manatee, as well as the surrounding coral reefs. Kadena Air Base in Okinawa is a hub of U.S. airpower in the Pacific, with Air Force planes training overhead a daily reality. A 1996 Okinawa Prefecture report on babies born to women living near Kadena Air Force Base showed significantly lower birth weights than those born in any other part of Japan, due to severe noise generated by the base./ Addressing Militarism/ Militarism is a system of institutions, investments, and values, which is much wider and more deeply entrenched than any specific war. To create alternate definitions of genuine peace and security, it is important to understand institutionalized gendered relations and other unequal power dynamics including those based on class, colonialism, and racism inherent in U.S. military policy and practice./ Demilitarization requires a de-linking of masculinity and militarism, stopping the glorification of war and warriors, and defining adventure and heroism in nonmilitary terms. It also requires genuinely democratic processes and structures for political and economic decision-making at community, national and transnational levels. In addition, the United States must take responsibility for cleaning up all military contamination in the Asia-Pacific region./ Instead of undermining indigenous control of lands and resources in Guam, for example, the United States and local government agencies should support the self-determination of the Chamorro people. The proposed Marines base for Henoko (Okinawa) should be scrapped and the Japanese government should redirect funds earmarked for it to economic development to benefit Okinawan people./ Since military expansion is a partner in corporate capitalist expansion, economic, political, and social development based on self-sufficiency, self-determination, and ecological restoration of local resources must be encouraged. Communities adjoining U.S. bases in all parts of the region suffer from grossly distorted economies that are overly reliant on the services (legal and illegal) that U.S. soldiers support. This economic dependency affects local men as well as women. Locally directed projects, led by those who understand community concerns, should be supported, together with government reforms to redistribute resources for such initiatives./ In addition, the United States and Asian governments need to revise their legal agreements to protect local communities. Local people need transparency in the implementation of these policies, in interagency involvement (Pentagon, State Department, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency) and in executive orders that affect U.S. military operations in the region. Such revisions should include the ability for host governments to prosecute perpetrators of military violence so that the U.S. military can be held accountable for the human consequences of its policies./ U.S. military expansion and restructuring in the Asia-Pacific region serve patriarchal U.S. goals of “full spectrum dominance.” Allied governments are bribed, flattered, threatened, or coerced into participating in this project. Even the apparently willing governments are junior partners who must, in an unequal relationship, shoulder the costs of U.S. military policies./ For the U.S. military, land and bodies are so much raw material to use and discard without responsibility or serious consequences to those in power. Regardless of gender, soldiers are trained to dehumanize others so that, if ordered, they can kill them. Sexual abuse and torture committed by U.S. military personnel and contractors against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison illustrate a grim new twist on militarized violence, where race and nation “trumped” gender. White U.S. women were among the perpetrators, thereby appropriating the masculinized role. The violated Iraqi men, meanwhile, were forced into the feminized role./ Gendered inequalities, which are fundamental to U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific region, affect men as well as women. Young men who live near U.S. bases see masculinity defined in military terms. They may work as cooks or bartenders who provide rest and relaxation to visiting servicemen. They may be forced to migrate for work to larger cities or overseas, seeking to fulfill their dreams of giving their families a better future./ U.S. peace movements should not only address U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, but also in other parts of the world. Communities in the Asia-Pacific region have a long history of contesting U.S. militarism and offer eloquent testimonies to the negative impact of U.S. military operations there. These stories provide insights into the gendered dynamics of U.S. foreign and military policy, and the complicity of allied nations in this effort. Many individuals and organizations are crying out for justice, united by threads of hope and visions for a different future. Our job is to listen to them and to act accordingly.

The military presence in East Asia requires masculinity and this spills over - they train and utilize sexism and hyper-masculine culture to justify the sexual abuse of women Gwyn Kirk and Carolyn Bowen Francis, Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security, Francis- one of the founding members of Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence, “Redefining Security: Women Challenge U.S. Military Policy and Practice in East Asia” Berkeley Women's Law Journal 15 Berkeley Women's L.J. (2000) http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/berkwolj15&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=journals#247

Many of the problems created by U.S. military presence in East Asia stem from the sexist attitudes and hyper-masculine culture that pervade the military. Different branches of the U.S. Armed Forces have developed this hyper-masculine culture to varying degrees, with the Air Force at the lower end of the spectrum and the Marines at the higher end." This phenomenon has had far reaching effects in places such as Okinawa, where Marines account for sixty percent of the U.S. troops.” Young boys in the United States, as in many parts of the world, develop their masculine identity during early childhood through a combination of adventure stories, comics, cartoons, competitive team sports, war toys, computer games, news reporting, ads, television shows, and films.” This routine gender socialization is taken further in basic military training where new recruits are pushed to the limits of their strength and stamina and are trained to follow orders without question, no matter how nonsensical or humiliating." As part of military training, servicemen learn how to use highly sophisticated weaponry and equipment; they are socialized as warriors. A key aspect of this training and socialization process is the way recruits are insulted and reviled by drill sergeants as “women” and “queers” as part of the military promise “to make a man” of them." According to feminist scholars of military systems and international relations, militarism depends on a clearly gendered division of labor and the maintenance of hierarchy,

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including sexism and violence against women.” Military socialization involves the construction of a militarized masculinity that emphasizes heroism, physical strength, emotional detachment, the capacity for violence and killing, and an appearance of invulnerability.” This view of masculinity involves the construction of male sexuality as assertive and controlling," and results in three consequences: the need for the institutionalization of military prostitution, U.S. military abuse of women in host communities, and sexual abuse of women in the military.

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Pro- Gender- Dehumanization

The military requires a dehumanization of women and children and only sees them as objects of sexual exploitation, transferring diseases and leaving thousands of Amerasian children to suffer from stigma Kirk, Cornwell, Okazawa-Rey, 1996 [FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, “Women and the U.S. Military in East Asia” Written by Gwyn Kirk, (Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security), Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey are founder-members of the East Asia-U.S. Women's Network Against U.S. Militarism. Rachel Cornwell is Program Assistant for the Demilitarization and Alternative Security Program of the Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace. Edited by Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC), http://www.lightparty.com/Politics/ForeignPolicy/WomanInMilitary.html]

Negative effects of U.S. militarism on women and children in East Asia include sexual exploitation, physical and sexual violence, the dire situation of many Amerasian children, and health hazards of pollution caused by military operations. - To maintain its capacity to fight two regional wars at the same time, the Pentagon plans to maintain 100,000 troops in the Asia- Pacific region for the foreseeable future. - The concept of security is too militarized and does not include the human rights of women and children and the protection of the physical environment. The Pentagon's objective is to be capable of fighting two regional wars at the same time. For planning purposes these are assumed to be in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. This scenario assumes that 100,000 U.S. troops will continue to be based in East Asia for the foreseeable future. Currently there are 37,000 U.S. military personnel in Korea and some 60,000 in Japan, including 13,000 on ships home-ported there. The islands of Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, house 39 bases and installations (75% of all U.S. bases in Japan) although Okinawa is only 0.6% of the country's land area. 30,000 troops and another 22,500 family members are stationed in Okinawa. There were extensive U.S. bases in the Philippines until 1992, when the Philippine Senate voted against renewal of their leases. The U.S. subsequently proposed a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) to cover situations when U.S. troops are in the Philippines for joint exercises or shore leave. The VFA would give access to Philippine ports and airports on all the main islands for refueling, supplies, repairs, and rest & recreation (R & R)-potentially far greater access than before, but under the guise of commercial arrangements and without the expense of maintaining permanent workforces and facilities. The VFA has to be ratified by the Philippine Senate before going into effect. It is currently under discussion. Sexual violence, sexual exploitation, thousands of fatherless Amerasian children, and health problems linked to environmental contamination are some of the damaging effects of the U.S. military presence in East Asia. Research conducted by a group called Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence shows that U.S. troops in Okinawa have committed more than 4,700 reported crimes since 1972, when Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration. Many of these were crimes of violence against women. In Korea, too, the number of crimes is high. A particularly brutal rape and murder of a barwoman, Yoon Kum Ee, in 1992 galvanized human rights advocates to establish the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea in order to document these crimes and help victims claim redress. Violence against women is seriously underreported, due to the victims' shame and fear or their belief that perpetrators will not be apprehended. Women who work in the bars, massage parlors, and brothels near U.S. bases are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. The sexual activity of foreign-based U.S. military personnel, including (but not exclusively) through prostitution, has had very serious effects on women's health, precipitating HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, drug and alcohol dependency, and mental illness. In Korea, Japan, and the Phillipines, Amerasian children born to women impregnated by U.S. troops are a particularly stigmatized group. They are often abandoned by their military fathers and raised by single Asian mothers. They live with severe prejudice and suffer discrimination in education and employment due to their physical appearance and their mothers' low status. Those with African-American fathers face even worse treatment than those having Caucasian fathers.

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Pro- Gender- Prostitution

Okinawans have a history of protesting against sexual violence on the island. Kimura, Prof Poly Sci @ Univ College London; 2/13/2016 (Maki; Open Democracy; “The anti-US military base struggle in Okinawa, Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/maki-kimura/anti-us-military-base-struggle-in-okinawa-japan)

The strategic importance of Okinawa for military operations has meant that people in Okinawa have lived with the consequences of the presence of the military and the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). These include the everyday violence of environmental damage, aeronautical noise, accidents caused by aircraft and military vehicles, together with sexual violence. As a result, anti-US military base movements and protests in Okinawa have been active for years. Feminist anti-military campaigns, such as those by Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, led by Takazato Suzuyo, have highlighted the violation of human rights of people in Okinawa, particularly the suffering of women who fell victim to sexual violence. Residents in Higashison Takae Village in the northern part of the main island have organised a sit-in protest since 2007 to oppose the building of new helipads that prepare for the deployment of military aircraft Osprey. However, these examples are only the beginning of the chronicle of Okinawan resistance.

Bases created prostitution in Okinawa and dramatically increased incidents of rape and sexual violence. Rabson, Prof East Asian Studies @ Brown Univ; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

In the mid-1960s, Okinawa became a major support base for the Vietnam War, as it had been for the Korean War (1950-1953). According to Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr., commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, “without Okinawa we couldn’t continue fighting the Vietnam War.”18 Installations there stored weapons and equipment, trained troops for “jungle warfare,” and, together with Guam and Thailand, launched B-52 bombers for raids in Southeast Asia. Ammunition used in Vietnam was stored at the Henoko ordnance depot, and the Marines at Camp Schwab held combat exercises in the nearby Northern Training Area. It is estimated that between 150 and 200 “G.I. bars” flourished in Henoko during this period, with many also functioning as second-floor brothels. Okinawa was a destination for troops on two-week “R & R” (rest and recuperation) leaves from the war. Soldiers and Marines who had accumulated several months of combat pay in Vietnam would spend so much money that their dollars overflowed the cash registers.19 “We stuffed them into buckets and cardboard boxes, but they still overflowed, so we had to stomp the piles down with our feet,” recalled one bar- owner. “Dollars were raining on us.”20 The military command required owners of bars and restaurants to obtain official approval to serve U.S. forces. This was issued in the form of an “A-sign” (“approved’) certificate to be displayed on the wall of each establishment. Owners qualified for an “A-sign” by passing an inspection of the kitchen and plumbing, and by maintaining separate rest rooms for men and women. They could lose it if venereal disease was traced to one of their employees or if trouble, such as bar fights, brought the M.P.’s. Aside from admonitions by chaplains, the military did little to discourage the widespread patronage of prostitutes. In fact, official policies had the effect of encouraging it. Local commanders periodically sent health inspectors into Henoko to track down the sources of venereal disease and, during one epidemic in 1968 of a particularly virulent strain said to have originated in Southeast Asia, boxes of condoms were placed beside sign-out sheets in the orderly rooms of Army and Marine units in Henoko. Some women working in Henoko bars became the exclusive mistresses of American soldiers, with a few of these relationships leading to marriage.21 But, in this impoverished area, other women and teenage girls worked as prostitutes under duress to pay off debts they or members of their families had incurred to bar managers or moneylenders. Some suffered physical injuries, such as cigarette burns on their arms, if they failed to make payments or tried to escape. Such attacks were rumored to be the work of local criminal gangs. However, U.S. forces also perpetrated violence in Henoko’s “amusement area,” including murder, rape, assault, and burglary.22 They attacked women who refused sexual advances and fought among themselves with occasionally lethal results, as when one Marine hurled a cinder block that crushed the head of another in 1968. The same year, a woman in Henoko filed rape charges against a soldier at the ordnance depot, but he avoided a court martial by testifying that he had “paid her money,” as the company’s first sergeant announced triumphantly at morning formation. In those days, under what was oxymoronically called “occupation law,” this meant he would not face charges since the Okinawan judiciary had no authority to summon U.S. forces as defendants or witnesses.23 Today, local residents against the proposed air base point to the likely increase in crime it would bring.24

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Pro- Gender- Militarism

The U.S. occupation of Okinawa creates space to understand imperialism – power structures in Japan perpetuate colonial dominance and act as testing grounds for militarized masculinity Ginoza 5 (Ayano, September, of Women’s Studies at Washington State University “American Village as a Space of Militarism and Tourism: U.S. Militarism, Gender Hierarchy, Class, and Race in Okinawa”)

Yumiko Mikanagi, a feminist political scientist, argues that this specific rape case is ascribed to “gendered power hierarchies in society and socially sanctioned masculinities based on violence against women” (98). In another word, places like this are spaces where violence against women is socially sanctioned, and where women paradoxically attain not only freedom from traditional Okinawan gender roles, but also freedom of sexual expressions that militarism relies on, exploits, and controls. Also, places like this is a militarizing term which trivializes the militarization process of the American Village and of how women’s bodies are sexualized by veiling power inequalities. Throughout the paper, I have tried to explore the problematic concept of natural and the process of naturalizing militarization in Okinawa with a case of the American Village. The space is a symbol for the anxieties and illusions of attaining higher class, and Japanese/ American life. This examination of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa helps us understand current imperialism. The imperialism is mediated through gender and race. It is also in pursuit of the natural, historical, and current practice of satisfying the military’s need for metaphorically subjugating sexually and racially, as though the military is the man 16 acting naturally. The American Village exists as the most powerful cultural construction that reshapes contemporary Okinawan women’s sexualities toward Okinawan nature and culture. To naturalize is to trivialize the dynamic structure of sociopolitical maneuvers. The landscape of the American Village for younger generations of Okinawans is an escape from the old tragic war history, a place where they fulfill their desire for a higher social class and cross racial lines by dating and marrying GIs. On the other hand, some GIs manipulate the space as a testing ground for their masculinity on Okinawan women. This indicates the perpetuation of colonial dominance in the American Village. In a society where power is highly valued and embraced as the highest pleasure, we tend to understand the power structure and hierarchy as natural and women as sexual. In order to fight against the militarization of the Okinawan natural and social landscape, and the exploitation of women’s sexuality, it is indispensable to analyze the dynamics of naturalizing and trivializing processes.

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Pro- Gender- Impact- Patriarchy

Maintaining the patriarchal ideology of control makes all forms of oppression, otherization and environmental destruction inevitable Cuomo, 02 Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Cincinnati, 2002 (Chris, ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 2002, p.3)

I take that phrase “power and promise,” an unusually optimistic measure for anything in the contemporary discipline of philosophy, from the title of Karen Warren’s widely-read and often reprinted 1991 essay, “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism.” That essay includes an argument that is basic to Warren’s Ecofeminist Philosophy, and that is commonly characterized as the fundamental insight of ecofeminism. The view argued for is that a “logic of domination” that divides the world into bifurcated hierarchies is basic to all forms of oppression and domination. This logic (which Warren also calls a “conceptual framework”) is a way of thinking that encourages separating from and mistreating nature and members of subordinated groups, for no good reason. In addition, the conceptual frameworks that are used to justify racism, sexism, and the mistreatment of nature (etc.), are interwoven and mutually reinforcing. Some ecofeminists find that the very aspects of identity and otherness (gender, race, class, species, etc.) are created through conceptual frameworks that encourage domination rather than connection, but Warren remains agnostic about such ontological issues. Her emphasis instead is on a more basic point - that the morally loaded concepts through which we understand ourselves and reality (and through which “we” humans have historically constructed knowledge) are at the core of the terrible ecological and social messes we currently face.

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Pro- Gender- Solvency

The US military must be eliminated from Japan – the notion of security must be demilitarized and a gender perspective must be incorporated in foreign and security policy Kirk, Cornwell, Okazawa-Rey, 1996 [FOREIGN POLICY IN FOCUS, “Women and the U.S. Military in East Asia” Written by Gwyn Kirk, (Kirk - Ph.D. is visiting faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Oregon (2009-10) and a founder member of Women for Genuine Security), Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey are founder-members of the East Asia-U.S. Women's Network Against U.S. Militarism. Rachel Cornwell is Program Assistant for the Demilitarization and Alternative Security Program of the Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace. Edited by Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC). http://www.lightparty.com/Politics/ForeignPolicy/WomanInMilitary.html]

Grassroots movements for national sovereignty and self-determination in East Asian countries have gained momentum in recent years. Women’s organizations play a key role in these movements and bring a gender perspective to protests against U.S. bases. Organizations in East Asia and the United States as well as international networks are developing alternatives to militarized security that address the security of women, children, and the physical environment. These advocates recommend a series of policy changes: The U.S. military should adopt international standards regarding women’s human rights and must take responsibility for violations committed by U.S. troops in East Asia. Military training should include substantial prestationing and early stationing education to sensitize all personnel to local customs and laws, gender issues, and violence prevention. Specific personnel in each unit should be responsible for monitoring the situation, maintaining accountability, and counseling. Severe sanctions must be imposed for human rights violations, and legal investigations should be conducted by the victim’s lawyers, by independent investigative and prosecuting bodies, or by both. All military personnel must be required to pass rigorous local driving tests and provide adequate insurance coverage for full compensation of damages done to local people in East Asia. Until this requirement can be implemented, the U.S. government must fully compensate local victims when accidents occur. SOFAs should be revised to protect host communities against crimes committed by U.S. troops and against environmental contamination from U.S. military operations. This includes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines, which should be revised to protect the human rights of women and children. Congress should pass the Violence Against Women Act II (HR 357/S 51). Title V has provisions that address U.S. military violence overseas. The U.S. military should support the research, counseling, and rehabilitation work of NGOs dealing with the negative effects of U.S. military operations. It should also encourage efforts to create employment opportunities for women besides military prostitution. The U.S. should take responsibility for Amerasian children. Congress should pass the American Asian Justice Act (HR 1128), an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act (HR 1128) to facilitate the immigration of Amerasians born in the Philippines, or Japan who were fathered by U.S. citizens. Immigration procedures will need flexibility in documentation requirements. The U.S. military should investigate contamination of land and water and should undertake cleanup to acceptable standards. It should conduct research into the health effects of military toxics and should publicize its findings widely in accessible languages. Policy debates should broadly consider the question: What is genuine security for women and children living near U.S. bases? The notion of security needs to be demilitarized. Women’s voices and a gender perspective should be included in U.S. foreign and security policy discussions as a matter of routine. The U.S. should work toward the progressive reduction and eventual elimination of the U.S. military presence in East Asia by seeking alternatives to an exclusive military approach to national, regional, and global security.

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Pro- Gender- Solvency

The Okinawans struggle can speak to all forms of marginalization, its resistance will be connected to global struggles. Removing troops is a rallying cry against masculine frameworks in military institutions and develops new forms of international security Tanji 2003 (Miyume, Ph.D, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Sophia University, Australian National University, and Murdoch University, "THE ENDURING MYTH OF AN OKINAWAN STRUGGLE: THE HISTORY AND TRAJECTORY OF A DIVERSE COMMUNITY OF PROJECT", http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/pubfiles/adt- MU20040510.152840/02Whole.pdf, pgs. 19-20)

Chapter 8 focuses on the peak and the downturn period following the rise of the third wave of 'Okinawan Struggle'. The contemporary community of protest is characterized by the co-existence of plural social movements. Differences and internal divisions within the community of protest, I argue, indicate the co-existence of qualitatively different kinds of social movements, although they are all related in some way to the inequality and marginalization related to the continuing dominance of US military bases in Okinawa. A distinctive contribution of this thesis is to understand the Okinawan protest experiences in the world that are studied more widely and profoundly, for example, the civil rights movement, anti-nuclear movements and women at Greenham Common. It contributes to opening the black box of 'Okinawan protesters' represented as a collected victim of an invincible US international security policy, of Tokyo's political economy of compensation, and marginalization of a minority group in Japan. It attempts to look at who the protestors are, what they want, how they strive to get it, and why. Overall, it contends that the myth of an 'Okinawan struggle' has survived, and will survive increasing diversification of protest actors and changing reform agendas in Okinawa because of its flexibility in being harnessed to a myriad of shapes and forms of campaigns against marginalization. This dissertation reveals that through the post-war period, the myth - described variously as an 'Okinawan struggle', the 'Okinawan Struggle', or the 'Okinawans' movement' - has become less rigid in the way it is incorporated into notions of collective identity or rationales for specific protests and organizations thereof. Yet it is precisely this capacity of the myth to speak to so many different interpretations of marginalization - involving different struggles and experiences at different periods in time - that means it is still a powerful and attractive one. It continues to be an effective source of inspiration and mobilization for divergent groups by providing strategies and ideas of protest derived from past experiences, and to be a source of self-expression. Another attraction of the idea of an 'Okinawan struggle' is its ability to provide a base for individual struggles, from which to connect with common experiences of marginalization taking place in other parts of the world, thus promoting developing networks with social movement actors in global civil society.

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Pro- Gender- AT: War Causes Rape

Viewing rape as a wartime problem perpetuate the obsession with negative peace – their “turns case” evidence obscures ongoing gendered violence. Kirby, International Security @ Univ Sussex, & Kuenhast, Dir Center for Gender & Peacebuilding @ US Institute of Peace; 2014 (Paul & Kathleen; Foreign Policy; “What do we really know about wartime rape”; http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/10/what-do- we-really-know-about-wartime-rape/)

Whether spurring mass protests in India or being covered up on American university campuses, rape and other forms of sexual abuse are being discussed openly as never before. This goes too for sexual violence committed in war. And with that openness are increasing calls to change the way the world handles these crimes./ This fall, reports of sexual violence perpetrated by Islamic State kidnappers (including violence committed against minority communities in Iraq) were met with international outrage. There have been similarly troubling reports about sexual assaults committed by African Union troops in Somalia and by all sides of the conflict in the Central African Republic. This summer, then-U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague and U.N. Special Envoy Angelina Jolie co-chaired the largest-ever gathering on the subject, with 1,700 delegates from 123 countries convening to discuss the promise of “ending sexual violence in conflict.” Although concrete commitments were few, government ministers promised to address impunity, extend a range of services to those who have suffered sexual violence in war, take responsibility for their country’s own armed forces, and improve international cooperation./ Those pronouncements are welcome, of course. But their ability to foster real change depends on understanding sexual violence in all its complexity, whether in conflict or outside of it. Which begs the question: What is actually known about the scale and forms of sexual violence, and how what happens in peacetime affects what happens in wartime — and vice versa?/ In some respects, a lot is already known. Despite complaints that sexual violence is not yet a sufficiently studied topic in political science, networks of dedicated scholars exist and are growing. Research over the last decades has shown that not all conflicts are marked by sexual violence to the same extent or in the same way, an important corrective to ideas of it as inevitable. New and extensive efforts at data collection also suggest that, in contrast to common assumptions about rebel groups and civilian victimization, state armed forces are the major perpetrators. We know that sexual violence persists — and can even increase — after war’s end, and that it has a complex relationship to peacetime abuses. There is good reason to think that under-reporting is a problem, but that this can be corrected somewhat by creating a better and safer environment for the victims who report such crimes. And we know that men and boys are survivors too./ Yet unfortunately, such important insights often do not drive policy as much as they could./ In part, this is because for all that is known about sexual violence in war, there’s much more that remains unclear. One major problem is how difficult it is to get a reliable picture of the global level and distribution of sexual violence. The bulk of well-researched human rights reports focus on specific conflict zones, and the pattern of atrocities they sketch out often is not comparable to other studies, making a comprehensive view frustratingly elusive. For instance, studies don’t always use the same conceptual frameworks. Some define sexual violence to include sexual slavery, while others do not. Some include sexualized torture against men held in detention, while others only look at crimes against women. It is still regrettably common for gender to be used as a synonym for women, ignoring that men’s experiences of war are also gendered. Some themes — such as the connection between violence against men, especially those who are abducted as boys by armed groups, and the violence they go on to perpetrate — are not even visible without that inclusion. These are not merely technical questions, but political ones. The exclusion of some from the role of survivor reinforces political narratives about victims and perpetrators, narratives that in turn shape who gains political recognition and agency./ Without more accurate data — such as reliable baseline surveys on sexual violence before war begins — researchers can only make rough judgments about where violations are greatest, and what role conflict plays in driving them. Decisions over where best to focus limited resources are more robust, or at least more transparent, when changes in sexual abuse committed over time and different events are better understood. Without this kind of effort, it is too easy for individual cases and horrifying scenarios to drive both policy and media attention./ Of course, sexual violence is infamously bedeviled by problems of measurement. One of the most reliable methods — the large, nationally representative survey — is rarely employed, and often cannot be, in conflict situations. Moreover, fluctuations in reporting, driven by factors such as relative security and confidence in authorities, can produce a false sense of precision./ The U.S. military serves as a case in point. The latest investigation of sexual violence in the military by the Department of Defense (DOD) reports a 50 percent increase reported cases in 2013. This is the largest year-on-year jump in a steadily rising trend that began in the mid-2000s. Although critics are right to identify a range of failures in DOD programs, it is highly unlikely that the rate of perpetration has shifted so dramatically in 12 months. Instead, the change points to a willingness to report, attributable either to better procedures within the military or greater confidence on the part of survivors, who are perhaps now more aware that their cases are not isolated ones. After all, up until a few years ago, the issue of rape in the military was not much discussed in the media. Today, however, the experience of assault is better documented and has gained the attention of policymakers./ Even where reliable figures exist, misleading statistics often persist. In the case of wartime sexual violence, mythical numbers can linger not only as under-estimates (because of low reporting) but also sometimes as over-estimates. In the aftermath of the Liberian war, for instance, it was often claimed — including by influential commentators like Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times — that 75 percent of all Liberian women had been raped, a conclusion derived from one study by the World Health Organization that had in fact only sampled women who had experienced gender-based violence. In other words, the original research had been on the prevalence of rape amongst survivors of all forms of gender-based violence (including humiliation, sexual beating, and other human rights abuses), not the prevalence of rape among Liberian women in general./ As scholars Dara Kay Cohen and Amelia Hoover Green argued in the Journal of Peace Research in 2012, such figures persist in part because there are incentives for advocacy groups to base their campaigns on dramatic claims. Assuming that a global public is ever more inured to tales of horror, it becomes tempting to choose the most shocking number over the most accurate one. This is not to say that advocacy groups maliciously distort known data, but to warn that the periodic fixation on extreme cases necessarily means that responses are less consistent than they could be, and may fail to address the social and conflict dynamics that lie beneath shock figures./ Global responses to sexual violence depend on how it’s counted, and whom researchers think counts. The willingness of policymakers to take sexual violence seriously in recent years has largely come from a framing of it is a weapon of war — that is, a mass atrocity deliberately adopted as a tactic of war to access economic resources or conquer strategic zones. The result has been an over-emphasis by media and activists on military perpetrators. Studies that focus on testimony from war zones or that foreground stories of attacks by soldiers are likely to discount the high levels of intimate partner and civilian-perpetrated sexual violence that also occur in conflict situations. Although there is no universal ratio to rely on, existing evidence from several studies suggest that a significant proportion (and perhaps the majority) of sexual violence is not carried out by armed groups at all. This remains an ongoing controversy in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where most media and policy focus has been on the idea of rape as a weapon of war, rather than on non-military perpetrators or much more complex dynamics of violence. If the global response focuses mainly on formal military hierarchy, many survivors will go unrecognized.

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Pro- Human Rights

Okinawa exemplifies the prioritization of security over other human rights and civilians Deborah Mantle, Lecturer in the College of International Relations at Ritsumeikan University (Japan), 2006 (“Defending the Dugong: Redefining ‘Security’ in Okinawa and Japan,” Ritsumeikan Annual Review of International Studies, Volume 5, Available Online at http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/ir/college/bulletin/e-vol.5/MANTLE.pdf, p. 85-86)

The diminishing population of Okinawa dugongs graze the sea grasses in the shallow waters off Henoko unaware of being at the centre of a political, economic and cultural struggle to define the future of Okinawa, and, as a result, of Japan as a whole. A significant part of the May 2006 agreement on the future of the U.S. – Japan security alliance and the realignment of U.S. military forces in Japan is the planned closure of Futenma Air Base in Ginowan City, Okinawa Island, by 2014 and its relocation to the relatively isolated site of Henoko in the city of Nago. The idea of a sea-based site in this northern area of the main island was first formulated by a joint U.S. – Japan committee in 1996. Local opposition was expressed in a Nago City plebiscite in 1997, and more recently in a two-year sit-in (and swim-in/sail-in) that stalled initial construction efforts. The Japanese government says the new base will be built as it is essential to national security. Critics say that military bases breed insecurity for people locally through pollution, accidents and crime and for the people of ‘peace-loving’ Japan generally by perpetuating an anti-peace, militarist conception of what constitutes ‘security’. Okinawa has always been perceived as strategically important to Japan, first as a place of trade, then as the southern limits of the constructed modern Japanese state and more recently as the linchpin of the U.S. – Japan defence policy. Despite being pivotal in terms of security, Okinawa remains on the periphery both politically and economically. Politically marginalized from its incorporation as a prefecture of Japan in 1879, Okinawa was ‘sacrificed’ once by the central government at the end of the Second World War, and critics say that as a military [end page 85] colony with 75% of the U.S. military presence in Japan, Okinawa continues to be sacrificed for the ‘good’ or ‘security’ (as defined by the national government) of all Japan. However, the voices of discontent are getting louder and are now being heard internationally. What does the Henoko situation say about how ‘security’ is being currently defined within Japan? And do the words and actions of critics offer alternative ideas of security? To situate these questions in a theoretical context, I will look at the contemporary debates concerning the concept, study and practice of security within the discipline of International Relations (IR). The prioritization of the U.S. – Japan security alliance above all else, including the rights and interests of the people of Japan and at the expense of its natural environment, reflects a traditional Realist definition of security and represents only one possible reading of security. Alternative interpretations of security, as espoused within the expanding area of critical security studies of IR, can also be seen in the words and actions of activists and academics living within and outside of Okinawa.

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Pro- Imperialism

The militarization of Okinawa is made politically invisible and has become a part of Okinawan life, but reaffirms US imperialism, creating gendered hierarchies which “feminize” Okinawans and make them inferior Ginoza 5 (Ayano, September, of Women’s Studies at Washington State University “American Village as a Space of Militarism and Tourism: U.S. Militarism, Gender Hierarchy, Class, and Race in Okinawa”)

In the same web site, the Ferris wheel glares in the night landscape of the American Village as an indication of the power of America, and triumph of Western technology. It’s a sign that tells you that you are in America. In other words, this space provides an escape from the feeling of being in Okinawa, and a place where America is accepted as cultural hegemony over Okinawan indigenous landscape. The message is of America as the center of culture, rather than Okinawa. The rhetoric reveals a statepromoted reaffirmation of U.S. cultural imperialism over Okinawan landscape. Thus, the imperialism systematically operates to transform and redefine the militarized Okinawan society. Also on this web site, the Okinawan government strategically posits the U.S. military as “a great influence” on Okinawan culture, and uses it as a cultural resource for their development of the tourist economy. Thus, for them, the U.S. military bases in the town are politically and economically indispensable. The politically constructed, imagined American landscape and buildings provide tourists with “the feeling of being in America” (bankoku shinryokan). Here, the landscape offers an image of “America” as positive and powerful—powerful enough that this American space nurtures young Okinawans to be famous performers. According to Cynthia Enloe, this is a process of militarization which “managed to slip [the military bases] into the daily lives of the nearby community” to make the military bases “politically invisible” (Bananas 66). This political invisibility of the U.S. military bases further leads young Okinawans to easily associate America with a road to their dreams. The political is camouflaged as cultural and the domination of American culture as both political and economic enterprises. This is hidden behind notions of entertainment and allows Okinawans, especially younger generations of Okinawans, to become part of this entertainment and cultural landscape. By accepting and valuing the military bases as the economic and cultural developers for the American Village, the town at the same time embraces the ideology of militarism8 and militarizing young Okinawans’ view of America. According to Enloe in The Curious Feminist, the process of militarization is not “automatic,” but it is “a sociopolitical process” which rests on “entrenchment of ideas about ‘manly men’ and ‘real women’” (219). Thus, the militarization9 is re-encouraged in the space by privileging American masculinity and feminizing Okinawa.

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Pro- Imperialism

US imperialism is a tripartite combination of imperialist thought, and racial and sexual inequalities which justify the repeated sexual oppression in Japan – the hyper-sexed and submissive stereotype of Japanese women allows servicemen to justify their rapes as consensual Woan 2008 [Sunny, a J.D. of Public Interest and Social Justice Law at Santa Clara University, 2008, “White Sexual Imperialism: A Theory of Asian Feminist Jurisprudence, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/walee14&div=17&g_sent=1&collection=journals#283, pg. 286-7]

Despite significant improvements in racial and sexual equality over the last few decades, U.S. servicemen’s treatment of women is Asia has failed to progress. In the mid-80’s, international controversy flared over a Japanese incident in Japan in which two U.S. marines and a U.S. Navy seaman gang-raped a twelve year old Japanese girl in Okinawa, Japan. They ambushed the girl after watching her enter a stationary store. The two Marines bound the girl with tape, pulled her shorts and underwear down to her ankles, and after the three men raped her, remarked that the girl looked like she enjoyed it. To filter an analysis of the Okinawa incident through the lenses of either sexual inequality or racial inequality exclusively, fails to convey fully why this twelve year old girl suffered. While many scholars see the convergence of sex and race stereotypes as the root cause of the incident, examination of only these two components is insufficient. To comprehend the gravity of harm caused by sexual-racial disparities between White men and Asian women demands a tripartite inquest. This inquest must conjoin colonial history along with that of sex and race related forces. First, the legacy of imperialism explains why the U.S. servicemen occupied Japan. After the allies defeated the Axis powers in World War II, the United States decided to meddle in East Asian political affairs: Namely by regulating Japan to prevent it from engaging in imperialism. A sense of White supremacy meant the world could fall complacent to the idea that White imperialism was somehow “better” than Asian imperialism. Thus, while Japanese military presence in East Asia posed a world threat, American presence would not. Second, the prevailing attitude that Asian women occupy an inferior position to White women and more directly, to White men, in turn appeased the consciences of these three servicemen enough to rape and express belief that she enjoyed the sexual conquest. This underscores the idea that in the eyes of White men, Asian women seem to exist solely for their sexual gratification as hyper-sexed and unconditionally submissive creatures.” The stereotype of Asian women always consenting to sex allowed the three servicemen to deny the act as a rape. It is this potent tripartite combination of imperialist thought, racial inequality, and sexual inequality that perpetuate violence against Asian women by White men. Had these components not come together under White sexual imperialism, the Okinawa incident probably would not have occurred. Asian and diasporic Asian women face higher risks of racial and sexual harassment than their White female peers. One of the main theories behind this is that the Asian experience cannot escape the stain of sexual imperialism, a stain which simply does not apply to the White woman’s experience.” Although the theory of intersectionality between race and gender alone cannot fully articulate Asian and diasporic Asian women’s lives; rather, the concurrent operation and interactive mutual dependency between race, sexuality, and dimensions of colonialism expound on their subordination.” This section comments on the present-day ramifications of White male exploitation and domination of Asian women and the feminist issues raised by the grievous legacy of White sexual imperialism left in both Asia and Asian America. The first part surveys Joo v. Japan,” a recent court decision where Asian women, who were the victims of atrocious war and sex crimes, brought suit in U.S. courts. The omission of an analysis through White sexual imperialism may explain why the court ruled against the women. The second part then shows how White sexual imperialism provides a compelling rationale for several contemporary issues of sexual-racial inequality facing Asian and diasporic Asian women.

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Pro- Imperialism

The U.S. occupation of Okinawa, in particular, creates space to understand imperialism – power structures in Japan perpetuate colonial dominance and act as testing grounds for militarized masculinity Ginoza 5 (Ayano, September, of Women’s Studies at Washington State University “American Village as a Space of Militarism and Tourism: U.S. Militarism, Gender Hierarchy, Class, and Race in Okinawa”)

Yumiko Mikanagi, a feminist political scientist, argues that this specific rape case is ascribed to “gendered power hierarchies in society and socially sanctioned masculinities based on violence against women” (98). In another word, places like this are spaces where violence against women is socially sanctioned, and where women paradoxically attain not only freedom from traditional Okinawan gender roles, but also freedom of sexual expressions that militarism relies on, exploits, and controls. Also, places like this is a militarizing term which trivializes the militarization process of the American Village and of how women’s bodies are sexualized by veiling power inequalities. Throughout the paper, I have tried to explore the problematic concept of natural and the process of naturalizing militarization in Okinawa with a case of the American Village. The space is a symbol for the anxieties and illusions of attaining higher class, and Japanese/ American life. This examination of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa helps us understand current imperialism. The imperialism is mediated through gender and race. It is also in pursuit of the natural, historical, and current practice of satisfying the military’s need for metaphorically subjugating sexually and racially, as though the military is the man 16 acting naturally. The American Village exists as the most powerful cultural construction that reshapes contemporary Okinawan women’s sexualities toward Okinawan nature and culture. To naturalize is to trivialize the dynamic structure of sociopolitical maneuvers. The landscape of the American Village for younger generations of Okinawans is an escape from the old tragic war history, a place where they fulfill their desire for a higher social class and cross racial lines by dating and marrying GIs. On the other hand, some GIs manipulate the space as a testing ground for their masculinity on Okinawan women. This indicates the perpetuation of colonial dominance in the American Village. In a society where power is highly valued and embraced as the highest pleasure, we tend to understand the power structure and hierarchy as natural and women as sexual. In order to fight against the militarization of the Okinawan natural and social landscape, and the exploitation of women’s sexuality, it is indispensable to analyze the dynamics of naturalizing and trivializing processes.

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Pro- Imperialism- Impact

The Imperialist ambitions of the United States will lead to endless cycles of wars and holocaust (John Bellamy Foster, Professor of Sociology at University of Oregon, April 2004, “The New Age of Imperialism”, Monthly Review vol. 55 no. 3, http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703jbf.htm)

At the same time, it is clear that in the present period of global hegemonic imperialism the United States is geared above all to expanding its imperial power to whatever extent possible and subordinating the rest of the capitalist world to its interests. The Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea Basin represent not only the bulk of world petroleum reserves, but also a rapidly increasing proportion of total reserves, as high production rates diminish reserves elsewhere. This has provided much of the stimulus for the United States to gain greater control of these resources—at the expense of its present and potential rivals. But U.S. imperial ambitions do not end there, since they are driven by economic ambitions that know no bounds. As Harry Magdoff noted in the closing pages of The Age of Imperialism in 1969, “it is the professed goal” of U.S. multinational corporations “to control as large a share of the world market as they do of the United States market,” and this hunger for foreign markets persists today. Florida-based Wackenhut Corrections Corporation has won prison privatization contracts in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands Antilles (“Prison Industry Goes Global,” www.futurenet.org, fall 2000). Promotion of U.S. corporate interests abroad is one of the primary responsibilities of the U.S. state. Consider the cases of Monsanto and genetically modified food, Microsoft and intellectual property, Bechtel and the war on Iraq. It would be impossible to exaggerate how dangerous this dual expansionism of U.S. corporations and the U.S. state is to the world at large. As IstvE1n ME9szE1ros observed in 2001 in Socialism or Barbarism, the U.S. attempt to seize global control, which is inherent in the workings of capitalism and imperialism, is now threatening humanity with the “extreme violent rule of the whole world by one hegemonic imperialist country on a permanent basis...an absurd and unsustainable way of running the world order.”* This new age of U.S. imperialism will generate its own contradictions, amongst them attempts by other major powers to assert their influence, resorting to similar belligerent means, and all sorts of strategies by weaker states and non-state actors to engage in “asymmetric” forms of warfare. Given the unprecedented destructiveness of contemporary weapons, which are diffused ever more widely, the consequences for the population of the world could well be devastating beyond anything ever before witnessed. Rather than generating a new “Pax Americana” the United States may be paving the way to new global holocausts.

March: Okinawa Page 107

Pro- Independence/Self-Determination

Okinawan identity is not based in genealogical connections to the Ryukyu Kingdom but instead shared opposition to the oppression and injustices of US basing. Shimbukuro Jun, Prof Education Univ Ryukyus; 8/3/2015 (Nippon; “Okinawan Identity and the Struggle for Self-Determination”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04501/#auth_profile_0)

Among the most glaring examples of discrimination in the postwar era was the Law on the Provisional Public Use of Land in Okinawa, which went into force upon the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese rule in May 1972. This law permitted the government to expropriate for public use all Okinawan lands previously seized by the US military, without offering any justification. Its enforcement was a clear violation of Article 95 of the Constitution, which states that the Diet must obtain the consent of the majority of the voters of a local public entity in order to pass a special law pertaining to that locality only. Such a law should never have been enacted without first being submitted for local approval by means of a public referendum. Ever since the mid-1950s, when the US military’s seizure of farmland triggered the “all-island struggle,” the Okinawans had hoped in vain that the Japanese nation would share their pain and rise to their defense, and such hopes were particularly high as reversion approached in 1972. But far from lightening the burden, the Japanese government passed a law legitimizing the violation of their rights. Since that time, a long series of base-related incidents and controversies, culminating in the 1995 abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by US servicemen, have thrown this discriminatory situation into ever-higher relief and heightened the Okinawans’ awareness of their victimization. Today the Japanese government continues to demand that Okinawans put up with structural discrimination in the name of the US bases and the benefits they provide, and the national media and Japanese public do little more than parrot the government line. Now even Okinawa’s conservative forces and business interests are losing patience. To confront this structural discrimination, we need to recognize that the history of Okinawa since the time of the all-island struggle has been a quest for self-government and human rights, and to resume that crusade. In the end, this is the best way to affirm our Uchinanchu identity. After all, the shared identity that Okinawan leaders are stressing today is not something descended directly from the Ryūkyū Kingdom. It is rooted instead in our shared postwar struggle. It is rooted in the social solidarity the Okinawans have built in the process of resisting wanton oppression and the blatant violation of their rights. The process began in the 1950s, when the all-island struggle laid the foundation for unity after the US military severed Okinawa from Japan and consolidated its control, and gained strength in the 1960s through the ongoing struggle with High Commissioner Paul Caraway who dismissed Okinawan autonomy as “a myth.” A sense of grave historical injustice and oppression is at the heart of the controversy over Futenma and other US military bases, and the struggle to be free of that injustice and oppression is at the heart of Okinawan identity. Mainstream Japanese politicians and media pundits see it differently. They think it only natural that the Okinawans put up with the US bases, given the facilities’ strategic importance—despite the fact that there is virtually no chance of marines based on Okinawa battling Chinese forces—as well as their contribution to the local economies and the added benefits of special budget outlays from the central government. This refusal to acknowledge the injustice and oppression at the very core of the Okinawans’ postwar experience highlights once again the rejection and indifference that have defined Japan’s attitudes toward Okinawa over the past 70 years.

Basing critical issue for Okinawan self-determination. Shimbukuro Jun; 8/3/2015 (Nippon; “Okinawan Identity and the Struggle for Self-Determination”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in- depth/a04501/#auth_profile_0)

As currently used by local politicians and activists, “Okinawan identity” is basically synonymous with the right of self- determination for Okinawans—the idea that the Uchinanchu, as the Okinawans call themselves, should have the final say over the use of their own land, waters, and other resources. This has become a key argument in their opposition to the current relocation plan.

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Self-determination is a matter of sovereignty, going far beyond the limited autonomy guaranteed to Japan’s prefectures. If the Okinawans could establish their right to self-determination, it would mean that the Japanese and US governments could no longer decide base issues between themselves. They would have to respect the will of the people of Okinawa, since no proposal by the Japanese government that ignored Okinawa’s right to self-determination would be recognized as legitimate.

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Pro- Independence/Self-Determination

US occupation was the historical cause of Okinawan independence movements for self-determination. Shimbukuro Jun, Prof Education Univ Ryukyus; 8/3/2015 (Nippon; “Okinawan Identity and the Struggle for Self-Determination”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04501/#auth_profile_0)

In the years immediately following Japan’s surrender, several political parties sprang up in Okinawa, and every one of them called for Okinawan independence. If Okinawa was in fact a separate entity distinct from Japan, then it followed that the Okinawans had a right to self-determination and should be able to regain their sovereignty separately from Japan. For the United States, which envisioned Okinawa as a permanent base for military operations in the region, this was a most unwelcome development. In September 1947, Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) helped solve the dilemma. According to a memo to General Douglas MacArthur from his political advisor, William Sebald , imperial aide Terasaki Hidenari had relayed to Sebald the emperor’s opinion that America’s continued military occupation of Okinawa “would benefit the United States and also provide protection for Japan” and that “such a move would meet with widespread approval among the Japanese” owing to their concerns about the threat from the Soviet Union. According to the same memo, the emperor had indicated that the US military occupation of Okinawa “should be based upon the fiction of a long-term lease—25 to 50 years or more—with sovereignty retained in Japan.”

Japanese pork barrel spending towards bases in Okinawa creates dependence and undermines self- determination. Shimbukuro Jun, Prof Education Univ Ryukyus; 8/3/2015 (Nippon; “Okinawan Identity and the Struggle for Self-Determination”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04501/#auth_profile_0)

Today one of the key issues pertaining to Okinawan self-determination is the violation of the Okinawans’ freedom of economic development. The Japanese government has the authority to set the course of that development through its Okinawa Promotion Plan, and although it claims to be acting in the prefecture’s best interests, it goes without saying that Okinawa’s development agenda should be tailored to the unique linguistic, cultural, environmental, and human needs of the region, not determined by Tokyo bureaucrats. Since the late 1990s, the central government has come under increasing criticism—much of it from the Okinawan business community—for using pork-barrel-style budget allocations to compensate communities for the presence of the US bases and shore up local support. More and more local business leaders have come to the conclusion that by preventing Okinawa from standing on its own two feet, the government’s development policy not only subverts the prefecture’s economic interests but also violates its economic freedom. This is the reason Onaga’s 2014 election campaign won the support of many local businesses, including the construction companies that have profited the most from the central government’s development grants. As this example suggests, the Okinawans as a group are more aware today than ever of the structural discrimination they have endured, particularly with regard to the burden of the US bases.

Relocation to Henoko will radicalized Okinawan independence movement. Yoshitoshi, Research Associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute @ Dokkyo Univ; 6/19/2015 (Taira; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (2): The Widening Perception Gap”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25931)

TAIRA Most Okinawans wouldn’t go so far as to advocate political independence, but I think a large and growing number of them share in the underlying emotions that have inspired the independence movement. I can sense this among the people I live and deal with in Okinawa. The central government continues to insist that the only possible solution to the problem of the Futenma air base is the current plan to build a replacement facility in Henoko, and my concern is that if it forges ahead with this plan, Okinawans could become radicalized. All possible common ground will vanish, and the

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opportunity for a negotiated solution will be lost. Who would most welcome a total break between Okinawa and the mainland? That’s a question that merits some serious thought.

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Pro- Independence/Self-Determination

Okinawans will push for independence if Japan and the US continue to ignore opposition to new bases. Munroe, Vice; 2/12/2016 (Ian; Vice; “Life on the island at the center of tensions between the US and China”; http://www.vice.com/read/this-one-island- is-the-centre-of-increasing-tensions-between-china-japan-and-the-us)

Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, sees that fight playing out in one of two ways: Construction could end if something tragic happens, such as a protester being accidentally killed by security personnel. Or the expanded base will indeed be built, but with unintended consequences that could also affect security in the region. "Okinawan sentiment against all of the bases, not just the new one, might get to such a degree that it can become something comparable to the Scottish independence movement," Nakano told VICE. "Discrimination, independence, that kind of idea has become much more widely circulated than in the past." The elderly proprietors of one small cafe on a rural road in the island's northeast say they feel alienated by the way Tokyo has been treating Okinawans. "People are angry inside at the government. We want all the bases to go, if possible," Kuniko Maeda told VICE. "But if we look at the world situation and the ties between Japan and America, it isn't going to happen anytime soon." The cafe is located near Camp Gonsalves, a US Marine jungle warfare training area that spans 27 square miles of mountains draped in subtropical forest. The US has agreed to return about half of the land, but residents are angry about plans to build new helipads and to station Osprey on the remainder. Like Henoko, a protest group here says the central government has been ignoring local opposition, leading to demonstrations that have lasted for more than eight years and have spurred a separate court fight. "To tell, you the truth, we Okinawans don't know if we're Japanese or not. That's our true feeling," Kuniko's husband, Yoshiaki, said. "They don't listen to what we say or think."

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Pro- Morality

Basing in Okinawa is immoral- ignores local sentiment and is undemocratic. Karnell, Masters Japanese Studies @ Stockholm Univ; 2015 (Mattias; “The US Marine Corps and Anti-base protestors in Okinawa, Japan: A study of the Takae Movement”; http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822179/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

Some may mistakenly believe that Okinawa’s “geopolitical significance” is the reason why US bases must be there, and that the issue of national security should not be decided by a prefecture. Certainly, the latter argument has some validity. Apart from Okinawa not being in a geopolitically significant place, however, moving at least some US bases from Okinawa to the mainland or abroad is in part an issue of morality and respect. Surely in no other self- proclaimed democratic country would a central government be able to ignore the sentiments of the majority of people in a particular region for decades. Both Japanese politicians and citizens can only accept the fact that so many bases are on Okinawa if they look down on Okinawans. It is morally wrong that Okinawans are virtually unable to have any say in issues regarding US bases on their island, especially since US bases are not there for strategic reasons. Moving at least some bases would both acknowledge that Okinawans are first- class citizens and that they have born a huge burden of US bases for decades against their will.

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Pro- Unexploded Ordinances (UXOs)

Okinawa has 3,000 of unexploded ordinances throughout the island. Beckhusen, Editor War is Boring; 8/24/2013 (Robert; War is Boring; “The land of unexploded bombs”; Over the past five years, there have been on average 1,500 discoveries of unexploded ordnance per year across Japan. The Battle of Okinawa left the southern island chain littered with the largest density of nasty surprises, with UXOs accounting for some five percent of the 200,000 tons of ordnance dropped on the island not counting man-portable items such as mortars, grenades and other ammunition. During the U.S. occupation of the island from the end of the war to 1972, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military disposed of approximately 5,500 tons, and had discovered an additional 1,500 tons by 2000. That still leaves another 3,000 tons undiscovered 55 years after the end of hostilities. With approximately 50 tons discovered per year, that is enough to fuel another 60 years of bomb disposal operations. The bomb will far outlast the men who dropped them.

Bases are killing Okinawa’s environment- leaking hazardous materials, radioactive waste, bombing the water, hazard chemicals, depleted uranium weapons, and unexploded ordinances. Ichiyo Muto, Researcher for the Institute of Regional Study, the Okinawa University, 2004, US Military Bases in Japan – An Overview http://www.jca.apc.org/wsf_support/2004doc/WSFJapUSBaseRepoFinalAll.pdf

US military installations cause various problems for the local environment. Because construction of a new base requires a huge undeveloped area, these construction projects have destroyed the natural environment and degraded the invaluable biodiversity including, but not limited to, endangered species among the subtropical islands of Okinawa. At active bases, US military activities cause various environmental problems. During combat training, live bombing exercises have caused environmental destruction, possible radioactive pollution due to DU weapons, and unexploded ordinances. From the maintenance of aircraft and military vehicles, leaked fuel, heavy metals, hazardous chemicals contained in paints, cleaners and solvents have caused contamination of the soil, air and groundwater. The maintenance of facilities has caused contamination in the air, soil and groundwater with heavy metals contained in paints as well as the PCB in batteries. Even recreational activities, such as skeet shooting, have caused soil to become contaminated with lead.

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Pro- Structural Violence

US military occupation in Okinawa breeds structural violence against women and children Gaijinass News 06/12/10 (“Okinawa: Futenma MCAS controversy explained” http://gaijinass.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/okinawa-futenma-mcas-controversy-explained/)

Also mentioned in the WSJ’s drastically insufficient explanation was “a rape case”. This kind of language inflames people who know that in fact, there have been many such cases in Okinawa and will continue to be as long as The US military is there. Of course, the majority of violent crime in Okinawa is committed by the 400,000 Okinawan men within the designated age range effecting violent crime. The point to consider and remember is that the US military there is a guest and its continued presence a sore point, a point of continuous contention for anti-base activists so, it is literally necessary for all US forces on Okinawa to be perfect. This is something that likely will not occur. The case the WSJ was likely referring to, was the highly politicized and horribly shocking abduction, beating and gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan school girl by two US Marines and one Sailor in 1995. This was followed by additional rape incidents and charges in 1999, 2001, 2006 and 2008. The 1995 rape was also proceeded by horrific incident after horrific incident since the occupation of the island in 1945. Suzuyo Takasato of Okinawa Women Act Against Military Violence, explains: Okinawa is a place where the armed forces have learnt how to kill and hurt people in close proximity to the local population for more than 60 years. This situation breeds a structural violence, rather than one that can be understood simply in terms of the crimes of individual soldiers. Okinawa reverted to Japanese administration in 1972 but the violence continued, and even became attempted rapes, as well as sexual abuse in public areas and even a case where a private house was invaded. The victims included a 10 year-old girl and a 14 year-old girl. These crimes particularly after 1995, garnered massive media attention and the consistency with which they occur and the US militaries immense shortcomings in properly dealing with them and the attention that accompany them have consistently and again, rightly, tarnished the USA’s image in Okinawa and the world.

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Pro- Value to Life

Japanese government places US interests ahead of Okinawa’s. Yazawa, Hitotsubashi University & Seijo University Tokyo, & ex-president Japan Sociological Society; 7/16/2015 (Shujiro; Open Democracy; “The crisis of democracy in Japan”; https://www.opendemocracy.net/shujiro-yazawa/crisis-of-democracy-in-japan)

However, US military bases remained on the island, and the Japanese government continues to prioritise the US military over the Okinawan people. In the case of relocating the Futenma base, the Japanese government continues to give priority to US military policy over the will of the Okinawan people, and the number of people calling for Okinawa’s independence from Japan is growing. Therefore, it is essential to understand the link between the movements in Okinawa and the movements against the security-related bills.

Okinawa has been exploited by Japan and the US. Kato, Prof Waseda Univ; 5/14/2014 (Norihiro; New York Times; “The battle of the Okinawans”; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/opinion/kato-the-battle-of-the-okinawans.html?_r=0)

Okinawans are among the most downtrodden people in the region. In premodern times, the small Ryukyu Kingdom, as it was known then, was a tributary state of China and Japan simultaneously. Japan treated residents badly after fully annexing the islands in the 1870s. The Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II killed one in four inhabitants. In the postwar period the United States turned the Ryukyu Islands into a military colony. Even since the islands reverted to Japan in 1972, they have been exploited for military purposes as a result of agreements between the Japanese and American governments. The strategic importance of Okinawa Prefecture to the two governments has increased recently owing to its proximity to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, to which both Japan and China lay claim.

Japanese government spends more on education for US bases than neighboring schools in Okinawa. Kato, Prof Waseda Univ; 5/14/2014 (Norihiro; New York Times; “The battle of the Okinawans”; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/15/opinion/kato-the-battle-of-the-okinawans.html?_r=0)

The Japanese government’s 2013 budget allocated almost $3.6 billion to cover costs associated with running American bases in Japan and providing for the 38,000 United States military personnel and their 43,000 dependents stationed there. This includes not only utility costs but also luxury housing, pools and golf courses. In 2008, the Japanese government built a middle school for 600 children of American troops at Kadena Air Base that cost twice as much, and was six times as large, as a school built nearby for 645 Japanese children.

New base in Henoko with helicopter landing pads would reduce the quality of life for those neighboring the base. Rabson, Prof East Asia Studies @ Brown; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

Henoko residents began a campaign in early 1997 to oppose construction of the offshore base, forming the “Inochi o Mamoru Kai” (Society for the Protection of Life).36 They pointed to threats it would pose to daily life and the environment as a result of training accidents, aircraft noise, G.I. crime, and damage to plant and animal life in the bay. Many worried that a new base would increase the disturbances and disruptions caused by the military that were already plaguing their lives. According to Henoko resident Kinjô Masatoki, “The noise from live fire exercises rattles my brain and my window panes. I get money for land I lease to Camp Schwab, but if they plan to build a heliport on it, I want that land back.” “After major surgery six years ago, my nerves are so bad I can’t sleep even taking tranquilizers,” said Kayô Muneyoshi. “The noise from a heliport would kill me.” Another resident noted, “My house would be closest to it. How

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could I sleep with helicopters droning overhead day and night?”37 Concerned about the effect an offshore base would have on his livelihood, fisherman Teruya Katsunori wondered if “I’d have to go back to driving a truck for a living.”38

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Pro- Value to Life

Okinawans have been subjected to racist discrimination in pay and forced to do the most dangerous jobs. Mitchell, Japan Times; 3/30/2015 (Jon; Japan Times; “The battle of Okinawa: America’s good war gone bad”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/03/30/issues/battle-okinawa-americas-good-war-gone-bad/#.VsVQDMfwwU1)

At this time, Okinawan military employees were subjected to a racist pay scale that pegged their wages far below those of their American, Filipino and Japanese colleagues. Moreover, Okinawans were often assigned the most dangerous jobs, including defusing unexploded ordnance and handling toxic chemicals without safety equipment.

Japan always treated Okinawa as a sacrificial stone like in the game of go. Japan Times Editorial; 6/22/2015 (“End Okinawans’ suffering”; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/06/22/editorials/end-okinawans- suffering/#.Vsm7UsfwyT8)

What is most tragic about the Battle of Okinawa is that it might have been avoided if Japan’s leaders had acted wisely and decided to end the war sooner. In February 1945, former Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe submitted a report to the Emperor, in which he said that Japan’s defeat in the war was inevitable and called on the Emperor to find ways to end the war as soon as possible so that the Imperial system would be maintained even after the war was over. But the nation’s leaders opted to continue the war. They are believed to have treated Okinawa as a “sacrificial stone” — a stone deliberately sacrificed in the board game of “go” to improve one’s chances. Japan’s leaders wanted to postpone as long as possible a U.S. invasion of the main islands of Japan and the possible demise of the Imperial system.

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Pro- AT: China

The threats that the bases supposedly deter are overblown and Japan along with the rest of Asia can defend themselves without US intervention. The chance of a Chinese strike on Japan is still very low. Even if we remove bases emergency services and intelligence sharing can continue. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans-again-say- no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014)

Nakaima cited Tokyo’s confrontation with China over the Senkaku Islands. Other advocates of America’s base presence pointed to North Korea. The Marine Corps highlighted all of the nearby places where the Marine Expeditionary Force could be quickly deployed. But Washington should not be plotting new wars. Instead, the U.S. should act more as an “off- shore balancer,” prepared to intervene only if a hegemonic power, namely China, threatened to dominate the region, which is unlikely. Washington should leave day-to-day defense responsibilities to friendly Asian states, most notably Japan, and pull its forces back to America. The U.S. still should promote emergency base access, intelligence sharing, and joint training. There undoubtedly would be other fruitful areas for military cooperation in East Asia and beyond. But 70 years after the end of World War II, 60 years after the end of the Korean War, 40 years after America’s departure from Vietnam, and 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there’s no longer any need for permanent U.S. garrisons in the region.

Marines would be redeployed to the rear because of their vulnerability. Michishita, Prof National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies; 2013 (Narushige; Rebalance to Asia, Refocus on Okinawa: Okinawa’s Role in an Evolving US-Japan Alliance; “Changing Military Strategies and the Future of the U.S. Marine Presence in Asia”; http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/chian/naha_port/documents/h24reporten-1.pdf)

In the event that U.S.-Japan and Chinese relations deteriorated and a full-scale military conflict became more likely, the development of China’s nuclear strategy, including the build-up of SSBN forces, and progress with A2/AD capability would become a critical concern. In this situation, maintaining a warfighting strategy with a long-distance strike capability, and more robust deterrence capability would become critical. In such a scenario, some Japanese and U.S. forces, including the U.S. Marines, might be redeployed to rear areas in order to maintain strategic depth. Because Marines positioned in Okinawa are highly vulnerable, they could be redeployed to Australia, Guam, or other locations in Asia. Tohoku or Hokkaido could also become candidates. The fact that the Marines were prepositioned in Okinawa during the Cold War with the goal of landing in the South Kuril Islands and/or Sakhalin Island could serve as a reference.

Futenma and Henoko remain vulnerable to Chinese long-rang ballistic missiles. Oshima, Asahi Shimbun; 12/8/2014 (Takashi; Asahi Shimbun; “Prominent US scholar says Henoko relocation no long-term solution to Okinawa base problem”; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201412080029)

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Joseph S. Nye, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under President Bill Clinton, said there was also a need to change the concentration of U.S. bases on Okinawa in light of advancements made by China in ballistic-missile development. That is because the advancements place the entire island prefecture within target range. "With the increase in Chinese ballistic missile capabilities, it means you have to be aware of their vulnerability (of fixed bases)," said Nye, now a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "If you put all your eggs in one basket, you are increasing your risks." According to Nye, having about 70 percent of U.S. bases in Japan concentrated in Okinawa creates a risk for U.S. military strategy toward China.

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He also pointed out that relocating Futenma to Henoko would represent a short-term solution to "reducing the dangers to Ginowan of an aircraft crash." Ginowan is the heavily populated city where Futenma is currently located. However, Nye added "for the long run, moving Futenma to Henoko doesn't do much for reducing the vulnerability of fixed bases."

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Pro- AT: China

Japanese bases are not strategically located to respond to today’s threats and are within range of Chinese missiles. Oshima, Asahi Shimbun; 12/8/2014 (Takashi; Asahi Shimbun; “Prominent US scholar says Henoko relocation no long-term solution to Okinawa base problem”; http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201412080029)

Nye: Well, I was talking there about the long term, not about this year. What I'm thinking is that this alliance of U.S.- Japan has lasted 50 years and should last another 50. But, if we're going to look ahead for 10 years and longer, we should make changes. The bases we have now were set in a period after World War II. They may not be the best locations for responding to the problems or threats we have. Also, it's not clear that you want to have so many fixed assets in one place as the Chinese develop their ballistic missile capability.

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Pro- AT: Deterrence

Everyone already knows your deterrence argue is a white lie. Yoshitoshi, Research Associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute @ Dokkyo Univ; 6/19/2015 (Taira; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A historical perspective on the US military presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

TAIRA As Mr. Endō noted, Hatoyama’s promise to take Futenma outside Okinawa was a major turning point, but a development of equal significance, I think, was his admission after stepping down that the explanation he gave for ultimately sticking with the Henoko plan—that the Marines needed to be on Okinawa as a deterrent—was an expedient. This was further exacerbated by the December 2012 remark by Defense Minister Morimoto Satoshi that a replacement facility for Futenma didn’t necessarily have to be in Okinawa from a military point of view but that it was the optimum political solution. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Both Japanese and American experts and former government officials had been quoted in the local media as saying that the Marines really didn’t need to be in Okinawa. But to have a former prime minister and the incumbent defense minister say so showed that the deterrence argument was just a white lie. From then on, resentment and distrust of mainland policy spread like wildfire.

Deterrence arguments are a rationalization for the US military presence. Babson, Prof East Asia Studies @ Brown; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

Shimabukuro’s failed strategy of deferring to the national government might have seemed attractive at the time because Prime Minister Hatoyama was still resisting U.S. pressure to move forward with the bilateral agreement on base construction. But, while Inamine had vowed to keep his campaign promise, Hatoyama broke his four months later, agreeing in May, 2010, to the relocation of Futenma MCAS in Henoko. He explained that he had come to believe that this Marine air base was “necessary for deterrence (yokushi-ryoku), considering the security environment of East Asia,”57 only to confess in an interview shortly after his resignation as prime minister that he had used “the word ‘deterrence’ as an excuse (hôben) since I needed a rationalization.”58

Marines in Okinawa have no deterrent value- Air Force and Navy solve. Vine, Prof Anthropology @ American Univ; 2015 (David; Base Nation; P. 272-273; google books)

Even within the context of containment and deterrence, the U.S. presence in Okinawa hardly looks like an optimal setup. Many now agree, for example, that the Marines’ presence in Okinawa- including the controversial Futenma base and its debated replacement- likely has little deterrent effect. Barry Poses, who was a Pentagon official in the Bush administration, has said that the large Air Force and Navy forces at Okinawa’s Kadena Air Base and on mainland Japan, the withdrawal of the marines would see “no change in deterrence.” Pose added that he “cannot see what role the Marine Corps might play in military actions” that conceivably might take place in the region. Former Democratic House representative Braney Frank agreed, saying, “15,000 Marines aren’t going to land on the Chinese mainland and confront millions of Chinese soldiers. We don’t need Marines in Okinawa. They’re a hangover from a war that ended 65 years ago.” And there often haven’t even been fifteen thousand marines in Okinawa, the number frequently cited by proponents of the status quo. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thousands of them deployed from Okinawa, decreasing troop levels by one quarter to one third from pre-war averages. If Okinawa-based Marines are so critical to deterrence, how could the military afford to let them leave? Marines in Okinawa also don’t have the transportation necessary to get involved in significant numbers during an emergency. To deploy, marines rely on Navy transportation vessels harbored in Sasebo, Japan. During a 2013 drill simulating a response to China’s seizing contested territory, such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, marines relied on a vessesl based in San Diego to transport troops and weaponry. The Marines’ controversial Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft doesn’t

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have the range to transport troops to the Senkaku/Diaoyus without in-air refueling; and with just twenty-four Ospreys in Okinawa, the Marines can send fewer than six hundred troops at most in a single deployment. If the Marines can’t operate independently and speedily from Okinawa, what kind of regional deterrent force are they?

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Pro- AT: Deterrence

Marines don’t need to be in Okinawa where they don’t have transportation capability. Redeployment to western Japan, Guam, Hawaii and Australia is enough to maintain deterrence. China and North Korea did not attack when Marines were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Seiji, Prof Law Seiki Univ; 6/19/2015 (Endo; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A Historical Perspective on the US Military Presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

ENDŌ The deterrence that US forces provide, as described by Japanese officials, is a very tenuous one; in fact, the US presence probably does nothing more than give the Japanese people a vague sense of reassurance, a feeling that American soldiers would be there to protect us should the Chinese try to bully us around. For most people on the mainland, it’s like a security blanket. From the Okinawans’ point of view, it’s a slightly different story. If the Marines are to be deployed at all, they’d have to be picked up by a warship docked in Sasebo [in Nagasaki Prefecture]. That means there’s no reason at all that the Marines have to be in either Futenma or Henoko. They might as well be somewhere closer to Sasebo. The number of Marines in Okinawa fell dramatically while they were deployed in Afghanistan and during the Iraq War, but the reduction in deterrent power didn’t invite any attacks during their absence. From a strategic perspective, moreover, the presence of the Marine Corps does not act as much of a deterrent. As far as Okinawans are concerned, there is no logical or convincing reason for them to have to host the Marines on their soil. If the Marines aren’t really much of a deterrent, Okinawans ask, then why must we put up with the dangers of hosting the bases, the noise, and the crimes committed by servicemen? Even the defense minister has admitted that the Marines don’t need to be in Okinawa, as long as they can be stationed somewhere in western Japan, so there must be a fairer way to share the burden of guaranteeing Japan’s security with the rest of the country and easing Okinawa’s disproportionately heavy load. My personal view is that a smaller US military footprint in East Asia right now, when China is rising and the United States is in relative decline, would lead to a destabilization of the region. But the ongoing realignment of US forces will mean a greater Marine Corps presence in Guam and Hawaii, as well as in Darwin, Australia. These forward deployed troops should enable the United States to maintain its deterrence in East Asia, even without a Marine Corps base in Okinawa.

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Pro- AT: Hegemony Good

U.S. troop presence is irrelevant and dangerously unstable, Japan can defend itself and U.S. offshore balancing still solves any risk of Chinese/Korean aggression Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Reagan Transforming Japan-US Alliance, October, 29, 2009, “Transforming Japan-U.S. Alliance,”http://www.cato.org/people/doug-bandow accessed on 7-19-10)

American influence is facing another challenge in East Asia. The latest loss of U.S. power may occur in Japan. Last month, the Democratic Party of Japan ousted the Liberal Democratic Party, which had held power for most of the last 54 years. Exactly how policy will change is uncertain: The DPJ is a diverse and fractious coalition. But Washington is nervous. U.S. policymakers have grown used to Tokyo playing the role of pliant ally, backing American priorities and hosting American bases.That era may be over. Although Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama insists that he wants to strengthen the alliance, before taking office he wrote in the New York Times: "As a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis, the era of U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end."America's alliance with Japan — like most U.S. defense relationships — is outdated.Of course, there are significant barriers to any dramatic transformation of Japanese policy. Indeed, during the campaign the DPJ platform dropped its earlier pledge to "do away with the dependent relationship in which Japan ultimately has no alternative but to act in accordance with U.S. wishes, replacing it with a mature alliance based on independence and equality."Nevertheless, the DPJ possesses a strong left wing and vigorously opposed the ousted government's logistical support for U.S. naval operations in the Indian Ocean.Other potentially contentious issues include reducing the military presence on Okinawa, renegotiating the relocation of the Marines' Futenma Airfield to Guam at the Japanese expense, cutting so-called host nation support, and amending the Status of Forces Agreement.Some Obama administration officials privately acknowledge that adjustments will be necessary. However, the day after the election State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said that there would be no renegotiation of the Okinawa accord. This might seem like a good negotiating tactic, but it didn't go over well in Tokyo. Washington's dismissive response gives the Japanese one more reason to want to escape dependence on the U.S. Actually, Americans should support a transformation of the alliance. The current relationship remains trapped in a world that no longer exists.Japan has the world's second (or third, based on purchasing power parity) largest economy, yet Tokyo remains dependent on America for its security, a minor military player despite having global economic and political interests.There are historical reasons for Tokyo's stunted international role, but it is time for East Asian countries to work together to dispel the remaining ghosts of Japan's imperialist past rather than to expect America to continue acting as the defender of the last resort.Since Japan and Asia have changed, so should America's defense strategy. There should be no more troops based on Japanese soil. No more military units tasked for Japan's defense. No more security guarantee for Japan.The U.S. should adopt a strategy of offshore balancer, expecting friendly states to defend themselves, while being ready to act if an overwhelming, hegemonic threat eventually arises. China is the most, but still unlikely, plausible candidate for such a role — and even then not for many years.Washington's job is not to tell Japan — which devotes about one-fourth the U.S level to the military — to do more. Washington's job is to do less. Tokyo should spend whatever it believes to be necessary on its so-called "Self-Defense Force." Better relations with China and reform in North Korea would lower that number. Japan should assess the risks and act accordingly. In any case, the U.S. should indicate its willingness to accommodate Tokyo's changing priorities. It's the same strategy that Washington should adopt elsewhere around the globe. The Marine Expeditionary Force stationed on Okinawa is primarily intended to back up America's commitment to South Korea. Yet, the South has some 40 times the GDP of North Korea. Seoul should take over responsibility for its own defense. Even more so the Europeans, who possess more than 10 times Russia's GDP. If they don't feel at risk, there's no reason for an American defense guarantee. If they do feel at risk, there's no reason for them not to do more — a lot more. Defending populous and prosperous allies made little sense in good economic times. But with Uncle Sam's 2009 deficit at $1.6 trillion and another $10 trillion in red ink likely over the next decade — without counting the impact of any additional financial disasters — current policy is unsustainable. The U.S. essentially is borrowing money from China for use to defend Japan from China.In Washington, officials are rounding the wagons to protect the status quo. But America's alliance with Japan — like most U.S. defense relationships — is outdated. Both America and Japan would benefit from ending Tokyo's unnatural defense dependence on the U.S.

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Pro- AT: Marines Good

Marine bases are worthless in Okinawa because Marines are trained for combat in particular, and invasion specifically. Because we are not going to invade China, the Marines are better suited stateside. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans-again-say- no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014)

Nor does America’s Okinawa bastion have much military utility. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald Fogelman admitted that the Marines “serve no military function. They don’t need to be in Okinawa to meet any time line in any war plan.” No one imagines the U.S. invading the Chinese mainland in the unlikely event of war. Indeed, a dumber idea is hard to imagine. Air and naval forces guarantee Japan’s security. South Korea is manpower-rich and does not require U.S. assistance from Okinawa-based forces. More mundane contingencies involving secondary powers—border clashes, civil disorder, sectarian violence, secessionist activity, humanitarian relief—are precisely the sort of conflicts in which America’s most proficient warriors should not be deployed.

US Marines are useless in Japan – they don’t help deterrence and they wouldn’t be used in conflict Doug Bandow 2010, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and Vice President of Policy for Citizen Outreach, June 18th, 2010 [“Get Out of Japan”, National Interest Online, June 18th, 2010, available online at http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=23592, accessed June 28, 2010]

The claim is oft-made that the presence of American forces also help promote regional stability beyond Japan. How never seems to be explained. Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation contends: “the Marines on Okinawa are an indispensable and irreplaceable element of any U.S. response to an Asian crisis.” But the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), while packing a potent military punch, actually has little to do. The MEF isn’t necessary to support manpower-rich South Korea, which is capable of deterring a North Korean attack. The Marines wouldn’t be useful in a war against China, unless the Pentagon is planning a surprise landing in Tiananmen Square to seize Mao Zedong’s mausoleum. If conflict breaks out over Taiwan or various contested islands, America would rely on air and naval units. Where real instability might arise on the ground, only a fool would introduce U.S. troops—insurgency in Indonesia, civil strife in the Solomon Islands or Fiji, border skirmishes between Thailand and Burma or Cambodia. General Ronald Fogleman, a former Air Force Chief of Staff, argued that the Marines “serve no military function. They don’t need to be in Okinawa to meet any time line in any war plan. I’d bring them back to California. The reason they don’t want to bring them back to California is that everyone would look at them and say, ‘Why do you need these twenty thousand?’”

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Pro- AT: Marines Good- Philippines Terrorism

US-Philippines special ops counter-terror programs ended in 2015. La Grone, US Naval Institute; 2/27/2015 (Sam; US Naval Institute News; “U.S. Officially Ends Special Operations Task Force in the Philippines, Some Advisors May Remain”; http://news.usni.org/2015/02/27/u-s-officially-ends-special-operations-task-force-in-the-philippines-some-advisors-may- remain)

The U.S. special operations mission to help the Philippine military to fight Islamic militants is coming to a close, U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) officials told USNI News on Thursday. For 13 years — in parallel to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan — OEF Philippines had U.S. special operation forces (SOF) advise Philippine commandos in fighting Islamic separatists in the southern islands — notably militant group Abu Sayyaf. On Tuesday, a ceremony in Zamboanga City marked the deactivation of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P), according to local press reports.

US-Philippines cooperation and anti-terrorism training leads to political backlash and rape by US soldiers stationed in Okinawa. Niksch, Specialist Asian Affairs Congressional Research Service; 2007 (Larry; CRS Report for Congress; “Abu Sayyaf: Target of Philippine-U.S. Anti-Terrorism Cooperation”; https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL31265.pdf)

Philippine-U.S. military cooperation against Abu Sayyaf has rebuilt a Philippine-U.S. alliance that had weakened considerably after the Philippines ended U.S. rights to military bases in the Philippines in 1993. During President Arroyo’s state visit to Washington in May 2003, the Bush Administration designated the Philippines as a Major Non- NATO ally, a status that could make the Philippines eligible to receive more sophisticated U.S. arms and military training. The joint operations and exercises appear to have strong support from the Filipino populace. They served to limit the potential rift between Manila and Washington in 2004 when President Arroyo withdrew the small AFP contingent from Iraq in response to the taking of a Filipino contract worker hostage by insurgents in Iraq. However, the enlarged U.S. military role also carries the risk of political backlashes. Influential Filipino “nationalist” and leftist groups criticized the U.S. military role in Basilan, even though polls indicated overwhelming Filipino public support for it and the influential Catholic Bishops Conference endorsed it. They charged that the U.S. military role violated the Philippine constitution and that the United States was plotting to secure permanent military bases again. This kind of controversy likely will emerge again if the new U.S. military role on Jolo is prolonged and/or expands in scope. Moreover, incidents involving U.S. military personnel and Filipino civilians have the potential to turn Filipino opinion negative toward the United States. At the end of 2005, four U.S. Marines, stationed on Okinawa, were charged formally with raping a Filipino woman while they were in the Philippines for a military exercises. Their case is pending and is drawing much publicity in the Philippines, particularly over the application of the 1998 Philippine-U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement to the case and especially to the issue of who will hold custody of the Marines until their trial is held.

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Pro- AT: North Korea

Status quo missile defense, increased deployment of forces in Guam, and coordination with South Korea and Japan are enough to deal with North Korea. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral, & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasakawa Peace Foundation & Former consultant & Senior Japan Program Analyst @ Marine Crops; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in-Okinawa.pdf)

Meanwhile, the United States has also been adapting its force structure to this new strategic environment in East Asia. To deal with the North Korean nuclear threat, the United States substantially increased its technical and policy coordination with Japan and South Korea, building a missile defense architecture that includes both maritime and ground-based components. Reversing a 1990s decision to close many facilities in Guam, the U.S. Department of Defense improved its logistic infrastructure on the island, added additional forces and attack submarines, and made more frequent rotations of long-range bombers. During the Cold War, the American air and naval forces in Japan had been among the least capable in the U.S. inventory, but during the 1990s and early 2000s, the Navy and Air Force began to deploy their newest systems to the region.

South Korea and Japan can stop North Korea from a nuclear strike. No need for bases in Okinawa; Australia, Vietnam, India, and Singapore can aid Asia. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans-again-say- no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014)

Devoting only one percent of its GDP to defense has allowed Tokyo to create a potent “Self-Defense Force.” Spending more would enable Japan to build a military well able to deter Chinese adventurism. South Korea has twice the population and 40 times the GDP of the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as well as about every technological, financial, and diplomatic advantage imaginable. Seoul does not need America’s assistance. Australia, Vietnam, Singapore, and other countries have been boosting their military outlays in response to increasing Chinese assertiveness. India is expanding its involvement in Southeast Asia, acting as another counter to Beijing. While America should be watchful and wary, nothing on the horizon looks likely to overwhelm Washington’s friends and allies.

South Korea has 28,000 soldiers providing deterrence and Key Resolve Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) South Korea hosts about 19,000 Army personnel and 9,000 airmen stationed at fighter bases in Osan and Kunsan.32 One of the major contributions of US forces in Korea—besides providing everyday deterrence—is participating in the annual Key Resolve exercise.33 Key Resolve is one of the world’s most complex simulated exercises and is conducted in concert with allied nations such as Australia, Denmark, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In 2014, Key Resolve featured 5,200 US forces—including about 4,100 stationed in Korea.

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Pro- AT: Power Projection

Withdraw from Okinawa improves power projection. Sugawa, Former Special Researcher @ Office of Prime Minster; 2013 (Kiyoshi; Real Clear Defense; “What to do about the US marines in Japan?”; http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2013/12/06/what_to_do_about_us_marines_in_japan_106992.html)

Regardless of the decision by the Okinawa governor, however, the fundamental question will remain. Why should we consume money and energy for unpopular, expensive, and ineffective base-moving when the security environment and fiscal condition is so severe? Drawbacks of the Current Plan The current FRF plan has serious flaws. The most obvious problem is political feasibility. Okinawans' opposition to a new base is stronger than ever. Even if Prime Minister Abe Shinzo succeeds in gaining approval for a landfill permit from the Okinawa governor, the FRF will still not win the support of the majority of Okinawans. Lack of support from the local community would eventually weaken the basis of the alliance. The financial costs of the realignment plan for the US bases in Japan also weigh heavily on Japan and the United States. The General Accounting Office reported that the costs for military construction in Guam will be more than $23.9 billion. The estimated price for the landfill and construction of the FRF is almost $4 billion, although the real figure would be easily doubled as is often the case for this kind of public works project. In addition to the FRF, the Japanese government will have to pay another $20 billion or so in total. From a strategic point of view, the present US base realignment initiative fails to meet today's most important security challenge in East Asia - the rise of China. The shift of Marines from Okinawa would presumably weaken the deterrent capability of the alliance. Under current plans, approximately 9,000 III Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF) personnel are to deploy to Guam and other places. The new airfield at Henoko, which is to be shortened from the current 2,740 meters at MCAS Futenma to 1,800 meters, will not be able to accommodate the same range of aircraft. Ironically, the costs of the FRF and other replacement facilities are likely to undermine the ability of the Japanese government to fund much more vital defense spending, including new forces to deal with China's maritime buildup in the region. Basic Principles of a New Initiative To overcome these drawbacks, Japan and the United States need to reset the current plan and work on a new initiative that is acceptable, affordable, and strategically effective. Four basic principles should be kept in mind. First and foremost, Japan and the United States must fulfill their promise to return MCAS Futenma to the Okinawan people. Withdrawing the promise or postponing the return indefinitely will make them feel betrayed and their confidence in the alliance will be lost. Furthermore, the present situation where the MCAS Futenma has potentially endangered the lives of Okinawans can never be justified. Second, the present realignment plan for US bases in Okinawa other than MCAS Futenma should be downsized. Although the FRF has attracted a great deal of attention, even bigger projects such as the relocation of Naha military port remain to be carried out under the current agreement. Unlike Futenma, however, these bases do not pose immediate danger to the residents of Okinawa. The less ambitious plan will enable the Japanese government to use the saved money for the modernization of SDF weaponry. Additional funds could also be allocated to share the costs of rotational training by the US Marine Corps on Okinawa. Third, most of the Marines need to be relocated outside Japan, not just Okinawa. The viability of the large-scale Marine infantry deployment depends on access to air fields, along with vast training space, to accommodate the helicopters and transport aircraft they need to fulfill their missions. Without a replacement for Futenma, large numbers of Marines cannot remain on Okinawa. And the reality is no other area of mainland Japan is prepared to house such a presence and the Okinawa public refuses to accept any other site for the FRF in the prefecture. While smaller crisis response elements of the III MEF can remain on the island, the entire division needs to relocate. Due to financial difficulties, the US government may want to bring them back to Hawaii and California rather than relying so much on Guam. Fourth, it is important that the departure of the majority of Marines based on Okinawa not be read as a retreat or a sign of decline of the alliance. Japan and the United States can create a framework to substantially compensate for the losses of

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deterrent capability. As a part of such efforts, US scholars Mike Mochizuki and Michael O'Hanlon have suggested a new strategy to assure the swift and robust projection of the Marine Corps across the Pacific at a significantly lower cost.

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Pro- AT: Security Commitments

Reducing the Marine force levels will not harm deterrence or erode the confidence of Japan and other allies in US security commitments Lostumbo, et. Al.; 2013 (Overseas Basing of U.S. Military Forces An Assessment of Relative Costs and Strategic Benefits, RAND’s National Defense Research Institute; Michael, p.280-81; http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/RR201/RAND_RR201.pdf)

The total reduction posited in the illustrative CRP is a little larger than the cur- rent agreement and plan, at over 11,000 marines, consisting of about 7,400 permanently assigned personnel and 3,700 UDP rotational personnel. In this illustrative posture, however, they would return to CONUS, without establishing a presence in Guam, increasing presence in Hawaii, and building rotations in Australia to envisioned size. is is posited to save a little more than $200 million per year with an investment cost of close to $1.5 billion, producing a six- to seven-year payback for less of a relative financial return than many of the CRP changes. The limited return is due the fact that Camp Butler and Futenma would remain open and the relatively low cost of living and housing allowances for marines there, resulting in allowances just a little higher per person than at Camp Pendleton, for example. For reference, closing Okinawa and returning all forces to CONUS would produce roughly $300 million in savings per year, with a required investment of roughly $2.5–5 billion.15 We did not directly compare the estimated costs of the CRP and the current plan; nor did we develop models with sufficient precision to accurately compare very specific options. For that, detailed, base-level analysis should be done. However, to provide some insight into how the costs might compare and how different possible options for the Marine Corps in the Pacific might impact costs, we provide rough estimates of effects on annual variable cost and investment cost for different levels of force increases in different locations, in comparison to Okinawa. We do note, however, that the agreed-upon Marine Corps plan for the Pacific was not motivated by a desire to reduce costs; rather, it was designed with the intent of improving deterrence and contingency responsiveness while assuring Japan and other allies of the U.S. commitment to regional stability and defense and to alleviate political pressures on U.S. stationing in Japan.16 This section does not address how well the plan might meet these goals. Instead, it only examines the potential cost impacts.

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Pro- AT: Training

Relocation is better for training- Okinawa has less range than Guam and Marianas. Blair, Former Dir National Intelligence & Retired Navy Admiral, & Kendall, Fellow @ Sasakawa Peace Foundation US & former consultant & Senior Japan Program Analyst @ Marine Corps; 2015 (Dennis & James; Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA; “US bases in Okinawa: What must be done, and quickly”; http://spfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/US-Bases-in- Okinawa.pdf)

In 2006, the Bush administration instituted a policy, called the Defense Posture Review Initiative (DPRI), to review and rationalize America’s global military presence. The DPRI’s objectives were to realign the regional force structure for better training and quicker deployment, and to relieve some of the tensions with local communities in South Korea and Japan where U.S. forces are based. In South Korea, this generally means reducing the number of U.S. Army forces, while moving those that are left southward, away from the demilitarized zone. In Japan, Marine Corps units in the populated southern half of the island of Okinawa are to be cut by roughly half, and the remaining half will be moved further north to less populated areas. Besides relieving local tensions, new facilities in Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands will provide greatly improved training opportunities over the constricted ranges in Okinawa.

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Pro- AT: Rearm

Japanese re-arm good- increasing deterrent power could prevent unintentional or accidental conflict. Okamoto, President Okamoto Associates; 8/4/2015 (Yuki; Nippon; “The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security”; http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/#auth_profile_0)

Japan’s four neighbors in Northeast Asia—China, Russia, and North and South Korea—all rank among the world’s top six countries in the scale of their military strength. No other region of the world has such a concentration of military might. And it is quite conceivable that unintended or accidental factors could lead to an armed clash at any time. Despite its location in this tense region, Japan has been able to carry on without fear of invasion thanks not to the war- renouncing Article 9 of its Constitution but to its security treaty with the United States. In this light, it is clear what direction we need to head in resolving the Okinawa issue and maintaining security in East Asia. Though it will take time, Japan must enhance its own deterrent power. This means, for example, having the Ground Self-Defense Force take over defense duties from the US Marines, and thereby reduce the need to station the latter in Okinawa. Building this sort of role-sharing relationship with the United States will be a key to maintaining Okinawa’s strategic position.

Decreasing US troop presence and Article 9 are incompatible. Pacifists have an intellectual obligation to explain how security will be provided in a world without US bases. Yoshitoshi, Research Associate Regional Comprehensive Research Institute @ Dokkyo Univ; 6/19/2015 (Taira; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A historical perspective on the US military presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

TAIRA YOSHITOSHI Ever since the administration of Ikeda Hayato [1960–64], the Liberal Democratic Party has espoused a security stance that takes the pacifist provisions of Article 9 of the Constitution as a given and seeks safety for Japan in the security treaty with the United States. I think it’s quite difficult to find a solution for the issue of the US bases in Okinawa under this two-part security policy./ On the knotty issue of relocating Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, for example, I believe the key question is why Japan is unable to tell the United States to move it outside the country. In his book Kokubōgun to wa nani ka [The Meaning of “National Defense Forces”], Ishiba Shigeru answers this question quite straightforwardly: Because of the restraints imposed by Article 9, Japan cannot supply military forces, so instead it provides bases to the United States, which defends Japan in return. Under this asymmetrical relationship, when the Americans say, “We can’t defend Japan unless we have this base,” we can’t compel them to return it. As Ishiba puts it, it’s very hard for the Japanese side to tell the Americans we want them out [of a base or bases] because they’re getting in our way. With this reference to the asymmetrical nature of the bilateral security treaty, he explains why Tokyo can’t tell Washington to move the Futenma facility outside of Japan./ To extend that explanation, I believe that we are operating under a “Japan-US Security Treaty setup” that took shape during the post–World War II Allied Occupation. This is a concept from my master’s degree program faculty advisor, according to whom the six years and eight months of the US-led Occupation gave rise to a setup under which Japan is subordinate to the United States politically, militarily, and even psychologically. And it’s this setup, I believe, that keeps Tokyo from pressing Washington to relocate the Futenma facility outside of Japan./ As Ishiba puts it in his book, it would be a different story if the Japan-US relationship were one between equals. This was what people like Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru hoped to achieve in the early postwar period. It would mean revising the Constitution, recognizing the right of collective self-defense, and cooperating with the Americans on a people-to-people basis—in other words, turning Japan into a country that is not merely defended by the United States but that also helps defend the United States in return. If we had this sort of bilateral relationship with the United States, Ishiba explains, Tokyo would be in a position to tell Washington, “We’ll extend our defense range as far as Guam, so pull your forces out of Okinawa and move them there.” This could be presented not as a supplicant’s petition but as a partner’s demand./ Whether the idea of seeking this sort of relationship is a good one or not, in logical terms, it’s a valid option for resolving the issue of the bases in Okinawa. I’m not sure what Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s personal views are on this matter, but I might note that Foreign Minister Shigemitsu’s thinking was shared by Kishi Nobusuke [prime minister 1957–60], Abe’s grandfather, whom he respects./ Meanwhile, those on the liberal side, the members of the camp that wants to preserve the current Constitution, don’t have a viable way of dealing with the issue. The pacifism of Article 9 is paired with the existence of the Japan-US Security Treaty. So opposition to collective self-defense as unconstitutional means upholding not just the current Constitution, including Article 9, but also keeping the bilateral security treaty as it is. And in this case, I fail to see how it will be possible to scale back the US military presence in Okinawa. The members of the liberal camp need to come up with a plan that combines respect for the pacifist spirit of Article 9 with concrete, specific means for maintaining Japan’s security—and that will also make it possible to downsize the US bases in Okinawa. Unless

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they can come up with this sort of concrete proposal, I don’t think they can hope to win on an intellectual level against the position set forth by people like Ishiba. As I see it, this is the prime intellectual challenge that they face.

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Pro- AT: Rearm

Their argument is no unique, Abe has re-interpreted Article 9 without amending it, and his new interpretation allows Japan to have a greater military presence in Asia in the status quo Ford 2015 (Matt, “Japan Curtails Its Pacifist Stance” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/japan-pacifism- article-nine/406318/ September 2015)

But Article 9 goes even further. The second clause pledges that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained” by Japan, and that “the right of belligerency will not be recognized.” As the name of Japan’s military suggests, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces exist only to protect the Japanese homeland. JSDF forces participate in UN peacekeeping operations and humanitarian missions, but avoided UN-authorized combat missions in Korea or during the Gulf War. (A noncombat unit took part in the U.S. occupation of Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s fall, to considerable controversy.) The bill passed on Friday does not change Article 9’s language. That would require a constitutional amendment and two-thirds support in both houses of the Diet, which Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lack. Instead, it reinterprets it to allow for “collective self-defense.” Japanese forces will now be able to assist the U.S. and other allies if those allies were attacked, although there would still be limits on the scope and scale of Japanese assistance. The BBC notes, for example, that Japan could now shoot down a North Korean missile fired at the U.S. and provide logistical support to South Korea if Pyongyang invaded, but could not deploy Japanese troops to Korea. The reorientation of Japanese foreign policy is a major triumph for Abe, a conservative nationalist who has long sought a more assertive posture on the international stage. But his long awaited shift did not come without criticism. Tens of thousands of students protested the bill in Tokyo, and opposition leader Tatsuya Okada warned that the bill and other security-related measures would “leave a big scar on Japanese democratic politics.”

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Pro- AT: Rearm

Massive technical barriers to nuclearization Yoshihara and Holmes 2009 (Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, associate professors of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, “Thinking about the unthinkable: Tokyo's nuclear option”, Summer 2009, Naval War College Review, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JIW/is_3_62/ai_n32144580)

As noted above, analysts and Japanese politicians evince conviction that Japan could erect a nuclear deterrent in a relatively short period of time. We are unpersuaded by this apparent optimism and conventional wisdom. It is true that Japan possesses all the trappings of a nuclear power. Yet the path to a credible nuclear status is likely to be long and winding. Above all, Japan needs the material capacity to develop a bomb. (40) With fifty-five nuclear-power plants in operation around the country and the nuclear sector's large reserves of reactor-grade plutonium, Japan enjoys a readily available supply of fissile material. According to Sankei Shimbun, Japan possesses enough plutonium on its own soil and in reprocessing plants overseas to produce 740 bombs. (41) How usable this reactor-grade material would be for weapons purposes, however, remains a matter of dispute among technical specialists. An internal government report unearthed by Sankei Shimbun reportedly concluded that Japan would need several hundred engineers, 200-300 billion yen (or $2-$3 billion), and three to five years to fabricate a serviceable nuclear warhead. (42) The real question would be timing. It is doubtful in the extreme that Japan could circumvent its safeguards agreement with the IAEA undetected for long. (43) While the cases of Iran and North Korea demonstrate that it is possible to bypass the IAEA, Japan holds itself to much higher, more stringent standards, having assented to one of the most intrusive, regular inspection programs in the world. (44) Furthermore, think of the diplomatic blowback: one can only imagine the uproar if such an effort on the part of Japan, a consistent, sincere opponent of nuclear weapons, were exposed to public and international scrutiny. Thus, Japanese policy makers must consider the extent to which Tokyo could withstand mounting external pressure to cease and desist while its nuclear complex amassed enough bomb-making material for a viable arsenal. Tokyo cannot expect to deceive the international community long enough to present the world a fait accompli. It would probably have to make its intentions clear--and endure international opprobrium--well before reaching the breakout threshold, if not at the outset. Even assuming that Japan can procure enough fissile materials to build an arsenal, its engineers would still have to leap over several technical barriers. First, Japan must devise an effective, efficient delivery system. The most direct route would be to arm Japan's existing fleet of fighter aircraft with nuclear bombs or missiles. The fighters in the Air Self-Defense Force (SDF) inventory, however, are constrained by four factors: vulnerability to preemptive strikes while still on the ground at their bases; limited range, as Japan possesses no strategic bombers; susceptibility to interception by enemy fighters while en route to their targets; and vulnerability to increasingly sophisticated integrated air-defense systems. Compounding these shortcomings, Japan is surrounded by water, substantially increasing flight times to targets on the Asian mainland. In light of this, ballistic or cruise missiles would likely rank as Japan's weapon of choice. (45) The challenges would be two. First, if Tokyo chose to rely on a missile delivery system, it would have to produce a workable, miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be mounted atop an accurate cruise or ballistic missile. Such a feat is not beyond Japanese engineering prowess, but it would involve significant lead time. Second, the nation must develop the delivery vehicle itself. Even the U.S. defense-industrial sector, with its half-century of experience in this field, takes years to design and build new missiles. Japan could conceivably convert some of its civilian space-launch vehicles into ballistic missiles, but it would have to perfect key components, like inertial guidance systems. If it opted for long-range cruise missiles, Tokyo would in effect find itself-- unless it could purchase Tomahawk cruise missiles off the shelf from the United States, a doubtful prospect, given the highly offensive nature of Tomahawks and thus the political sensitivity of such a sale--compelled to start from scratch. Procuring and integrating satellite guidance, terrain-contour matching, and other specialized techniques and hardware would demand long, hard labor from Japanese weapon scientists. There is also the question of testing. Japan would need to ensure the safety and reliability of its nuclear arsenal. There would be no substitute for an actual nuclear test that proved this new (for Japan) technology while bolstering the credibility of Japanese deterrence. The Japanese Archipelago is simply too small and too densely populated for a test to be conducted there safely--even leaving aside the potential for a political backlash, given the memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it would conjure up. Tokyo could detonate a device near some Japanese-held island in the Pacific, such as Okinotori-shima. But again, the diplomatic furor from flouting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would be intense, while the Japanese populace would think back to the Lucky Dragon incident during the Bikini tests of the 1950s. (46) One need only recall the uproar over French and Chinese tests on the eve of the CTBT's entry into force. Computer simulations of weapon performance may be less optimal but would certainly be more palatable from a political standpoint for Japan. The Israeli experience may be instructive here for any Japanese bomb-making efforts. The technical dilemmas reviewed above demonstrate that there is no shortcut to a nuclear breakout, even for a technological powerhouse of Japan's standing. The Congressional Research Service notes, "If one assumes that Japan would want weapons with high reliability and accuracy, then more time would need to be devoted to their development unless a weapon or information was supplied by an outside source." (47) Kan Ito, a commentator on Japanese strategic affairs for nearly two decades, concurs, considering observers who predict a rapid breakout "utterly presumptuous." Declares Ito, "It is dangerous to believe such a misconception. It will take 15 years for Japan to build up its own autonomous nuclear deterrence capability that is truly functional." (48) While one may quibble with his fifteen-year timeline, which seems unduly pessimistic, the period required to develop and field a credible deterrent would probably be measured in years rather than the weeks or months cavalierly bandied about.

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Nuclear armament impossible – even if Japan could get a warhead quickly, they couldn’t deploy it The Daily Yomiuri, March 22, 2007, “NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR THREAT; Japan could build N-weapons, but...”, Lexis

Japan's nuclear power generation technology is almost as advanced as that of the United States and France. It would seem to follow that there is no reason why Japan, with such cutting-edge technology, cannot develop nuclear arms, a feat achieved by North Korea and Pakistan. When Glenn Seaborg, a participant in the Manhattan Project, visited Japan in September 1965, he asserted that Japan had the technology to produce nuclear arms in about five years. Given that more than 40 years have passed since then, can Japan actually manufacture nuclear weapons? Nuclear bombs come in two types: plutonium and uranium. Japan is said to have the technology to develop both types. But it would have to overcome many hurdles to do so. Plutonium is extracted in the process of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant. But weapons-grade plutonium with a purity of more than 90 percent cannot be obtained from the light water reactors that are operated in Japan. It is possible to increase the purity of plutonium by shortening the period of burning fuel within a reactor by repeating the stoppage and resumption of operations and exchange of fuel. But this method is inefficient and not a realistic option. The most effective method is to use a graphite-moderated reactor, as North Korea did. But no such reactors are operated in this country, and it would take several years to build a reactor of this type. One expert said that should Japan wish to develop just one nuclear bomb, it could be manufactured using a light water reactor, and if it wants to mass-produce them, it should use graphite moderated reactors. To produce a uranium-type bomb, it is necessary to enrich the density of uranium from the 3 percent to 5 percent density needed for power generation to the more than 90 percent density required for making nuclear weapons. It is technically possible to procure weapons-grade uranium if a large number of centrifuges are used. However, the explosive yield of such a bomb is smaller than that of the plutonium type, and it is difficult to miniaturize the warhead for such a weapon. Even after procuring weapons-grade nuclear materials, it is necessary to develop a detonation device that can ensure a certain level of explosive power. In the case of an implosion-method bomb, for example, extremely advanced technology capable of simultaneously detonating at least 32 fuses within a margin of error of one-millionth of a second is required. The explosive power of the atomic bomb detonated by North Korea last October was less than one kiloton (TNT equivalent), far smaller than the four-kiloton class Pyongyang told Beijing it was going to test beforehand. The rudimentary detonation technology used in the bomb was cited as a major factor in its limited yield. Tetsuo Sawada, an expert in nuclear engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology, said: "It takes at least a year to develop a nuclear bomb, going through the whole process from design, manufacture and verification to a detonation test. If the time needed to build a nuclear reactor and related facilities are included, it takes several years to develop a nuclear bomb." To deploy manufactured weapons and turn them into an effective deterrent force, it is necessary to develop specialized nuclear warfare units and equipment including vehicles to deliver nuclear warheads. In the case of Japan, which is a small country, it would be extremely difficult to locate a nuclear base on land, given the strong opposition among the public even to the construction of a nuclear power plant. The prevalent view is that it would be more appropriate for Japan to build a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) system like Britain's, which is less susceptible to an enemy attack. It would take a very long time for Japan to develop a single nuclear submarine fitted with an SLBM system on its own, and costs involved would reach 500 billion yen, Sawada said. If several SLBM-outfitted submarines were built, costs would top 10 trillion yen, including research and development expenses, Sawada added. Pointing out the problems of having nuclear arms capability, Tetsuya Endo, a former deputy chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said, "There's a big difference between the technological capability to develop a nuclear warhead and [a] meaningful nuclear weapons [defense system]."

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The Japanese government adamantly opposes rearm and anti-nuclearization movements are gaining ground Xinhua 8/6/2010 (English.news.cn, "Symbolic gestures not enough for Japan to realize nuclear free world," http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-08/06/c_13433579_2.htm)

But Tadatoshi Akiba, the mayor of Hiroshima, and many peace activists across the country and indeed the world believe that Japan is leading the plight for nuclear disarmament and the attendance Friday by ambassador Roos and UN secretary-general Ban is a testament to the fact their voices are finally being heard. Akiba urged the Japanese government to assert itself as global leaders for nuclear disarmament and is well placed to "turn a new page in human history." "There still remains a great deal of animosity towards the U.S. regarding the use of atomic bombs," said McNeil. "Some (Japanese) would still like to hear an official apology, but for many of the survivors their focus is not on the past, it's very much on the future and they feel that now Japan has a global spotlight trained on it, with the all the visiting dignitaries from so many countries -- most importantly Roos and Ban -- the Japanese government should actively work with the U.S. and the UN to ensure denuclearization becomes a reality and not just a buzzword." "Yes, the U.S.' attendance in Hiroshima was well, well overdue, but better late than never. Now Japan can be even more proactive in ensuring global change," he said. McNeil's sentiments were reflected by the nation's leader during a speech at Friday's ceremony. Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for the human race not to repeat the horror and misery that can be caused by atomic bombs and being that Japan is the only country to have been attacked by the war-time atomic bombs, the nation has a moral obligation to lead the efforts towards the realization of a world without nuclear weapons. Following the prime minister's speech, 1,000 white doves were released in a symbolic gesture for peace, but perhaps, as McNeil suggests, the time for symbolic gestures has long since passed and the time for Japan to actually effect change is here.

Japan will never nuclearize – expert consensus, public opposition, and no political support Gregory Kulacki, Senior Analyst, China Project Manager, Expert in Nuclear Weapons & Global Security-US-China Relations at the Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program, March 2010, “Japan And America’s Nuclear Posture”, http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/nwgs/japan-american-nuclear-posture.pdf

In this report we examine the claim that the Japanese government opposes the U.S. government declaring that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to the use of nuclear weapons by another country. We also examine the claim that in response to such a change in U.S. policy there is an increased risk Japan’s leaders may decide to develop Japan’s own nuclear arsenal. We find that: • Some Japanese security experts and officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense are concerned about the credibility of U.S. extended nuclear deterrence. However, these concerns are not new nor a consequence of the potential changes in U.S. nuclear policy the Obama administration is discussing. • There is a long-standing consensus among Japanese security officials and experts, including those concerned about the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence, that there is no imaginable scenario in which developing nuclear weapons would be advantageous to the defense of Japan. • Japanese public opinion polls consistently register strong levels of support for nuclear disarmament and strong levels of opposition to the development of nuclear weapons or the introduction of U.S. nuclear weapons into Japan. • The prime minister, the foreign minister, and more than 200 members of the Japanese Diet have expressed strong support for a change in U.S. declaratory policy stating that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter or respond to the use of nuclear weapons by another country. These findings imply that the United States could reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy without weakening the U.S.-Japan security alliance. Moreover, there is no evidence that these changes will increase the risk that Japan will withdraw from the NPT and develop its own nuclear weapons. To the contrary, it appears that both the Japanese public and the Japanese government would welcome these changes in U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

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Institutional constraints mean that regardless of capability or will Japan can’t change foreign policy Calder 2005 (Kent E. Calder, Ph.D. from Harvard University, Director of Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Fall, “Halfway to hegemony: Japan's tortured trajectory”, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb137/is_3_27/ai_n29223867/)

All of my three major contentions have fortunately weathered the test of time, despite their controversial standing fifteen years ago. Japan has not, despite a huge economy that today constitutes one seventh of global gross domestic product, emerged as an effective "rule-maker" in international affairs. For example, the vaunted Miyazawa Plan of the late 1990s, aimed at promoting the financial development of a number of Asia's poorest countries, never became the standard for developing world debt relief despite its substantial intellectual content. Japan's initiative was instead preempted and superceded by the United States' own Brady Plan. Similarly, Japan failed across the 1980s and the 1990s in its efforts to modify copyright protection of software. More recently, Japan's "G-4 plan" for reforming the UN Security Council likewise failed to prevail in the 2005 General Assembly session. And the so-called Kyoto Protocol for protecting the global environment, promulgated at a landmark 1999 conference in Kyoto itself, failed to be adopted even by Japan's closest ally, the United States. Despite often strong protestations of solidarity with Japan as well as strong Japanese cooperation with global initiatives from elsewhere, the United States--not to mention the European Union, China, and other global powers--have failed to a surprising degree, given Japan's economic power, to adopt initiatives with a clear provenance in Tokyo. Time has also shown Japan's limited key-currency role of the late 1980s to be frustratingly enduring. Japan has become by far the world's largest creditor, with nearly US$2 trillion in net assets, and nearly US$800 billion in official foreign exchange reserves. Yet, the yen's share of global central bank reserves has actually declined. Japan has become significantly more open to foreign manufactured imports than was true in 1989. Indeed, the share of such imports in its total trade rose from less than 50 percent in 1990 to 61.5 percent by 2003. Yet Japan has not become either a market or lender of last resort. Indeed, China has become the largest export market for many developing nations--a more important prop for their development efforts than Japan. Only in overseas development assistance (ODA) does Japan cut a truly global figure. And even Japanese ODA has begun to recede since the late 1990s, falling by nearly one third between 2000 and 2002 alone. Institutional Barriers to Change The heart of my argument that Japan would not emerge as a global power commensurate with its economic scale for a sustained period was structural. I contended that a combination of a high degree of regulation and fragmented structures would impose a straitjacket on the Japanese political economy that would constrain its global role. This constraint would be enduring precisely because it was institutional, and embedded institutions are not changed easily by fragmented, divided political authorities. Fragmented policy-making institutions give unusual leverage to veto-players, and the prominence of such players in Japan make change difficult except in crisis circumstances. In concluding that Japanese foreign policy-making had a stability bias, except in crisis, I employed the same logic that I did in my 1988 Crisis and Compensation, which also emphasized the importance of fragmentation in state structures in imparting a conservative cast to domestic policy formation. To conclude that Japanese policy-making would have a conservative cast, due to fragmented state structures and the inherent leverage of numerous veto-players, was not to argue that it could not change. Indeed, I did not conclude that Japanese policy-making was inevitably static. I saw it more as a dialectical tension between economic forces and external pressures, which generally were the dynamic element driving the system, and the straitjacket of embedded institutional structures and processes. In this sense, Japanese security policy certainly had the potential to gradually change over the course of the 1990s. The role of the Self Defense Forces, for example, expanded steadily from simple static homeland defense to major support for allied naval forces in the Arabian Sea during the Afghan War by the fall of 2001, and eventually to a Japanese Ground Self Defense presence that was the fourth largest in Iraq by the summer of 2005. Thus, despite Japan's institutional tendency to resist transformation, the country has, in a few discrete instances, successfully promoted changes in its foreign policy-making. The reasoning by which I concluded that Japan would move only "halfway to hegemony"--but nevertheless with a significant role in support of the United States in global affairs--highlights a somewhat unconventional set of analytical variables as the drivers in international politics. Conventional analysis tends to privilege state strategy. Because of my emphasis on the constraining impact of institutional structure on foreign policy behavior--at least in the Japanese case--I was skeptical of state strategy, or public perception, as a determinant of actual behavior. I argued that the obstacles that decision-makers face are often more important than their intentions in determining policy outcomes, and that approach seems to have been vindicated in the Japanese case. The years since I wrote have been hallmarked by repeated commitments by Japanese leaders to reform--in the security realm as well as in economics--that have proven excruciatingly difficult to implement. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto solemnly committed--at a bilateral 1996 summit with his preeminent ally, US President Bill Clinton--to close the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa and to prepare an alternate site on the east coast of the island. Yet that transfer had not even begun a full decade later. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi struggled for more than four years to reform the postal savings system and went to the extraordinary lengths of dissolving the Diet, purging his opponents from the ruling party, and holding a special election before even partially achieving his goal in late 2005. The bad debt problems spawned by the collapse of the financial bubble in the early 1990s were still haunting Japan and the global political economy, nearly fifteen years after they had originally emerged.

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An independent Japan SDF is key to counterbalance a rising China – it’s the best model for regional security Preble 2006 [Christopher, director of foreign policy studies @ Cato institute, Cato institute, “Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship” April 16 2008, p. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa566.pdf

Meanwhile, Japan’s neighbors should welcome a potential counterweight to a rising China. Many already do. Attitudes toward Japan vary widely, with Taiwanese, Singapore- ans, Filipinos, and Malays much more favorably disposed than are Koreans. The Chinese are not eager to see the emergence of a strategic competitor in Asia. From the perspective of political and military leaders in Beijing, a “proper” role for the Japanese SDF would have little if any impact on the regional balance of power. China’s path over the past 30 years has been marked by increased economic liberalization combined with some (albeit halting) political reform. But there is still a long way to go. Common economic interests within Asia may lead to China’s peaceful integration into the region. Or China could turn away from its current course of political and economic liberalization and revert to economic autarchy imposed by military force. It is even possible that China could become a revisionist power, no longer content to accept regional security configurations in their present form. That could occur even if the PRC holds to a course of economic reform. Against those unlikely but dangerous possibilities, East Asian countries might wish to adopt a hedging strategy that would allow for the emergence, in the meantime, of other regional powers capable of balancing against a rising China. Japan is the one regional power best suited to play this role. Japan is a stable and mature democracy. The pre–World War II era, when an imperial Japan attempted to secure an exclusive economic sphere for itself, is long past. The Japanese people have demonstrated a consistent aversion to the use of force and an equally strong determination to maintain firm civilian control over the nation’s military. It is highly unlikely that a new strategic relationship between the United States and Japan, one that affords Japan a place within the international community consistent with its economic, political, and military strength, would open the door to Japanese militarism that has remained dormant for nearly 60 years.

US Marines are useless against China – a better balancing model would be led by Japan and drawing down from Okinawa is the catalyst Bandow 10, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, May 12, 2010 (Doug, “Japan can Defend Itself”, http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11804)

Checking China is next on the potential Okinawa mission list. However, no one expects the United States to launch a ground invasion of the People's Republic of China irrespective of the future course of events. Thus, the MEF wouldn't be very useful in any conflict. In any case, a stronger Japanese military — which already possesses potent capabilities — would be a far better mechanism for encouraging responsible Chinese development. There's also the kitchen sink argument: the Marines are to maintain regional "stability." Pentagon officials draw expanding circles around Okinawa to illustrate potential areas of operation. The mind boggles, however. Should U.S. troops be sent to resolve, say, the long-running Burmese guerrilla war in that nation's east, a flare-up of secessionist sentiment in Indonesia, violent opposition to Fiji's military dictator, or border skirmishes between Cambodia and Thailand? It hard to imagine any reason for Washington to jump into any local conflict. America's presumption should be noninvolvement rather than intervention in other nations' wars. Making fewer promises to intervene would allow the United States to reduce the number of military personnel and overseas bases. A good place to start in cutting international installations would be Okinawa. America's post-Cold War dominance is coming to an end. Michael Schuman argued in Time: "Anyone who thinks the balance of power in Asia is not changing — and with it, the strength of the U.S., even among its old allies — hasn't been there lately."

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Japanese nukes key to check Chinese expansionism Sherrill, Professor at FSU, 2001 (Clifton, Comparitive Strategy Vol 20 Num 3 Pg 259-270) Chinese military adventurism in the South China Sea would likely continue to some degree despite the creation of a Japanese nuclear deterrent; however, a nuclear armed Japan would be better equipped to prevent China from becoming a regional hegemon. The incremental approach employed by China in displaying power in the region is limi ted inherently when it reaches the point of confrontation with a force backed by a credible nuclear deterrent. Rat her than acquiescing to Chinese dominance in areas of vital interest to Japan, a nuclear-backed SDF could const rain Chinese expansion.

Japan rearm stabilizes East Asia and deters Chinese aggression Richard Lowry, editor of National Review, a conservative American news magazine, and a syndicated columnist, July 4, 2005 (“Time for the Sun to Rise”)

Pacifism has never been so silly. In an East Asia featuring both one of the world's most irrational states and a rising dictatorial power bent on changing the region's strategic balance, it is a crucial ally of the United States that labors under a constitution that could have been written by Quakers. Of course, it was an American team put together by Douglas MacArthur after World War II that wrote the Japanese constitution imposing pacifism as state policy. That was understandable 50 years ago. Now, the constraints of the Japanese constitution -- and the Japanese attitudes that preserved them all these years -- are senseless anachronisms. Japan has slowly been emerging from its shell over the last decade, and it is one of the diplomatic triumphs of the Bush administration that it has helped accelerate this process, strengthening the U.S.-Japanese bond and enhancing its usefulness. The Japanese will proceed at their own pace, but our response to every step they take toward becoming a more "normal" country should be nothing but encouragement: "More, please." The goal, although it will never be fully achievable given historic, cultural, and other differences, should be to make Japan as reliable a partner of the U.S. in Asia as Britain is in Europe. "There is no fear of Japan. The old cork-in-the-bottle theory is dead," says an administration official, referring to the former fear in the U.S. government that any Japanese step toward rearmament would mean an inevitable slide toward aggressive militarism. "The old saw is that Japan is just an aircraft carrier, a jumping-off point for American forces. Well, we want to make it a jumping-off point for both U.S. and Japanese forces." The alliance is a natural. Japan broadly shares our values. The U.S. is the world's number-one economy and Japan is number two, a powerful combination. We want to check China, and Japan feels threatened by China. Japan provides the basing the U.S. needs at a time when we have lost our bases in the Philippines and our relationship with South Korea looks shaky. We want to stay in East Asia, and the Japanese want to keep us there, in a dangerous neighborhood. Japan is surrounded by three nuclear countries that would make anyone nervous: North Korea, China, and Russia. After the Cold War, the alliance seemed headed for a breakdown. Japan provided only financial support for the first Gulf War and refused to give the U.S. intelligence and logistical aid during the 1993-1994 showdown with North Korea. The Clintonites, meanwhile, were obsessed with banging on the Japanese on trade issues, to the exclusion of national-security considerations. They talked up a "strategic partnership" with China. But nothing concentrates the mind like a few missile launches. In 1996, China tested ballistic missiles off Taiwan, with a few landing near Japanese shipping lanes. This led to a joint U.S.-Japanese statement pledging Japanese logistical support to the U.S. during "regional contingencies" and stipulating that the U.S.-Japanese alliance includes "situations in the areas surrounding Japan." The Chinese screamed -- accurately -- that "situations" was meant to cover a potential conflict over Taiwan. Two years later, the North Koreans launched a missile over northern Japan, spurring Japanese interest in cooperation with the United States on a missile-defense system. Politically, Japan has become more conservative. Its Left has effectively collapsed. The Socialist party was never serious about governing, but existed as an obstructionist force in parliament (sound familiar?). After electoral reform in the early 1990s, it all but evaporated. Japanese politics has become more populist, and Japanese society more open and less risk-averse. A new generation of politicians both in the ruling Liberal Democratic party and in the opposition Democratic party is not so wedded to the old pieties. "Japan is tired of constantly apologizing, and it wants a place in the sun more than in a pure economic sense," says former State Department official Jim Kelly. North Korea is enough to shake anyone's pacifism. Besides its nuclear adventurism, it abducted Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, outraging ordinary Japanese. The Japanese realize that the North Koreans just might be telling the truth when they say they would never attack other Koreans; similar assurances are never made about Japan. Meanwhile, the Chinese have stupidly provoked Japan at every turn. China scholar Arthur Waldron calls Beijing's alienation of Japan one of its great post-war blunders. "Japan was a pacifist country, with a sentimental view of China," says Waldron. "It was ideal for the Chinese."

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Complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Japan is key to creating lasting diplomatic peace in Asia. Currently, Japanese politicians use the U.S. military as a ‘scapegoat’ to hide their true agenda. By removing all the bases and forcing the Japanese to govern their own affairs, the U.S. would force these politicians to act more diplomatically towards neighbors such as South Korea, because the impact of their rhetoric would fall on them and not on the U.S. Bandow 2014 (Doug, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan “U.S. Filled Okinawa With Bases And Japan Kept Them There: Okinawans Again Say No.” http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2014/11/26/u-s-filled-okinawa-with-bases-and-japan-kept-them-there-okinawans-again-say- no/print/ Nov. 26, 2014)

Pulling U.S. forces back from Japan—there’s no reason to stop with the units deployed in Okinawa—would shift the basic responsibility for that country’s defense to Tokyo. Japanese citizens then could decide how to fill the gap. It’s not America’s place to tell its friends how much to spend on what, how many soldiers to recruit, and where to station military forces. The Japanese people should assess the importance of national security objectives, from enforcing contested territorial claims to preserving national survival, and decide what they need and how much they are willing to spend. Without Washington as a convenient scapegoat, Japan’s leaders would have to more seriously weigh fairness to Okinawans in deciding where to base whatever forces Tokyo chose to maintain. A genuine “rebalancing” by America, not the fake transformation heralded by the Obama administration, which merely intends a little more of the same, almost certainly would impel Tokyo to do more, though exactly what would be a matter of debate. In fact, attitudes in Tokyo are changing. Prime Minister Abe is more of a hawk than many of his predecessors, though he still values the U.S. defense umbrella. Even more independent was Prime Minister Hatoyama, who fell victim to pressure from Washington. He observed: “Someday, the time will come when Japan’s peace will have to be ensured by the Japanese people themselves.” Such a shift would place greater pressure on Japanese officials to forge better relations with their neighbors, starting with South Korea. Regional cooperation should become a primary tool of Tokyo’s defense policy. As long as Japan can hide behind the U.S. fleet, Japanese politicians can play the nationalist card at home. Left on its own, Tokyo would have to weigh the international cost of such behavior much more seriously.

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Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- East Asia

The SDF is already one of the most advanced militaries in the world – US downsizing in Japan would create a more stable East Asia while freeing up resources to fight terrorism Preble 2006 [Christopher, director of foreign policy studies @ Cato institute, Cato institute, “Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship” April 16 2008, p. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa566.pdf

The Americans and Japanese have cooperated to address East Asian security issues for many years. The United States has retained a formal leadership role in the region through its maintenance of a sizable military garrison on Japanese territory. For their part, Japanese policymakers have grown more confident and assertive. They have increasingly pushed the envelope on the definition of “self-defense,” progressively expanding, in both philosophical and practical terms, the uses of military force that are considered legitimate under Japan’s officially pacifist constitution. The Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF) today is one of the most capable militaries on the planet, and that will continue to be the case, even if total Japanese defense spending remains relatively modest. Meanwhile, U.S. military power, still unmatched in absolute terms, is insufficient for maintaining a dominant position in all corners of the globe. If the United States is to focus on a few areas of particular concern related to the global war on terrorism, especially the Middle East, then U.S. policymakers must seek ways to quietly devolve security responsibilities to wealthy, stable, democratic allies in other regions of the world. That reorientation applies to Europe, where long-time NATO allies should be expected to play a much larger role in the defense of a continent that has enjoyed relative peace and security for more than 50 years. U.S. policymakers should apply the same reasoning to East Asia, a region confronting several urgent security challenges.

Japan is more than capable – their “limited” military is a myth. In real terms, Japan spends just as much on its SDF as other countries and is comparatively technologically advanced Preble 2006 [Christopher, director of foreign policy studies @ Cato institute, Cato institute, “Two Normal Countries: Rethinking the U.S.-Japan Strategic Relationship” April 16 2008, p. http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa566.pdf

As the total number of U.S. military personnel in Japan has remained relatively stable since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s defensive capabilities have expanded. Japan is already an active player in East Asia, and it possesses the resources necessary for it to contribute to global security using a wide range of political, economic, and military means. Indeed, Japan’s total economic output ranks second only to that of the United States. Japan has used a small portion of its great economic strength to upgrade its military capabilities, focusing particularly on qualitative improvements, as opposed to the number of troops, ships, or planes.28 So even as Tokyo continued to brandish its pacifist constitutional principles, and while total military spending as a share of GDP has remained at or just below 1 percent, the SDF has become a formidable, technologically advanced, and tactically diverse force whose ground, maritime, and air components boast nearly 240,000 active-duty personnel. The Maritime SDF includes 44 destroyers, 9 frigates, and 16 submarines, and the combined air power of the SDF includes 380 combat-capable aircraft plus other fixed-wing and helicopter assets.29 Japan’s defense expenditures are much smaller than those of the United States but are comparable to those of all other advanced industrial economies in real terms. In the mid- 1980s, Japan had the world’s sixth-largest defense budget behind the Soviet Union, the United States, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom; by the end of the decade, Japan trailed only the Soviet Union and the United States. Military spending continued to rise throughout the 1990s, and expenditures have remained stable since then. According to official statistics compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Japan’s defense expenditures in 2004 were exceeded only by those of the United States and the United Kingdom. It seems likely, however, that Japan’s defense budget was also less than that of China (Table 1).30 Chinese defense figures are widely disputed, and are likely 40 to 70 percent higher than the Chinese government’s official statistics. Leaving those three countries aside, however, Japan almost certainly spends more than the other two permanent members of the UN Security Council (France and

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Russia) but also more than Germany and almost three times as much as India, two other countries that aspire to permanent membership on the Security Council.

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Pro- AT: Rearm- Turn- ISIS

Amending article 9 is key to Japan defending itself against ISIS. Japan Times 2015 (“Constitutional change necessary to protect Japanese citizens: Abe” http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/03/national/politics-diplomacy/constitutional-change-necessary-protect-japanese-citizens- abe/ Feb. 2015)

After being unable to save two hostages held by Middle Eastern extremists, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said constitutional change will be needed to protect the lives and assets of Japanese citizens. Abe has said at times that with the current interpretation of Article 9, which forbids both the use of force to settle international disputes and the maintenance of regular armed forces, it is difficult to protect Japanese citizens in a changing security environment. “The Liberal Democratic Party has already presented a draft amendment to Article 9, and amending it is to carry out our duty of protecting the lives and assets of Japanese citizens,” Abe told the Upper House Budget Committee on Tuesday. He made the remarks in response to a suggestion by Masamune Wada of the Jisedai no To (Party for Future Generations) that Article 9 should be amended to enable the Self-Defense Forces to rescue Japanese being held abroad. “We should think about what to do with Article 9 as we may face various situations in the future,” Abe said. The Islamic State militant group recently killed two Japanese men after holding them hostage, igniting debate over Japan’s crisis management against terrorists. Abe has voiced his intention to amend the Constitution while in office, calling it the LDP’s long-held goal since it was founded in 1955.

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Pro- AT: Rearm- North Korea

A. Japanese nuclear deterrent key to stop North Korean War Sherrill, Professor at FSU, 2001, (Clifton, Comparitive Strategy Vol 20 Num 3 Pg 259-270) To take the particular case of South Korea, a nuclear-armed Japan would aid Korean security far more than it would threaten it. South Korea is threatened by the tyrannical regime in North Korea. Pursuant to pressures from the United States, South Korea has foregone development of a nuclear program, artically limited its own missile capabilities, and permitted a North Korean military advantage to exist. In return, the United States has concluded a mutual defense treaty with South Korea, pledging American military assistance in case of attack. The United States, in furtherance of its bilat eral security accord with South Korea, currently deploys approximately 37,000 American troops in South Korea. North Korea counters with hundred s of thousand s of troops, many of which are deployed directly across the demilitarized zone, within 40 mi les of Seoul. If the North Koreans launched a surprise attack, t he deployed American contingent of forces would not be able to stop it. The United States of course would seek t o reinforce these “trip- wire” troops . Accordingly, it most certainly would seek to transport both troops and equipment through nearby American bases in Japan. If the North Koreans threatened Japan with a nuclear or perhaps even a chemical or biologic attack in the event American forces moved through these bases, Japan would be forced to rely on the credibilty of the American nuclear deterrent. Because North Korea likely has developed he ballistic missile capability to attack the United States homeland directly, it would be question- able whether t he United States would risk an attack on Los Angeles by responding to a North Korean missile attack on Japan. Japan could request that t he United States not use t he American bases i n Japan, or overt ly refuse American access t o t he bases, in which case t he alliance would be shattered [10] . Absent U.S. throughpu t from t hese bases, the North Koreans woul d be far more li kely to succeed in a sweep t hroug h Sout h Korea. To summarize, South Korea n security is in part dependent on U.S. access to American bases in Japan. Japan is vulnerable to North Korea n blackmail, depending on North Korea ’s assessment of U. S. willingness to respond to a North Korean attack on Japan, given t hat North Korea mi ght t hen ret al iate wi th a mi ssi le att ack agai nst the conti nental Uni ted St at es. In the st at ed case, Sout h Korean existent ial securi ty is at stake; both Japanese and American security are at st ake t hroug h ei ther mi ssile at tack or pot ent ial al li ance disi nte- grat ion. If under the same scenario Japan possesses nucl ear weapons, however, the results could be far different. In this case, if North Korea were to threaten Japan to not allow American through put, Japan would not be reliant on extended deterrence but would have its own deterrent—one that i n the event of a North Korean attack undoubtedl y would be used. North Korea could no longer hope t o divide the U.S.–Japan alliance and would be faced with certain retaliation from t he Japanese if it launched against Japan. In this case, North Korea would have to prepare for t he rapid through put of American aid from t he bases in Japan that might deprive North Korea of t he quick decisive opera ion t hat would constitute its only chance to succeed in an attack on South Korea . Thus, Japanese possession of nuclear weapons could deter North Korea from choosing to engage i n such an operat ion and aid South Korea n security far more than threaten it.

B. Korean War leads to economic collapse and extinction Kim Myong, Executive Director of the Centre for Korean-American Peace and Unofficial Spokesman for the DPRK,1999, U.S.— DPRK will end up in a shotgun marriage”, http://www.nautilus.org/publications/essays/napsnet/policy-forums- online/security/9907G_Kim.html)

Kim Jong Il, often called North Korea's David, did not flinch from standing up to the military muscle of the world's super- Goliath, the United States. Kim Jong Il had already built up a lethal war machine capable of wreaking unprecedented havoc on the American mainland at a minute's notice. Kim Jong Il is sure of the huge capability of his military. It would take the Korean People's Army as few as several minutes to wipe out off the world map the whole of South Korea and the entire Japanese archipelago. Significantly absent from the Perry report is a mention of the real threat of any new war in Korea instantly expanding into nuclear war, with 12 operating nuclear reactors in the ROK, 51 reactors in Japan and 102 in the United States singled out as prime targets. However, the Perry report noted that a new war would be fought on the world's most densely populated and industrialized areas, unlike the Gulf War and the Yugoslavia war. Resumption of hostilities in Korea would spell an abrupt end to the present unprecedented economic prosperity the Americans are enjoying. It would leave South Korea and Japan smoking in Stone-Age ruins. Forward military bases, AEGIS ships, nuclear- powered aircraft carriers, submarines and cruise missiles would be of little operational value in safeguarding the American mainland from nuclear holocaust. Moreover, dozens, hundreds of Chernobyls will inevitably break out in South Korea, Japan and the United States.

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Con- Marines Good- Amphibious Training

US Marine Forces Japan conduct amphibious training for multiple countries in Asia. Lt. General Wissler, Commanding General III Marines Expeditionary Unit & Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

Most recently, we conducted small boat raid training with them where they conducted a 55- kilometer long-distance boat raids from sea to shore in some pretty miserable conditions. And they did it exceptionally well. So we’re building that partnership. As I said, the New Zealanders are building an amphibious capability, as are the Australians. And as part of that, they sent a company of infantry to participate with us as we develop – as we executed our partnership with our Korean partners. Malaysia is in the process of building a small marine corps, and we will be partnered with them as they build their marine corps. Not sure exactly what that will look like at this time, but we’re there to help them build that capability. In addition to those three of our security alliance partners who are building amphibious capability, two of them, Korea and Thailand, already have amphibious capabilities and we exercised those capabilities. Most recently for us, we exercised in an exercise called Cobra Gold, the largest multilateral military operation in Asia, just concluded in late February, early March. And we executed amphibious operations with our Thai partners, but also with our Korean partners who were there for that training.

Amphibious ships are overstretched because of tight budgets. Their maritime capabilities are critical to stability in the Asia-Pacific. Lt. General Wissler; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

Yes, not because 20 retired generals said so. I mean, more importantly, the Chief of Naval Operations is recently as this week, Admiral Greenert said he needs 50 amphibious ships to meet the requirements that he has. Now, General Amos and Admiral Greenert have agreed that given the current funding environment that we can only probably afford 33 amphibious ships. We have a real requirement for 38 in order to execute our support to operation plans, if you will. But the 50 is to meet the presence requirements around the world in support of combat and commanders. If we had 33, we would be able to generate 30 amphibious ships, which correlates to 10 of our amphibious ready groups to support operations around the world. So there is a challenge to amphibious ships, and our commandant refers to amphibious ships as the Swiss army knife, if you will, of capability in our Navy. They can do things – we brought two amphibious ships down to support operations in support of the Philippines, brought the Marines – we didn’t load them in the traditional way. We didn’t load them with a Marine Expeditionary Unit. We loaded them heavy in water purification capability, in engineer equipment, the ability to move and to transport supplies. And we brought Marines, limited infantry capability, but more our medical capabilities and our ability with our engineers to do and to help things. So those amphibious ships allow us to respond across that range of the military operations. And so not only are those retired general officers concerned about amphibious ships, but I would offer the Chief of Naval Operations and our Commandant of the Marine Corps are concerned about it as well. Now, what was kindly left out of my bio was I was the money guy for the Marine Corps for the three years before I went to III MEF and my parole was stamped approved from the Pentagon. I know how hard a job the Navy has to produce those amphibious ships. So I’m not poking at the United States Navy. This – the maritime capabilities of this nation are critical to the rebalance to Asia-Pacific and central to those are their amphibious capabilities. And so the investment in amphibious capabilities must be made if we’re going to be successful in this operation. And you heard Admiral Locklear, in fact in his testimony, say the exact same thing. So this isn’t a rogue

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Marine who’s trying to find some extra amphibious; I think all the people who know most about this theater and most about our national security strategy understand that amphibious ships are part and parcel to success.

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Con- Marines Good- Amphibious Training

Asian Pacific amphibious marines overstretched now- increases difficulty and cost of training. Nacos; 2016 (Brigette; Mass-Mediated Terrorism: Mainstream and Digital Media in Terrorism and Counterterrorism; P. 204; google books)

In the long term, the navy and marines would ideally add an 11th Amphibious Ready Group to the Pacific, adding capacity to this already stressed force. Much of the necessary infrastructure already exists at Naval Base Guam for such a force, although additional housing and port facilities would be required. Alternatively, the United States might work with Australia and Japan to share some operational amphibious lift and maneuver capacity, increasing allied interoperability while minimizing costs.

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Con- Marines Good- China- Deterrence

The deterrent effect is accomplishable even with small troop numbers because it is based on a projection of power and not a real invasion strategy. Marines cause China to think twice before attacking Japan- South Korea proves effective. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015). Some commentators argue that there are not enough US forces on Okinawa to deter an aggressor, much less make a difference in the event of a major conflict in Asia. Besides the fact that even a small number of troops, ships, or aircraft rapidly deployed can make a difference, this argument overlooks the fact that in the event of a more serious contingency, Okinawa-based forces will be reinforced. They are intended to be employed as part of a larger effort involving US forces from overseas. Only a rash opponent would care to take on the full might of the United States. A similar dynamic applies on the Korean Peninsula. The relatively small number of US Army troops in South Korea stationed near the DMZ have a limited warfighting capability, but force the North to run the risk of bringing the full weight of the United States in the event of an attack. This deterrent effect has worked for many decades. Also, one should remember that deploying US troops from a distance (i.e. the US mainland or even Hawaii) is almost always a difficult domestic political decision. With forward deployed troops, the decision has mostly already been made — and if US troops are targeted or harmed, the certainty of a response is near 100 percent. This gives adversaries pause

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Con- Marines Good- China- Military-to-Military Cooperation

Okinawan Marines worked side-by-side with Chinese Marines in Thailand for Cobra Gold exercise. Lt. General Wissler, Commanding General III Marine Expeditionary Force & Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

So we are committed to that. In terms of what the Chinese intentions are, I pay no attention. It would be speculation on my part to tell you what the Chinese intentions are. I can tell you this; there’s been a decided effort, and I’ve read in the papers today, agreement on expanded mil-to- mil opportunities between the U.S. and China in the Asia theater. And as I mentioned, it already took place; not well-publicized, but there was a Marine engineer platoon side-by-side with a Chinese engineer platoon in Thailand doing work together as part of exercise Cobra Gold. So I think we’re already seeing an expansion of those mil-to-mil relationships and building familiarity with each of our military capabilities. And based on what I read today, that looks to be increased somewhere in the future. What exactly that means, I can’t tell you. Probably a better question for Admiral Locklear.

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Con- Marines Good- China- Senkakus Dispute

U.S. Marines are critical for defending the Senkaku islands from Chinese aggression. Also, Japanese defense minister Toshimi has stated that Okinawa itself would be under threat of Chinese takeover, had it not been for the U.S. Marines. The Marines in Okinawa risk their lives for Japan’s security and for Okinawa’s security as well. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

The U.S. Marine presence helps America meet its commitment to defend Japan, including the Senkaku Islands. … As Lieutenant General Stalder succinctly explained, “all of my Marines on Okinawa are willing to die if it is necessary for the security of Japan.”…Kan stated: [W]e must never forget that in the context of the Japan–U.S. alliance, members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. Marines, perhaps youth not even twenty years of age, have a mission to be prepared to shed their own blood [for the defense of Japan] should a contingency arise. In response to Chinese provocations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reassured Foreign Minister Maehara in November 2010 that the United States considered the Senkaku Islands to be Japanese territory under the bilateral security treaty. The U.S. statement was a stronger affirmation than previous vague diplomatic comments on the sovereignty of the islands. In addition to the Senkaku Islands, U.S. Marines are also critical to securing Japanese interests in Okinawa. For example, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa opposed moving U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam because, as he noted, these troops “a very important role in deterring against Chinese adventurism near Okinawa—if all the Marines in Okinawa were transferred to Guam, we cannot defend those islands.” [14]

In the case of Chinese takeover of the Senkakus, only U.S. Marines could rescue the islands- Japanese not strong enough. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Further highlighting the Marine’s role in the Pacific, in February 2011, Admiral Robert Willard, commander of Pacific Command, announced that the Marine Corps had been integrated into the new U.S. AirSeaBattle Concept battle plan, commenting that “their capabilities will be an enhancement to our joint force.” A U.S. defense official added that the revised strategy could use the Marines to retake islands in the East China or South China seas after a Chinese attack. The official commented that “the Japanese and South China Sea states don’t have Marine Corps-type capabilities to stop a Chinese occupation of islands.”[15]

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Con- Marines Good- Combined Training

Withdraw wrecks the Marines left behind—-critical mass and combined training is key Schoff 2013 – James L. Schoff, Senior Associate in the Carnegie Asia Program Focusing on U.S.-Japanese Relations and Regional Engagement, Japanese Politics and Security, and Private Sector's Role in Japanese Policymaking, July 17, "Getting Serious About U.S. Marine Relocation in Japan", http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/07/17/getting-serious-about-u.s.-marine-relocation-in-japan

Nakaima faces a difficult political decision on the landfill permit with important implications. His main priority is to close Futenma quickly and reduce the U.S. Marine presence in Okinawa, and he criticizes the current Henoko plan as too slow. The majority of Okinawans want the marines to move off the island entirely, and the governor’s office has promoted an expedited “dispersal” alternative that would separate components of marines currently stationed at the Futenma Air Station and have them rotate around different existing Japanese commercial and military facilities in the rest of country. The dispersal concept is vague, but it essentially breaks up the marines in Japan into small units that would base and train temporarily at multiple locations outside Okinawa. This alternative is unworkable operationally because the marines need a certain critical mass and a reliable combined training regimen to maintain their capabilities and responsiveness. It also risks opening up a whole new can of political worms and inciting multiple local protests in these new host cities. Pursuing this “quick” solution would delay movement on the current plan and cause Futenma to stay where it is even longer than projected.

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Con- Marines Good- Congressional Backlash

Withdraw causes the US to pull out our Navy and Air Force presence—-Congress will backlash against Marine withdrawal Richard P. Lawless 10, former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs, interviewed by YOICHI KATO, Asahi Shimbun Senior Staff Writer, "Former U.S. official: Japan could lose entire Marine presence if Henoko plan scrapped," 3/5/2010, http://web.archive.org/web/20100612005015/http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201003040361.html

When you start disturbing that fundamental relationship, it leads to a range of other questions about the sustainability of the alliance. And I would suggest that the departure of the Marines would call into question the basic sustainability of this alliance as it is./ It would probably trigger a fundamental readjustment, necessarily, of this alliance. It would probably trigger major questions in our Congress about what our commitments are to Japan and why we have to have those commitments. I also think it would probably trigger a major reorientation of the regional security posture./ Japan will be the triple loser in any such event. But if Japan does not care, if its leaders are so distracted or have another plan, so be it./ Q: Hatoyama set May as the deadline for a decision. But that's not a deadline set by the United States./ A: No./ Q: What would the U.S. reaction be if Hatoyama continued to drag on this issue?/ A: I think we've been extremely patient up to this point. We believed him when he said he would have this issue resolved by December. We've now believe him when he said he would have it resolved by May./ There are hints that Hatoyama may attempt to delay this decision until after the July election. We see no value whatsoever in delaying this decision. It is only getting worse with time. It is not getting better./ When you have dug yourself a great big hole, it is usually wise to stop digging, or somebody has to take away the shovel./ What I want to capture is that there does not seem to be an appreciation that the Henoko issue will set in motion a necessarily complete reassessment of our entire posture. You know what I mean./ What this would do is highlight the fact that Japan is not a dependable ally, and it is, therefore, not an ally on whom, with whom, we can construct our deterrence strategy./ A forced departure, or a decision that forces us to consider departing our forces from Okinawa, would impact the overall political relationship long before any forces depart Japan. Just the fact that we would have to examine this possibility seriously will, in itself, set in motion a whole chain of considerations and reassessments./ So it is not the physical departure that triggers this; it's the fact that we have to consider, almost immediately, when, how, what our options are. That, in turn, is going to get our Congress involved, and it will compel our military planners involved. This situation will quickly get out of control, and once the momentum and goodwill move away from Japan, it will be very difficult for Japan to put this problem back in the box./ The "knock-on" effect of a forced Marine departure, on the alliance itself but on all of our security relationships in Asia, shouldn't be underestimated. A fundamental re-examination would lead us to make decisions that are lasting./ And if Japan is willing to accept that as the consequence of what they're doing now, that's fine. But a leader, Mr. Hatoyama as the leader in his party, must accept the consequences of what he and his party leadership has set in motion./ Q: One argument is that if Japan sets up a new multilateral "talk shop" in the region, like an East Asia summit, and then gains the confidence among those regional states, including China, then Japan wouldn't have to depend on the U.S. presence as much as in the past. What do you say to this kind of argument?/ A: Well, this is a decision that this government has to make. It was elected. It still has four more years to serve, I guess. And if its national strategy is to "jaw-jaw," as Churchill would say, and create an East Asia Community with attendant security components, and that is how this government plans to provide for and enhance the security of Japan, then I think the Hatoyama government has to explain that to us. And then we have to talk very seriously about what that means for the alliance./ Here's the question. And, this comes back to Henoko. Is there any evidence that the reduction of our capabilities in Japan and the weakening of the alliance, which will happen, in any way increases security for Japan?/ The actual result will be different. It will embolden China. And it will embolden any country, such as North Korea, that wants to pick a fight or do something negative related to Japan./ So if you're going to begin the process of dismantling, which is what we're talking about, the quality of the alliance and, therefore, the quality of the deterrence that this alliance provides. If you're going to do that, then one had best figure out what one is going to replace it with./ And we haven't heard any ideas on how this new government would plan to replace the existing capability and the existing deterrence with a substitute mechanism./ Q: DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa said, as you know, the Seventh Fleet is enough. So there is a school of thought within this administration and among its supporters that the current arrangement is more than enough for the defense of Japan./ What do you think of the argument that the Marines would not be necessary if the Seventh Fleet stays? For that matter, would the Fifth Air Force be enough?/ A: First of all, I think that this particular Mr. Ozawa statement, I hope, was taken out of context. But if it wasn't, it reveals an incredible naivete, simplicity and lack of judgment./ He can't have meant what he said and be a logically, reasonably informed individual. And Mr. Ozawa is smarter than this./ So I think we take it that this statement was made for political merit and political impact, not as a serious statement by a man who, previously, was very well attuned to national security interests./ But if we were to take the statement at face value--the idea that Japan would have the level of deterrence simply by the Seventh Fleet remaining as currently based--(it) contains the assumption that our Congress would accept the continued basing of a nuclear carrier battle group in Japan after Japan has basically run the Marines out of town./ The nuclear carrier battle group is a United States' national strategic capability. The idea that we would leave a national strategic capability in a country that had declared other military capabilities we deemed essential to the defense of Japan to be now unnecessary is delusional.

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Con- Marines Good- Deterrence

Military presence in Okinawa is a key part of Japan’s national security because it functions as a deterrent against aggression. The ground troops in Japan are a critical feature of deterrence because ground troops are more threatening to potential aggressors than missiles alone. Japan is a strategic location for this deterrence, so re-locating troops elsewhere will not be as effective. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #2: The U.S. Marine presence deters aggression. U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos has explained that the fundamental role of U.S. military forces in Japan is to “make those who would consider the use of force in this region understand that option is off the table. The forward deployment of U.S. forces puts us in a position to react immediately to emerging threats.”[7] The December 2010 Japanese National Defense Program Guidelines underscored Roos’s comments by noting that the presence of U.S. armed forces in Japan gives countries in the Asia–Pacific region a strong sense of security by “functioning as deterrence against and response to contingencies in this region.”[8] Foreign Minister Okada affirmed that “the presence of U.S. Marines on Okinawa is necessary for Japan’s national security [since they] are a powerful deterrent against possible enemy attacks and should be stationed in Japan.”[9] History has repeatedly shown that ground troops are necessary to influence an opponent. Removing combat elements of the only rapidly deployable U.S. ground force between Hawaii and India would degrade U.S. deterrence capacity and limit response options.

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Con- Marines Good- Deterrence

Preserving planned levels of Marines together on Okinawa is key to deterrence—-the plan disrupts training and sends a signal of US disengagement that emboldens adversaries and scares allies—-causes regional arms races and crisis escalation Lieutenant General Keith J. Stalder 10, Commanding General, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, "Marine General Stalder Speaks at Tokyo American Center," Feb 17 2010, http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20100217-71.html

This leads me to the purpose of the Marine Corps, which is to be expeditionary, amphibious, and naval - the Navy-Marine team is the best in the world at what we do./ Credible combat power, whether for deterrence or warfighting, rests on three cornerstones: the right capabilities, at a high level of readiness, and postured for rapid employment. The Marine Corps' combination of capabilities, readiness, and posture make it ideally suited to be Asia's emergency response force./ The fundamental Marine Corps organizational structure is the Marine Air Ground Task Force, in which war fighting elements of aviation forces, ground combat forces, and logistics forces all operate under a single commander. This unique organizational structure serves the Alliance extremely well. A Marine Air Ground Task Force can be tailored to every mission requirement./ It is inherently maritime in nature, extremely flexible and adaptive, and works well with coalition and other forces./ It provides the greatest combat power for the minimum force footprint and it is battle tested around the world. It is the perfect organizational model for Marines in the Pacific. It is the perfect model to support Alliance objectives of deterring, defending, and defeating potential adversaries./ Of course, in order for the integrated forces of a Marine Air Ground Task Force to be able to deploy on short notice and to be ready for a wide variety of security and natural disaster contingencies, all the elements of the task force must train together continuously./ It is this training requirement that mandates co-location of the constituent parts of a Marine Air Ground Task Force. That is a fancy way of saying that a Marine Air Ground Task Force is a lot like a baseball team. It does not do you any good to have the outfielders practicing in one town, the catcher in another, and the third baseman somewhere else. They need to practice together, as a unit./ It's the same with a Marine Air Ground Task Force./ The ground forces, the helicopters, and the logistics elements need to practice together, week in and week out, if they are going to effectively combine those capabilities when they respond to emergencies./ As I travel around Asia, I get questions about what I mean by training with our helicopters. People ask, "How hard is it to get on and off a helicopter?" Well, to answer that question specifically, it can actually be very difficult to get on and off a helicopter if people are shooting at you, or if there is a food riot in the area, or if you are having to climb down a long rope suspended from a hovering aircraft./ But our helicopters do much more than move people and supplies. Our combat helicopters provide close air support by attacking enemy positions that endanger troops on the ground. Surveillance helicopters provide navigational and targeting support. Heavy lift helicopters carry suspended pallets of life saving supplies, and then lower those pallets to Marines waiting on the ground./ In other words, our helicopters are integral to everything we do when we respond to both humanitarian and security situations. Those responses require skill and precision./ Our ground forces must train consistently with the helicopters that support them. Otherwise, when we respond to a contingency, mistakes will happen, the mission may fail, and people will die./ The helicopter is to the Marine as the horse was to the cavalryman of the old west- the horse did everything for and with him. He lived, slept, ate, fought, trained and died with his horse. Without it, he was not a cavalryman at all and could not perform his mission./ Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps this is a good place for me to say a few things about Okinawa, because our bases there are absolutely vital to this Alliance and to Japan's national security./ Okinawa is very important because, as I said earlier, geography matters. If you want to know why the Marine Corps maintains forces on Okinawa, look at a map. Transit time by sea from Okinawa to mainland Japan is one-to-two days, to Korea, two days, to the South China Sea, three days, and to the Strait of Malacca, five days. From California, transit time to any of those locations is 21 days or more./ When the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit is aboard ship near Okinawa, on any given day there is a 100% chance they are about a day's transit time to either a U.S. defense Treaty ally, a threat to regional stability, or a perennial disaster relief location./ That's why, in order to fulfill our Alliance responsibilities to defend Japan, the Marine Corps - the expeditionary, rapidly deployable branch of the U.S. military and the only forward deployed and available U.S. ground force between Hawaii and India - must be based on Okinawa and must have its helicopters near its ground and logistics forces./ Ladies and gentlemen: Other nations are watching. Foreign governments are watching to see whether the United States-Japan Alliance is strong enough to find a solution to the current issues at hand and ensure that the awesome deterrent power of the U.S. Marine Corps remains based on Okinawa for decades to come./ Potential enemies of Japan and the U.S. are watching to see if there are chinks in this Alliance, because if it can be weakened today, maybe it can be weakened further tomorrow./ Our friends, those who share our values of liberty and our respect for human rights, are also watching. They want to remain firmly in our corner, but if they begin to suspect that our Alliance is not as strong as it once was, or that the United States is not as able as it was to ensure security in East Asia, one of two things is going to happen./ Either those countries are going to drastically increase their defense budgets to make up for their lack of faith in the Alliance's ability to defend them, leading to a regional arms race, or those nations will look for another country, and another political philosophy, to partner with. Either of those developments would be very dangerous for Japan and a serious threat to the prosperity and stability of the region./ The world is watching to see how committed the U.S. and Japan are to regional security and to a 50-year old Alliance. This is a national security issue for the Asia-Pacific region, not a local issue. For me, as the Commander of Marine Forces Pacific, it is an operational issue./ For the U.S. and Japan it is a vital regional stability issue - the greater good of many nations. It is an Alliance issue. An economic prosperity issue. It is about our collective futures in the most important region on earth. It is not just about a local basing issue./ People ask me occasionally if I am worried about some of the current discussions in Japan. I am not. I know that two nations who share our core values will find a way to sustain 10,000 U.S. Marines on Okinawa with the capabilities they require, while enabling the residents there more fully to benefit from the peace and prosperity that all of us have worked so hard for.

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Con- Marines Good- Japanese Military

The Marines in Okinawa protect Japan from Chinese aggression and also serve as a model for Japan’s own ground forces. Removing the base would ruin Japan’s own military and remove U.S. presence at the same time. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #10: Japan lacks the necessary defensive capacity. Japan lacks any Marine forces of its own, has ground forces that are less capable than their U.S. counterparts, and has poor combined arms operation capabilities. Nor is there any existing Asian architecture that guarantees the rights or interests of Asian nations. The continued presence of U.S. Marines ensures that Japan’s security limitations do not become liabilities. The Japanese Ministry of Defense responded to growing concerns over China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy by advocating the creation of Japanese ground forces “modeled after the U.S. Marine Corps to strengthen the defense of remote islands in southwestern Japan.” The ministry recommended doubling the 2,000 GSDF troops on Okinawa and developing ground forces capable of conducting amphibious operations to retake islands held by hostile forces. Yet Japanese forces’ amphibious operations capabilities remain in their infancy, and Tokyo does not intend to assume the regional responsibilities of the U.S. Marines on Okinawa.

Withdrawing marines makes Japanese modernization ineffective Robert D. Eldridge 2005, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, Director, U.S.-Japan Alliance Affairs Division, Center for International Security Studies and Policy, "The Futenma Relocation Problem and U.S.-Japan-Okinawa Relations after the Interim Report," Nov 4 2005, https://www.academia.edu/6416746/The_Futenma_Relocation_Problem_and_U.S.-Japan-Okinawa_Relations_after_the_Interim_Report

Second, the removal of the Marines to this extent is going to impair the program known as Theater Security Cooperation, or TSC. TSC is a Pacific Command-led program to build habits of cooperation between the U.S. military, its allies, friends, and others in the region through mil-to-mil exchanges, infrastructure projects, healthcare projects, education initiatives, and a host of other things. The Marines, being ground-based and expeditionary, are the key to TSC. In the early 1990s, only a handful of such activities were held, but now the number is close to 100. Moving them farther out of the region to Guam and Hawaii reduces these opportunities, pure and simple. This in turn will affect the ability to shape the region positively, which will hurt Japan and America’s security. Moreover, with a large part of the Marines moved to outside of Japan, the ability of the Japanese Ground Self Defense Forces to improve will be that much more limited. The GSO is intensely interested in learning from the Marines, as is the SDF as a whole, in their belated search for jointness. The Marines are the only U.S. service that is inherently joint, so there is much to learn from their experience. It is no coincidence that for these and perhaps other reasons, the GSO was (and is) strongly opposed to moving III MEF out of Okinawa. At the minimum, we could have looked at a Kengai, Kokunai (Out of the Prefecture, but within the Country) solution, such as to the Tokyo area, rather than the more drastic Kengai, Kokugai (Out of the Prefecture and Out of the Country) answer. This would have allowed III MEF to continue to be forward deployed, and to be able to interact closely with the GSO and other services of both countries. In particular, in joint planning, training, education, and operations, the opportunity for close coordination would have been dramatically improved. Instead, I guess the GSO is going to have to rely on the telephone and e-mail, assuming they work, to modernize. Good luck. Everyone knows that nothing can replace face-to-face interaction.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters

US forces in Okinawa provided vital assistance to the Philippines after typhoon. Lt. General Wissler, Commanding General III Marine Expeditionary Force & Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

In Asia in any given year, about 70,000 people lose their lives to natural disasters. We feel that we made a big difference last fall when we were able to respond as Joint Task Force 505 to the destruction that occurred with Typhoon Yolanda, or Typhoon Haiyan, depending on if you were from the Philippines, it was referred to as Yolanda. And we were able to save lives because we were able to respond in hours and not days. The III Marine Expeditionary Brigade led by Brigadier General Paul Kennedy, within six hours of notification from the Pacific Command Commander that we were going to respond on behalf of the United States, left Okinawa and then two-and-a-half hours later was on the ground in Manila to begin operations. The next day, we began distributing essential supplies with C-130s and the following day began using with our MV-22 Osprey, a tremendous aircraft that we could not have been able to succeed the way we did if we did not have that partnership between our C-130s and our V-22s. So that’s what III MEF does. We’re forward-present. We’re forward- stationed, forward-based, to be able to respond to crises as they occur, whether it’s humanitarian assistance and disaster relief or whether something should happen on the Korean Peninsula. At the end of this presentation, I’ll show you a short video of a recent combined Marine Expeditionary Brigade operation that we conducted with our Korean counterparts and also our Australian counterparts on the Peninsula of Korea.

Forward deployed forces are critical to quick responses to natural disasters. Lt. General Wissler; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

Operation Damayan highlighted the importance of having Marines forward-deployed as the Expeditionary Force in the Pacific. The Marines were able to provide more than 2,400 tons of relief cargo and evacuated 21,000 victims from some of the most devastated areas of the country. The United States Marine Corps is committed to supporting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief throughout the Asia-Pacific region and around the world.

Joint military training can help respond to natural disasters that kill 70,000 people every year. Lt. General Wissler; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

While we were executing those responsibilities in the Philippines, there was a volcanic eruption in Indonesia. It ended up not being so significant that we needed to do anything about it, but there was a time where I had another headquarters, my division headquarters, was sitting on the ramp in Okinawa ready to respond to be command and control for something that they would need to do in Indonesia. And so I think that as these nations, as I mentioned at the outset, natural disasters in Asia, I believe the statistics are they are 4 times more likely to happen than they are to happen in the African continent and 25 times more likely to happen than they are in the United States or North America. And so something’s going to happen. Seventy thousand people, on average, are killed in natural disasters annually. So these nations are starting to bring their militaries together to be able to respond. And the more times we can train together, to continue to operate together, to do bilateral and multilateral training, it improves greatly those capabilities.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters

The Okinawan bases are used to conduct humanitarian aid to places affected by tragedies other than war. Okinawan Marines have saved tsunami victims in the Philippines, and typhoon victims in Taiwan. 12 operations of this kind have saved hundreds of thousands of Asian lives in the past 5 years alone. This base was also critical in saving Japanese lives during the tsunami/nuclear reactor crisis in 2011. Because the base was in Okinawa, the response time to the Futenma disaster was only 4 hours. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #8: The U.S. Marine presence helps the U.S. to conduct humanitarian operations. The Okinawa Marines have routinely been the primary responders to major natural disasters in Asia, such as the 2004 Asian tsunami, mudslides in the Philippines, and the typhoon in Taiwan. The Marines have led or participated in 12 significant humanitarian assistance– disaster relief (HADR) missions during the past five years alone, helping to save hundreds of thousands of lives in the region.[26] For example, in response to the March 2011 natural disasters in Japan, U.S. military forces in Asia responded quickly and worked seamlessly with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Operation Tomodachi (“friendship”) highlighted the versatility of U.S. forces deployed on Okinawa. During Operation Tomodachi, the proximity of Futenma MCAS to Marine ground and logistics units was critical to the rapid deployment of supplies and personnel. Marine assets on Okinawa began flying to Japan within four hours of being tasked. Helicopter and fixed-wing C-130 aircraft from Futenma were involved in humanitarian operations, as were members of the 31st MEU, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, and 1st Marine Air Wing, all based in Okinawa.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters

Responders will be locked out without the light footprint of Marine Ospreys—-and Okinawa has the only disaster-focused logistics support—-critical to distribution Moroney 2013 – Jennifer D. P. Moroney, Adjunct Professor of the International Affairs at George Washington University, et al., "Lessons from Department of Defense Disaster Relief Efforts in the Asia-Pacific Region", RAND Report, p. 6-8, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR100/RR146/RAND_RR146.pdf

DoD has a variety of different capabilities used for general military requirements that can also be used for disaster relief operations. These include air and sealift capacity, logistics management, engineering support, communications, and medical assistance capabilities. The decision to deploy these assets depends upon the availability of nonmilitary resources and whether the requested assets are being used for current operations. A frequently requested asset, DoD air and sealift capability, often provides the majority of aerial transportation support for disaster relief operations. Large cargo aircraft, including C-130, C-17, and C-5 platforms, own by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) are the primary DoD means of transporting humanitarian supplies, palletized cargo, and medical evacuees, though the largest of these aircraft require a runway length of at least 3,500 feet. For example, over 130 U.S. military aircraft were utilized for search and rescue, as well as personnel and supply transport, in response to the 2011 Japan earthquake. Often, a disaster renders landing zones impermissible, so rotary-wing aircraft, such as the Army CH-47 Chinook, U.S. Navy (USN) H-53 Sea Stallion and H-60 Sea Hawk, and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) MV-22 Osprey and CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters, are also important platforms. Maritime assets, such as the USN’s large-deck amphibious ships, can provide sea-based platforms for both small fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to move supplies to shore. When a reduced footprint within the country is warranted, littoral and maritime assets are particularly essential as o shore platforms. They also further minimize the permissions required to operate within the affected country. For example, because of Burma’s unease at allowing a significant international presence within its territory, Joint Task Force Caring Response (JTF-CR) conducted much of its supply airlift using the USS Essex Amphibious Ready Group, in addition to the U-Tapao ai Royal Navy Air field in Thailand. DoD also has considerable distribution and supply-chain management logistics capabilities. Because other organizations may lack professional logisticians specially trained in disaster relief, DoD is typically tasked to coordinate the vast majority of logistics support through the DSCA, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), and the U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). In addition to expertise and management infrastructure, DoD may utilize excess DoD nonlethal supplies through DSCA from three warehouse facilities in Albany, Georgia; Okinawa, Japan; and Livorno, Italy.13 After first consulting with DSCA, DoD may augment necessary humanitarian supplies from DLA stock though a DoD policy that stresses that “all potential supply sources should be considered, including a ected country, commercial, multinational, and pre-positioned supplies.”14 Coordinating with the involved organizations, the Joint Deployment and Distribution Operations Centers within each of the combatant commands helps link the deployment and distribution process to the humanitarian functions on the ground.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Heavy Lift Capability

Withdraw removes the III MEF—-they're key to rapid heavy lift capability—-crushes ISR, aid distribution, and coordination Fargo 2014 – Admiral Thomas B. Fargo, USN (Ret.), The National Bureau of Asian Research, "Strategic Assistance: Disaster Relief and Asia-Pacific Stability", http://www.nbr.org/research/initiative.aspx?id=55

The United States has demonstrated in past international crises that it can rapidly bring considerable capabilities and resources to bear during HA/DR operations.6 For example, during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, PACOM’s establishment of Joint Task Force 536 to direct Operation Unified Assistance exemplified the U.S. military’s ability to quickly organize and conduct disaster-relief operations. rough the course of this particular operation, PACOM provided 15,000 personnel and 24 million pounds of relief supplies and established both the Combined Support Force 536 and Combined Coordination Center in U-Tapao, Thailand, to optimize coordination of international relief e orts. In terms of tactical-level support, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps deployed 4 P-3 Orion patrol aircraft, 19 SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, 24 CH-47 Chinook helicopters, and 2 C-130 Hercules transport aircraft in order to distribute aid and personnel and provide necessary reconnaissance, transportation, and logistical support. From its ships, the U.S. Navy was also able to provide affected areas with road-building supplies, electrical power generation, and, most importantly, up to 100,000 gallons of potable water per day through on-board water purifiers. The combined potential strength of forward-stationed U.S. military forces in Asia that could immediately contribute to regional HA/DR operations alongside the SDF is substantial. e most prominent of these forward-deployed forces reside in Japan. U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ)—composed of the Seventh Fleet, which is the world’s only permanently forward- stationed aircraft carrier strike group; the Fifth Air Force; and the III Marine Expeditionary Force—features a wide range of capabilities and provides the United States with the majority of its forward-deployed heavy-lift capability (air, sea, and amphibious).

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Ospreys

Ospreys are key Eldridge 14 – Robert D. Eldridge, Political Advisor to the Forward Command Element, III MEF/MCIPAC Consolidated Public Affairs Office, "Disaster Drills Build Bridges", 10-20, http://www.okinawa.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/18973/Article/518754/disaster-drills-build-bridges.aspx

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, the response to which U.S. Forces were able to play a critical role in supporting, there has been an increased interest in partnering with U.S. Forces, especially the Marine Corps, with its rapid response capabilities and extensive experience in responding to natural disasters throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Many people throughout the world were especially impressed with the capabilities that the MV-22 demonstrated during the response to Super Typhoon in what is known as Operation Damayan. It flew a total of 349 missions, delivering personnel, food, water, medicine and other supplies to hard-to reach areas desperately in need of them, and brought back the sick, injured, elderly, women and children for treatment and further assistance. One Japanese medical doctor who witnessed its use went so far as to say the “Marine Corps’ Osprey was the only thing that worked in the devastated area. It saved the day.” While that might sound like an overstatement, particularly as responses need to be joint and combined and no one single entity or piece of equipment can do it all, the MV-22 is certainly the platform of choice in humanitarian assistance/disaster relief missions. Its range (the distance it can travel), its speed, and the amount it can carry, combined with the fact that it can land virtually anywhere like a helicopter means that more aid can be brought more quickly to an affected region. And this, of course, means that more lives can be saved.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Public Support

Philippines proves that increased non-military support in disasters is key to increasing support for US actions and leads to new base sharing Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) Also as part of the rebalance, the Pentagon is transforming its presence in the Philippines.40 Since 9/11, the US military presence in the archipelago has been focused on counterterrorism cooperation, with as many as 600 special operations forces working with the Philippine military.41 While the US is drawing down its special operations forces in the Philippines and disbanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force–Philippines last year, it is working to expand its conventional footprint as regional concerns over Chinese military power grow.42 In April, Washington and Manila reached an agreement to expand American access rights to bases in the Philippines. The US-Philippine Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement facilitates a rotational presence of US forces in the Philippines.43 This agreement was made possible in part by a swell in local support for the US military in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, when the US military, including the USS George Washington, at the time home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan, responded swiftly to deliver humanitarian aid and assistance.44

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Taiwan

Withdraw ruins rapid response to Taiwanese disasters—-they're likely and timing's key – Okinawa is the only base that gets there fast enough. Szczepek 12 – Major Allen E. Szczepek, Jr., Master of Military Studies at the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, "Organizing Ill MEF in the Pacific", 3-26, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA601487

Though many hurdles remain after Japan and the United States decided to relocate Marines from Okinawa to Guam, very few people are questioning anymore if it will happen and instead are directing their efforts on when it will happen. When done, the United States has the potential to further weaken its posture and allies in the Western Pacific. MCAS Futenma will be relocated to the northern portion of Okinawa while III MEF units or component elements move off the island. Guam is the location most referenced when the move is discussed but Hawaii, Australia, and the Philippines are also options for parts of III MEF. These other locations affect U.S. security and stability differently but this section will focus on the Western Pacific – specifically, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and to an extent, China. TAIWAN Taiwan has been a point of international contention since the Republic of China permanently relocated from the mainland and put the strait between itself and the PRC in 1949. It is possible that the U.S. would have a presence on the island of Taiwan akin to its presence on the Korean peninsula had its attention not been diverted by North Korean actions in the summer of 1950. If the Marines had not proven their importance in the Pacific following WWII, they would prove it via their part in the actions staving off communist aggression during the Korean War. Following the initial North Korean invasion into South Korea, the U.S. saw Taiwan (Formosa) as the key to containing Communist expansion in the western 18 Pacific. The U.S. interest in Taiwan has grown exponentially since then and the Marines’ presence on Okinawa serves as part of the U.S. policy “to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people on Taiwan, as well as the people on the China mainland and all other 19 peoples of the Western Pacific area.” Currently only 350 nautical miles away, III MEF Marines are within 24 hours of placing a significant ground force on the shores of Taiwan to promote those relations. At almost 1,500 nautical miles, III MEF Marines on Guam would not only triple that response time to Taiwan but would also face a myriad of logistical concerns, notably in organic airborne refueling and available seaborne transportation. A majority of the organic III MEF airborne assets are capable of making the trip to Taiwan and back from Okinawa. None of those assets can say the same 20 from Guam. Reliance on seaborne transportation like Austal’s High Speed Vessel, base ported out of Okinawa, will also be more difficult if III MEF forces need to get from Guam to Taiwan. To further understand the gap in capabilities, the movement of III MEF must be looked at from the extreme spectrums of military responses available to Taiwan - humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) to conventional military actions. III MEF conventional military options in support of Taiwan are minuscule. Whether attacking a common foe or defending the island nation, Taiwan and III MEF forces are nothing more than a speed bump against any capable adversary. However, like a speed bump, the design around its physical location conveys more than its actual presence. III MEF’s presence on Okinawa serves as message of deterrence – a reminder of U.S. resolve and willingness to defend interests in the region. Moving half those forces more than 1,200 nautical miles away sends an equally opposite message. Another message III MEF has communicated to the region is one of willing, rapid humanitarian or disaster relief assistance. III MEF disaster relief and humanitarian aid missions are exercised more than any others in the Western Pacific due to the frequent earthquakes and tropical storms in the region. Though a developed state, Taiwan has had difficulties in responding locally to typhoons and mudslides. In one case the president of Taiwan reoriented the nation’s military away 21 from its predominant mission – defending against a possible Chinese invasion – and focused solely on disaster relief. 22 Additionally, Taiwan has experienced approximately 24 earthquakes since December 2011. Most of its earthquakes are

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imperceptible but Taiwan is part of the same seismic region that devastated Japan in March 2011. If III MEF is not organized appropriately, the extra 48 hours of added response time could translate into devastating losses due to the inability to provide rapid aid to U.S. friends and allies.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Probability

Asian disasters are likely—-DoD's key Moroney 2013 – Jennifer D. P. Moroney, adjunct professor of the International Affairs at George Washington University, et al., "Lessons from Department of Defense Disaster Relief Efforts in the Asia-Pacific Region", RAND Report, p. 1-2, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR100/RR146/RAND_RR146.pdf

Over 60 percent of the world’s natural disasters occur in the Asia- Pacific region. The United States is the most capable, most prepared, and best-equipped nation to respond to these crises. The Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) niche assets include air and sealift capabilities to transport large numbers of personnel and humanitarian supplies; distribution and supply-chain management logistics capabilities with professional logisticians specially trained in disaster relief; extensive debris-clearing and infrastructure-reconstruction capabilities, including engineering support; communications infrastructure for both military and nonmilitary counterparts; and an abundance of emergency medical support. Consequently, DoD has participated in more than 40 humanitarian assistance/disaster response (HA/DR) operations in or near the Paci c Command (PACOM) area of responsibility (AOR) over the past two decades.1 Most commonly, DoD aid is lifted by cargo airplanes, but, on several occasions, DoD helicopters have played a major role in distributing aid to those a ected by major disasters. DoD participation spans the gamut of humanitarian and natural disaster types, including earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, floods, volcanoes, landslides, and food shortages. Such involvement is only likely to increase in the future, as climate change will further a ect populations who rely largely on agri culture and live along extensive coastlines in the Asia-Paci c region, which has become DoD’s prime strategic region for engagement.2

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Economy

Unchecked disasters disrupt supply chains and tank the global economy—-mitigation solves Kawamato 2015 – Takashi Kawamato, Senior Researcher at Keio Research Institute at SFC, and Adjunct Fellow with Pacific Forum CSIS, "A New Security Policy for Japan: HA/DR Capacity Building and Disaster-Mitigation Social Infrastructure Export", CSIS PacNet ~#22, http://csis.org/publication/pacnet-22-new- security-policy-japan-hadr-capacity-building-and-disaster-mitigation-socia

Asia-Pacific risks: natural disaster x domestic insurgents The Asia Pacific region has a high concentration of rapidly growing economies backed by abundant labor forces and surging population growth; the region also experiences many natural disasters. The International Disaster Database EM-DAT notes that the risk of natural disasters including earthquakes, tsunami, typhoon/cyclone, and flood in the Asia-Pacific is 6.2 times greater than North America, 3.1 times higher than Europe, 1.8 times higher than Africa, 10.2 times more than the Middle East and 2.4 times more than Latin America. In recent years, the region has experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake (2011), the Great Sichuan Earthquake (2008) and the Indian Ocean Earthquake (2004). Data from the US Geological Survey shows approximately 67 percent of the earthquakes over 7.0 magnitude during the last five years (2010-2014) occurred in the Asia-Pacific. Climate change is intensifying typhoon/cyclones and floods. Not surprisingly, financial damage in the Asia-Pacific caused by natural disasters totaled $783 billion, 1.5 times more than that of North America, 6.2 times more than Europe, 136.5 times higher than Africa, 71.8 times that of the Middle East, and 6.9 times that of Latin America. Unfortunately, many of these countries do not possess the capacity to deal with large-scale natural disasters, either to mitigate their effects or to recover and rebuild their societies. Many Asia-Pacific nations also face domestic insurgencies. This combination – a high risk of catastrophic natural disasters and domestic insurgencies – can be toxic: insurgents exploit instability caused by natural disasters to overturn a government. This combination is evident in armed conflicts between the government and insurgents near Mindanao in the Southern Philippines and in Sabah State of easternmost Malaysia. Domestic instability triggered by natural disaster was a key factor in the independence of Bangladesh. In 1970, the East Pakistan government poorly responded to the Bhola cyclone, which resulted in over 500,000 deaths. The poor response instigated civil conflict that resulted in independence the following year. Expansion of vulnerability and risk in Asia-Pacific These vulnerabilities are increasing as economic growth continues, business assets are concentrated in the region, and the scale of disasters grows. The region has become the core of a number of global supply chains. According to the World Bank's World Development Index, approximately 36 percent of global Foreign Direct Investment poured into the nations in the Asia- Pacific (in 2013). The Asia-Pacific region also accounts for approximately 27 percent of world Gross National Expense. In other words, damage to companies operating in the region would have ripple effects throughout the world economy.

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Con- Marines Good- Natural Disasters- Impact- Gender

Natural disasters have disproportionate gendered impacts and devastate women Jones 2000 (Rochelle Jones, the International Labour Organisation, “Gender and natural disasters : points to ponder”, http://www.disasterwatch.net/women_tsunami%20links/Gender%20and%20natural%20disasters.htm)

Suggests that gender is an important dimension within disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunamis. It has been argued that vulnerability to natural disasters and their consequences is gendered and socially constructed, meaning that women and men face different challenges during natural disasters because their roles in society have been constructed differently. When we look at natural disasters from this perspective, we can conclude that the physical aspect of the tsunamis is fixed, but the social and economic aspects are not. They can be reshaped, used and sometimes abused. This is incredibly important for women in particular because women are made more vulnerable to disasters through their socially constructed roles. What are the gendered impacts of natural disasters? The social and economic impacts of disasters such as the Tsunamis depend largely on the structures in which they take place. Obviously, some people are more at risk than others because of their socio-economic status, barriers to choice and lack of access to resources. A disaster such as the one we have just witnessed in Asia exposes these inequalities - particularly in the aftermath of a disaster where people are simply unable to recover their losses due to their abject poverty. The ILO calls this "disasters by design" where "global development patterns put rising numbers of people increasingly at risk". Gender inequality plays an important role in the level of vulnerability to natural disasters and their consequences. Women are more vulnerable during disasters because they have less access to resources, are victims of the gendered division of labour, and they are the primary caregivers to children, the elderly and the disabled. This means that they are less able to mobilise resources for rehabilitation, more likely to be over-represented in the unemployed following a disaster, and overburdened with domestic responsibilities leaving them with less freedom to pursue sources of income to alleviate their economic burdens. It is most often the women who go without food in order to feed their families during a disaster, also. In addition to these issues, women are often the victims of domestic and sexual violence following a natural disaster. There have already been unconfirmed reports of rape and sexual molestation in Sri Lanka during rescue efforts after the tsunami, and reports of human traffickers taking advantage of women and children's vulnerability in Aceh. Abhorrent acts of rape, violence and harassment against women in areas of war are well documented and analysed. Similar events in the aftermath of natural disasters are often overlooked or receive scant attention. Recognizing the important role that gender plays in disaster management and relief, it is alarming that gender concerns often get pushed to the background in the event of a natural disaster. There is an obvious need directly after the disaster has occurred to provide basics to victims such as food, clothing, shelter and fresh water, regardless of gender. Given that disasters such as earthquakes, floods, droughts, hurricanes and landslides will always occur, however, it is imperative to ensure that a gender perspective is included in all natural disaster management programmes so that the relief efforts are able to properly address needs and concerns for both women and men.

Natural disasters increase rape and sexual violence New York Alliance Against Sexual Assault 10 (http://www.svfreenyc.org/research_factsheet_111.html)

Why does rape occur in the aftermath of natural disasters and other humanitarian crises? Rape and violence against women in the aftermath of humanitarian disasters is no new problem. Internationally, rape in refugee situations has become quite common. According to the Human Rights Watch document “Sexual Violence Against Refugees: Guidelines on Prevention and Response”, there are several causes or circumstances which allow sexual attacks to take place: 1. Society a. The collapse of traditional societal support mechanisms (social sanctions, norms for proper behavior, etc.) when refugees are forced to flee or to live in camp surroundings. In particular, the communal support systems for the protection of vulnerable individuals may no longer be present. b. Male attitudes of disrespect towards women may be instrumental in causing incidents of sexual violence. For example, within a camp, men may look upon unaccompanied women and girls as common sexual property. c. Psychological strain on refugee men in not being able to assume normal cultural, social and economic roles, may cause aggressive behavior towards women. Many other aspects of refugee life can aggravate this, including idleness, anger at loss of control and power, uncertainty about the future, and frustration with living conditions. d. Alcohol and drug abuse can result in violent behavior within families and communities. Such abuse is often linked to boredom. depression and stress. 2. Vulnerability a. Females who are on their own for whatever reason, whether they are single, widowed, abandoned, unaccompanied minors, lone heads of households, or women who have been separated from male family members by the chaos of the situation, are all particularly at risk of sexual violence. 3. Camp design and location a. The design and social structure in many camps may contribute to the likelihood of protection problems. Camps are often overcrowded. Unrelated families may need to share communal living and sleeping space. In effect, such refugees are living among strangers. b. The lack of police protection and general lawlessness in some camps is also a factor. In the aftermath of Katrina, we are seeing a similar refugee situation with hundreds of internally displaced persons. Rape and violence has become commonplace and may be exacerbated by the circumstances mentioned above. There is, however, much research that has been done around prevention of sexual violence within refugee situations, like those presented after Hurricane Katrina. Including gender analyses in disaster planning is crucial. Many lessons can be learned from the international work that has been done on this topic. Below is a brief bibliography of such sources. The rapes and sexual violence that is occurring in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is

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unacceptable and could have been prevented. As a community, we should learn from this and ensure that any future natural or man-made disasters do not leave women and children vulnerable to sexual violence.

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Con- Marines Good- Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations

The base in Okinawa will be used to deploy rescue forces that save American civilians living in Taiwan in case of Chinese aggression in the area. This is known as a non-combatant evacuation operation or NEO. It could be used in other Asian nations as well in case of military or terror attacks, or natural disasters. Okinawa is in a key area for NEOs to take place, and moving the base would risk American lives. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #7: The U.S. Marine presence enables non-combatant evacuation operations (NEOs). Marines, through NEOS, provide physical protection and evacuate U.S. citizens from Taiwan or other Asian nations during a deteriorating security situation or natural disaster. NEOs usually involve “swift insertions of a force, temporary occupation of an objective, and a planned withdrawal upon completion of the mission.”[24] NEOs have typically been a specialty of Marine Expeditionary Units, which have participated in several NEOs worldwide. Implementing an NEO may require forming a joint task force. However, the organic combat, combat support, and combat service support forces of a Marine Corps forward-deployed amphibious expeditionary strike group (special operations capable) are trained and certified to conduct NEOs.[25] The 31st MEU on Okinawa routinely trains for NEOs. Moving U.S. Marines away from Okinawa would hinder protection and evacuation operations, directly increasing the threat to U.S. lives, as well as the lives of America’s allies.

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Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Aggression

The Okinawa bases are key for defending South Korea, Japan, and other potential victims from North Korean aggression. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on- okinawa-are-essential-to-peace-and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #5: The U.S. Marine presence would help to defeat a North Korean invasion of South Korea. The U.S. Marines on Okinawa play a critical role in Operations Plan 5027, the joint U.S.–South Korean war plan for responding to a North Korean invasion. Marine forces are capable of conducting a full range of combat operations in Korea. Even the threat of an amphibious invasion would force North Korea to divert ground forces from the front line. General Burwell Bell, former commander of U.S. Forces Korea, affirmed that: [The Marines on Okinawa] have a critical role in any Korean contingency. They were my deep operational ground maneuver unit. Without them, it would be WWI all over again. When the North Koreans consider the potential for the United States Marines to interdict their logistics sites and fragile supply lines deep in their rear areas, the likelihood of the North seriously considering a sustained ground offensive drops drastically.[16] Representative Park Jin, then chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the South Korean National Assembly, declared that [T]he U.S. military bases located in Okinawa play a significant role in keeping the Korean peninsula peaceful and safe. The U.S. Marines in Okinawa are obliged to defend Korea…. Thus, the relocation of U.S. military bases in Japan would affect not only the U.S.–Japan relations but also security on the Korean peninsula. [17] In seeking to justify removing U.S. Marine forces from Okinawa, some analysts have asserted that a Korean War would be over quickly and that South Korean forces would be sufficient to handle the North Korean forces. Both premises are dangerously wrong. U.S. war simulations reveal that, even a week after a North Korean invasion, the situation would remain precarious. Moreover, an invasion would result in horrific casualties in the hundreds of thousands as well as trillions of dollars worth of damage.[18] A U.S. defense official commented: [E]ven if South Korea could do it without U.S. Marines, it would be with far greater casualties and destruction. Why would you do that? Why would you send the military into a dangerous situation with fewer capabilities than necessary? Besides, you need those [South Korean] troops for the post-war collapse of North Korea.[19] Indeed, the North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island in November 2010 illustrated the critical role Marines would play in rebuffing an attack by Pyongyang. As a result, Seoul augmented its own 27,000-member Marine Corps by 2,000, thereby bolstering its ability to defend the five islands in the West Sea.[20] The United States Marines stationed on Okinawa operate as one element of an integrated, comprehensive U.S. security strategy that uses individual service capabilities based on a specific contingency or operation. Removing Marine Corps assets from Okinawa would leave the United States with a two-legged security stool in a region where steadiness and support are essential.

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Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Collapse

Marines and Ospreys would be used in the event of North Korean collapse. Michishita, Prof National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies; 2013 (Narushige; Rebalance to Asia, Refocus on Okinawa: Okinawa’s Role in an Evolving US-Japan Alliance; “Changing Military Strategies and the Future of the U.S. Marine Presence in Asia”; http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/chian/naha_port/documents/h24reporten-1.pdf)

While it is unlikely that Marines would be deployed from the beginning in a major war scenario, it is quite possible that Marines would be used from the early stages in a situation where North Korea was getting destabilized. If the V-22 Osprey becomes fully operational, it would be possible to directly carry troops from Okinawa to South Korea or to North Korea given the aircraft’s extended operational radius.

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Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Deterrence

Withdrawal from Okinawa collapses overall deterrence in East Asia—-triggers North Korean war Richard C. Bush 10, Director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution, 3/10/10, "Okinawa and Security in East Asia," http://www.brookings.edu/research/speeches/2010/03/10-japan-politics-bush

I do believe that decisions concerning the American presence in Japan should be based on a different logic. It should start with a threat assessment: where does the danger come from at present and where will it come from in the future? The next step is to develop a strategy to effectively apply available resources to the threat. That in turn should shape a determination of the necessary force structure and how much to rely on the United States, and the optimal balance between the two. If the reliance on the United States is to continue, then what form that reliance will take needs to be carefully considered. Will it continue to include the presence of foreign forces or will it take some other form? The DPJ’s campaign promises started with the latter questions of the foreign force presence, without addressing the earlier questions regarding regional threats and a security strategy. The threat environment in Northeast Asia is not benign. North Korea’s WMD capabilities are a matter of concern but will hopefully be a medium- term problem. More attention, however, is focused on China which has gradually developed a full spectrum of capabilities, including nuclear weapons. Their current emphasis is on power projection and their immediate goal is to create a strategic buffer in at least the first island chain. Although Taiwan is the driver for these efforts, they affect Japan. Of course, capabilities are not intentions. However, how will Japan feel as the conventional U.S.-China balance deteriorates and a new equilibrium is reached, especially knowing that China has nuclear weapons? There are also specific points of friction within Northeast Asia such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the East China Sea, North Korea, and Taiwan, some of which involve and concern more than one government. Although we can hope that China will not seek to dominate East Asia at the U.S. and Japan’s expense, we can’t be sure of their intentions either. Hope is not a policy. The most sensible strategy—for both the U.S. and Japan—is to try to shape China’s intentions over time so that they move in a benign direction; so that it has more to gain from cooperation than a challenge. This has been the U.S. and Japan’s strategy since the early 1970s. The strategy has a good foundation in economic interdependence. However, it is easier said than done and is one of the biggest challenges of this century. The strategy requires at least two elements: engaging and incorporating China as much as possible, and maintaining the strength and willingness to define limits. This combination of elements is important because engagement without strength would lead China to exploit our good will while strength without engagement would lead China to suspect that our intentions are not benign. If engagement-plus-strength is the proper strategy for the U.S. and Japan each to cope with a rising China, it only makes sense that Japan and the United States will be more effective if they work together, complementing each other’s respective abilities. The strength side of this equation almost requires Japan to rely on the alliance since history suggests that it will not build up sufficiently on its own. An important part of strength is positioning your power in the right places. That is why forward deployment of U.S. forces in Japan has always been important. That is why our presence on Okinawa is important. Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, recently spoke in Japan about the importance of Okinawa for the mission of the Marines. Among other things, he said that the U.S. Marine Corps is the emergency response force in East Asia. He explained that “The fundamental Marine Corps organizational structure is the Marine Air Ground Task Force, in which war fighting elements of aviation forces, ground combat forces, and logistics forces all operate under a single commander.” The Marine ground forces must train consistently with the helicopters that support them. Lieutenant General Stalder illustrated his point by saying that the “Marine Air Ground Task Force is a lot like a baseball team. It does not do you any good to have the outfielders practicing in one town, the catcher in another, and the third baseman somewhere else. They need to practice together, as a unit.” He went on to say that Okinawa is very important because it is relatively close to mainland Japan, to Korea, to the South China Sea, and to the Strait of Malacca. This geographic location is why, he said, “There is probably nowhere better in the world from which to dispatch Marines to natural disasters” than Okinawa. This importance of Okinawa is another reason why finding a solution to the realignment issue is essential. Any solution to the Okinawa problem should meet four conditions: efficiency of operations, safety, local interests, and permanence. Resolving the situation is also important because, as Lieutenant General Stalder pointed out, other nations are “watching to see whether the United States-Japan Alliance is strong enough to find a solution to the current issues.”[1] Of course, our two countries and China are not the only ones concerned with the alliance. South Korea has important stakes involved in the presence of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific. In the event of a conventional attack by North Korea, South Korea has a very strong military, but it also depends on the ability of the United States to move forces quickly to the Korean peninsula. It depends on those U.S. forces, including Marines, to dissuade and deter North Korea from even considering an attack. South Korea is comfortable with the relocation of 8,000 marines to Guam, in part because there are already other U.S. troops on the peninsula and in Japan, and also because moving Marines from Guam by air doesn’t take long. However, South Korea would likely be concerned by signs that the U.S.-Japan alliance was slowly dissolving. If U.S. troops were to be removed from, first, Okinawa and, then, the home islands, it would likely weaken deterrence.

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Con- Marines Good- North Korea- Nuclear Weapons

The bases in Okinawa allow the U.S. to respond peacefully to North Korean aggression through a series of air and sea operations including the seizure of North Korean nukes if necessary. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #6: The U.S. Marine presence helps the U.S. respond to Korea crisis contingencies other than war. The U.S. and South Korea have also developed Concept Plan 5029 to respond to crisis contingencies short of war. MAGTF forces can conduct several military operations in support of those plans, including limited amphibious raids and full-scale amphibious assaults, airfield and port seizure operations, maritime interdiction operations, amphibious advanced force operations, stability operations, and tactical air support.[21] Major General Mark Brilakis, commanding general of the 3rd Marine Division on Okinawa, affirmed that in all U.S. contingency plans for Korea, the 3rd MEF plays a major role. In case of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, Brilakis stated, “overnight, I go from being the smallest division in the Marine Corps to being the largest.”[22] According to Japanese media reports, Lieutenant General Stalder commented during a private meeting with Japanese officials that during a Korean crisis, the Marines in Okinawa would be charged with seizing North Korean nuclear weapons.[23] Such an operation would be consistent with the responsibilities of Military Expeditionary Unit—Special Operations Capable (MEU–SOC) units that conduct operations behind enemy lines, such as special reconnaissance and direct action against designated strategic targets.

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Con- Marines Good- North Korea- War

Marines are an integral part of the response to a Korean war- amphibious attacks would be necessary. North Korea forward deploys mechanized corps to deter Marine invasion. Michishita, Prof National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies; 2013 (Narushige; Rebalance to Asia, Refocus on Okinawa: Okinawa’s Role in an Evolving US-Japan Alliance; “Changing Military Strategies and the Future of the U.S. Marine Presence in Asia”; http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/chian/naha_port/documents/h24reporten-1.pdf)

In the event that a full-scale conflict erupts on the Korean Peninsula, both the United States and South Korea are supposed to respond with “OPLAN 5027.” If North Korea started to invade South Korea, U.S. and South Korean forces would first respond with air strikes. After adequately diminishing North Korean military forces, U.S. and South Korean ground forces would move north into North Korean territory. Furthermore, if the opportunity arose in the third stage, Marines from both countries would make an amphibious landing on the coast of the Korean Peninsula and make a pincer assault on North Korean forces by cooperating with ground forces moving from south to north. North Korea has not necessarily forward deployed all of its troops, and mechanized corps are positioned in the rear area along the coast of the Korean Peninsula. One reason is that these divisions can be used as follow- up power if North Korea succeeds in invading South Korea from the north. The second reason is to prevent U.S. and South Korean Marines from landing in the rear area. In other words, North Korea is deploying its forces based not only on attack but also taking defense into consideration. Conversely, it is unlikely that Marines would land in enemy territory in the early stages of a war because the risk is too high. Marines would land when the war was fairly advanced. More specifically, they would land either after North Korean mechanized corps placed in the coastal area of the rear had moved to other areas or when these corps lost significant fighting capability. The U.S. would end up adding reinforcements to U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan, and it would carry out its duty of defending South Korea from bases in South Korea and Japan. In the early stages of the war, U.S. air bases in Japan would be actively used for air strikes on North Korea or to deploy troops to South Korea. U.S. naval bases in Japan would be used in parallel for aircraft carrier task forces, and later, marine bases in Okinawa would be used for amphibious landings.

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Con- Marines Good- Pandemics

A) We are on the Brink of a Pandemic that is more probable than nuclear war Ghnaati 09 (Tahereh Ghanaati Reporter for Press TV, The Coming Pandemic: A Clear and Present Danger (Part I), http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=104971§ionid=3510304)

And we are on the brink of a pandemic Within the past few years, the media has given vast amounts of attention to the threat of nuclear weapons and their destructive power - so much so that most people today are aware of the dangers posed by these weapons. Indeed, if the media had ignored the topics, the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki alone, at the close of the Second World War, would have graphically shown the world the devastating power of such weapons. The danger is so well known that since those events, “nukes” have been used merely as “bargaining chips” in negotiations between nations. It is highly unlikely that any country would ever resort to such a weapon again. When a threat is perceived and understood, humanity treads warily around it, thus reducing its peril. Yet, the reverse is also true. When a threat is neither seen nor understood, it is generally minimized - or even dismissed, which increases its risk a hundredfold. Lurking on the horizon is just such a threat - a scourge known as a “pandemic”. This is not a new enemy. In fact, it is one of man's most ancient foes. It has launched sporadic attacks against humanity for millennia. Some of these assaults have been relatively mild. Others have been devastating, laying waste civilizations. In fact, pandemics and civilization are inextricably linked because a disease, in order to become a pandemic, has to be able to spread. That ability increases with the advancement of civilization, which entails better roads, increased commerce and greater facility of travel. At no time in recorded history has travel been easier - or faster - than it is today. The world has truly become a global village. Thus, conditions are ripe for a full-blown pandemic. Actually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), we are in the midst of one now. Since events are still unfolding, its degree of severity is unknown. Early findings indicate it will be milder than had previously been feared. However, despite what happens with this pandemic, epidemiologists and researchers throughout the world agree that a truly devastating one will eventually occur and when it does, it will - like the present one - appear with little or no warning.

B) Marines on Okinawa are key to rapid response to prevent Pandemics in Asia

Allen 07 (David Allen reporter for Stars and Stripes Published: April 9, 2007 II MEF ready to respond if avian flu pandemic hits http://www.stripes.com/news/iii- mef-ready-to-respond-if-avian-flu-pandemic-hits-1.62544)

CAMP COURTNEY, Okinawa — If the avian flu becomes a real pandemic threat to humans, especially in the Western Pacific, the III Marine Expeditionary Force will be ready. During a recent humanitarian relief deployment to the Philippines, MEF corpsmen tested technology a Portsmouth, N.H., firm developed for almost instant tracking of vital information that in the past would take days or even weeks to analyze. And a team of Marines and sailors has developed a detailed pandemic influenza response plan for Okinawa. Global Relief Technologies was awarded a $3.5 million contract last fall to provide about 120 PDAs — hand-held computer devices — to the Marine Corps, which at any time has personnel scattered on deployments throughout Southeast Asia. The region is considered ground zero for the bird flu that could one day mutate and become the next great human pandemic. The equipment, along with accompanying computers and satellite hookups, was delivered to the 3rd Medical Battalion before they deployed last month for a humanitarian mission to southeast Luzon, the Philippines island where some 15,000 people lived in camps after being displaced following a series of natural disasters in December. “This initiative is driven by the need to collect and record data for tracking the avian flu — and any other humanitarian crisis — quickly and accurately,” said Navy Capt. David Lane, Force Surgeon for the III MEF. “It worked exceedingly well.” He said information Global’s software processed was available as soon as corpsmen in the field could hook their PDAs to the satellite link and send the data to a collection point in Hawaii. “On past missions — well, let’s just say it took much longer,” Lane said. “I could show you stacks of cards and logbooks filled with data that would take weeks to compile into reports.” Lane said two medical teams were dispatched to six evacuation centers to deliver medical care during what was dubbed “Operation Goodwill.” The data the software managed included breakdowns of the patients by sex, age, medical condition and treatment options. “As they worked I could watch from afar — by computer — and follow the patients through the whole process,” Lane said. “With this we can compare the information gathered with data from previous missions and be better able to determine our needs and course of action.” Although the system can be used for any humanitarian relief crises, it was specifically developed to track the avian flu, according to Global. “Statistically speaking, we’re overdue,” said Navy Lt. Matthew Mercer, the 3rd Marine Division’s environmental health officer. Mercer recently received the Rear Admiral Charles S. Stephenson Award for Excellence in Navy Occupational Health, Preventive Medicine and Health Promotion, partly for his work on developing the influenza response plan. “On average, there are about four pandemics per century — about one every 25 years,” Mercer said. “The last one was in 1968. The avian flu has a good shot at being the next big one.” So far, nearly all the humans who have contracted the disease had direct contact with ailing birds, Mercer said. More than half of

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them died. “It’s certainly a cause for concern,” he said. “We’re only one or two small mutations away from this influenza going human to human.”

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Con- Marines Good- Pandemics

C) Diseases cause human extinction Frank Ryan, M.D., 1997, Virus X, p. 366 How might the human race appear to such an aggressively emerging virus? That teeming, globally intrusive species, with its transcontinental air travel, massively congested cities, sexual promiscuity, and in the less affluent regions — where the virus is most likely to first emerge — a vulnerable lack of hygiene with regard to food and water supplies and hospitality to biting insects' The virus is best seen, in John Hollands excellent analogy, as a swarm of competing mutations, with each individual strain subjected to furious forces of natural selection for the strain, or strains, most likely to amplify and evolve in the new ecological habitat.3 With such a promising new opportunity in the invaded species, natural selection must eventually come to dominate viral behavior. In time the dynamics of infection will select for a more resistant human population. Such a coevolution takes rather longer in "human" time — too long, given the ease of spread within the global village. A rapidly lethal and quickly spreading virus simply would not have time to switch from aggression to coevolution. And there lies the danger. Joshua Lederbergs prediction can now be seen to be an altogether logical one. Pandemics are inevitable. Our incredibly rapid human evolution, our overwhelming global needs, the advances of our complex industrial society, all have moved the natural goalposts. The advance of society, the very science of change, has greatly augmented the potential for the emergence of a pandemic strain. It is hardly surprising that Avrion Mitchison, scientific director of Deutsches Rheuma Forschungszentrum in Berlin, asks the question: "Will we survive!” We have invaded every biome on earth and we continue to destroy other species so very rapidly that one eminent scientist foresees the day when no life exists on earth apart from the human monoculture and the small volume of species useful to it. An increasing multitude of disturbed viral-host symbiotic cycles are provoked into self-protective counterattacks. This is a dangerous situation. And we have seen in the previous chapter how ill-prepared the world is to cope with it. It begs the most frightening question of all: could such a pandemic virus cause the extinction of the human species?

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Con- Marines Good- Pandemics

The U.S. military has unique ability to contain pandemics Jansen 09 (Don J. Jansen Analyst in Defense Health Care Policy, “The Role of the Department of Defense During A Flu Pandemic”, June 4, 2009, http://fhp.osd.mil/aiWatchboard/pdf/R40619_20090604.pdf)

However, DoD has well-developed relationships with key leaders in many nations -- particularly with respect to foreign military officers and defense officials – and it also has expertise and capabilities that could be useful to the efforts of foreign governments to detect and contain a pandemic. As such, the Implementation Plan directed DoD to conduct a number of actions, in coordination with the Department of State and other appropriate agencies, to assist partner nation militaries in preparing for a pandemic. Examples of this type of assistance include assessing the preparedness and response plans of foreign militaries, validating these response plans with military-to-military exercises, conducting training programs to improve military infection control and case management, and assessing the capacity of foreign military labs and response teams.18 The Implementation Plan also directed DoD to support the Department of State in providing U.S. response capabilities to international response efforts. Examples of this type of support would include participating in investigative or technical assistance teams, or delivering countermeasures to affected countries.19 Additionally, if the Secretary of Defense approves a request from another federal agency for such support or if the President so directs, DoD may support containment operations or stability operations in another nation.20

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Con- Marines Good- Pandemics- Impact

Asia is the epicenter of an Influenza pandemic and they will be unable to respond Medical News Today 06 (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/42595.php) The Asia-Pacific region faces a number of challenges in preparing for an influenza pandemic, yet gaps and inconsistencies in plans across the continent could hinder an effective response to a pandemic, according to a new report presented today at the Lancet Asia Medical Forum 2006, Singapore. Over 80% of human deaths from avian influenza (H5N1) recorded to date have occurred in South East Asia, which suggests that countries in the region could be the epicentre of the next human influenza pandemic.

Pandemic will crush the global economy Sikich 05 (Geary W. Sikich, Principal, Logical Management Systems, Corp., and John M. Stagl, CBCP is a consultant with Belfor and a member of the Continuity Insights Editorial Advisory Board, http://www.continuitycentral.com/feature0280.htm) Thus, the second critical characteristic is the world economy’s complexity and “economic inertia”. It would be difficult to find a sector that is not in some way touched by or that does not rely on international markets in some manner for its operations. Businesses are either marketing internationally or rely on international sources for their supplies. For the most part this complexity is a source of strength in the market. It has resulted in increased revenue and a reduction in expenses for many companies. It also increases the alternatives available to companies ensuring a virtual unlimited supply of needed support or materials for many companies. In this “complex” economic business market it would be very difficult to slow or stop the “economic inertia”. However, the law of inertia applies equally to physical elements and economics. So, in the unlikely event that the global economy was to slow down or stop due to a pandemic, it could be an overwhelming challenge to restart it and restore its inertia. Yet this is a very real possibility if H5N1 were to become a pandemic. A pandemic creates a whole new economic dynamic. Because of the widespread impact of the illness, both the consumption element, as well as the supply element, of the economy will be simultaneously impaired. This occurs on a global basis and is not confined to any specific area. Because pandemics by their vary nature impact multiple countries, and because of the speed with which a pandemic will spread today, disruption occurs everywhere at the same time. We have not experienced such economic disruption since the 1918 influenza (Spanish Flu) or possibly the Great Depression.

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Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations

Peace-Time Operations of the US military are the back-bone of the day-to-day activities of the military – key to training, deterrence, shaping the international environment, protects US interests and reduces the cost of the military Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) To plan the size of the US military, Pentagon officials rely on what is known as a force-sizing construct, which reflects the upper limits of what the military is able to do. Most famously, in the wake of the Cold War, Pentagon planners relied on the two-war standard, which called for a military sized to fight two near-simultaneous wars if necessary. But in recent years, the two-war standard has been watered down even as demands on US forces have grown. Not only has it been scaled back, but the force-sizing construct also diminished after it was exposed as inadequate to meet the demands placed on the military in the aftermath of 2001 in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet returning to a true two-war standard is a necessary but insufficient step to create a modern force sizing construct. Rather than only incorporating demands for forces in wartime, the Pentagon’s construct must also include regular peacetime demands on US forces. While steady-state demands such as forward presence abroad, training missions with partner militaries, and rotational deployments do not rise to the magnitude of major contingency operations, they form the backbone of day-to-day US military activities. Moreover, they serve a vital role in shaping the international environment to advance American interests, preserving a norm-based international order, reassuring allies, and deterring potential aggressors. These peacetime missions represent the most cost effective and preferred use of American military power. They magnify all other aspects of American national power while upholding stability in vital regions. Only by moving to a force-sizing construct that allows the United States to fight and win two near-simultaneous major wars—while also conducting the multitude of everyday operations that promote global stability— can defense planners more accurately size and budget for the demands on the US military.

Demand for US forces to engage are increasing due to new crises – Must change the way that the US military planners view force deployment – unless we change now we are locked into deploying more troops in order to achieve any goals – Too few troops makes conflicts inevitable and more likely Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) With demands on US forces growing and new crises emerging because of disease, terrorism, and great power aggression, the time is ripe for defense planners to incorporate the totality of military demands—and responses to smaller contingencies—into America’s force-sizing construct. Rather than being shaped exclusively to fight two major wars, or some variation therein, the military should be sized to fight two major wars and conduct everyday operations worldwide, including responding to multiple smaller contingencies at once. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that the military was too small and under-resourced to fully meet the two-war standard. Today’s smaller, less-capable military cannot therefore be expected to meet current war plans and provide enough capacity to carry out the majority of US operations overseas, which are short of war and intended to keep the peace. An improved Pentagon force-sizing construct must balance presence, building partner capacity, and engagement requirements of peacetime with those of war-fighting. No longer should combat requirements be considered adequate to achieve both war and peacetime operations. In the past, this assumption has led to an inadequate global force posture that cannot serve as a persuasive deterrent should engagement and training fall short. By shortchanging the metric used to size and shape US military forces, administrations since the end of the Cold War have only ensured that more troops are used

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in greater numbers once ultimately committed or that the forces used are stretched too thin to quickly and decisively end conflict.

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Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations

Outside of Afghanistan the US military only has 190,000 troops deployed around the world – are mostly doing training and military cooperation missions – these are essential to US military plans Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) Beyond the forces remaining in Afghanistan for the training- and counterterrorism-oriented Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, just under 190,000 active-duty service members are stationed outside the United States.2 These personnel are conducting a variety of missions, including counterterror operations, routine patrols through disputed waters, and regular exercises with regional partners and allies. These missions typify what the military calls “steady state” requirements, which form the bedrock of US military activities around the world.

Japan hosts 50,000 soldiers – Navy uses the bases to increase cooperation with other nations – Marines train troops in Asia and help with humanitarian efforts in the region Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) The Pacific. On the other side of the world, American forces are no less busy. Japan is home to the largest overseas garrison of US forces, hosting roughly 50,000 service members.27 About 40 percent of these personnel are from the Navy, whose 7th Fleet is forward deployed largely to Japan. The roughly 80 ships of this fleet participate in as many as 125 bilateral and multilateral exercises per year, all while making more than 500 port visits to 25 countries each year.28 For example, last April, the USS John S. McCain—home-ported in Yokosuka, Japan—spent a week in Vietnamese waters as part of an ongoing effort to expand the US military-to-military relationship with Vietnam.29 Some recent examples of US military activities throughout Asia are depicted in figure 2. Other US forces in Japan include roughly 2,500 soldiers, 13,000 airmen, and 16,000 Marines.30 The 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Japan, frequently sends units on deployments around the region. In June, a small detachment of Marines participated in Khaan Quest 2014, a multilateral exercise held in Mongolia. As part of the exercise, Marines helped renovate an elementary school and install a new playground.31

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Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations

The US military must start viewing peace time missions as part of their overall missions and recognize that in the changing environment of the war we will no longer be able to win a large protracted war and continue with smaller peace missions that will ultimately make the world safer Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) To start to reverse this trend, as the NDP argued, the United States must fundamentally revisit its force sizing construct. Historically, America has sized its military forces against major conflict scenarios. Most famously, the Bottom-Up Review articulated what came to be known as the “two-war standard,” calling for US forces that were structured to “achieve decisive victory in two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts and to conduct combat operations characterized by rapid response and a high probability of success, while minimizing the risk of significant American casualties.”103 Although a return to this clear-cut two-war standard is an important and necessary step, it is not sufficient in and of itself. All too often, defense planners largely focus on wartime requirements when it comes to force sizing—ignoring requirements relating to presence and everyday deterrence to their detriment. Instead, the US must turn to a two-war plus steady state force sizing construct that more properly encapsulates the vast number of missions American forces conduct each day around the globe, as well as frequent military operations that fall below the threshold of a major regional contingency. The NDP paves the way for the Pentagon to head in this direction. As the panel articulates, “In the current threat environment, the United States could plausibly be called upon to deter or fight in several regions in overlapping time frames: on the Korean peninsula, in the East or South China Sea, in the Middle East, South Asia, and quite possibly in Europe.”104 What this means, in the words of the panel, is that the US military “must have the capability and capacity to deter or stop aggression in multiple theaters—not just one— even when engaged in a large-scale war.”105 This ability to conduct multiple operations around the globe while engaged in a major conflict elsewhere is increasingly vital. After all, the Obama administration came into office looking to decrease America’s military commitments overseas but helped overthrow the Qaddafi regime in Libya; began an air campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria; and participated in major disaster relief efforts in Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines— all while the war in Afghanistan continued, and even escalated, under its watch. None of these engagements beyond Afghanistan neatly fits into the box of a major regional conflict, yet they are clearly additional responsibilities that have taxed American forces. The USS George H. W. Bush’s experience over the summer is an important example of how the lines of current conflict are increasingly blurring. Early in its 2014 deployment, the USS Bush was striking enemy targets in Afghanistan before it was ordered to move toward Iraq and the growing threat of ISIS.106 In this sense, America’s forward-deployed forces—and carriers, in particular—act as free safeties, shifting from one part of their area of operations to another to meet the most pressing threat. Their assignments often shift from peacetime to war and back again—yet this wide variety of missions is often ignored in war planning that neatly categorizes forces as either at peace or at war. Forward-deployed forces serve as both war winners and war preventers—yet, under current force planning constructs, no ready categorization exists for these types of missions. Consequently, it only makes sense that America’s force-sizing construct take these kinds of missions— and daily peacetime requirements—into account. As the NDP notes, in the near future, US forces may face crises or conflicts of varying degrees in two, three, four, or even five places at once.107 In this kind of environment, being able to fight one full-scale war and aim for something less than victory in another is not good enough for a superpower.

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Con- Marines Good- Peace Time Operations- Impact

Peace Time Missions and Forward Deployment are the only way to provide flexibility to fighting future wars – Deterrence Alone will not solve Chinese Aggression in Asia Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) The flexibility to conduct multiple war and peacetime operations at once is essential to America’s war-prevention strategy. The US military relies on a sliding scale of persuasion, dissuasion, and deterrence to advance American interests abroad. While persuasion through the positive use of military force is America’s preferred option, military power represents a flexible tool that can become more or less assertive as the situation demands. Maintaining a large and adaptable force means that policymakers will be given a wide array of options to use military force in a manner appropriate to the situation at hand. Moreover, unlike in the past, the US will not be able to secure its future from the top down. Dissuading or deterring the highest-end threats will not be sufficient to satisfy American national interests. Dissuading or deterring Chinese aggression in Asia, for instance, is not enough to produce a secure world if ISIS conquers even-broader swaths of the Middle East.

Peace Time Operations are key to preserve peace, deter conflict, engage in small-scale operations and promote prosperity Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) Although the ability to meet wartime surge demands is imperative, the reality is that the US military is stretched already in meeting its daily non-crisis obligations. That outcome would worsen under sequestration’s return in 2016 when, for example, a force of 175,000 active duty Marines would have to operate under a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio (time deployed to time at home) in peacetime—the same ratio the Marine Corps faced during the height of wartime operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.108 An unrealistic, understated, and underfunded force-sizing construct is no longer sustainable. The world already saw a US military strained to carry out two major combat operations when it was supposedly built to do so last decade. As it becomes increasingly clear that there will be no peace dividend following America’s large-scale involvement in these wars, policymakers need to get serious about the forces and investments required to sustain the daily operations that preserve peace, deter conflict, engage in smaller-scale operations where necessary, and promote prosperity. Incorporating these demands into Pentagon planning would provide a much more accurate picture of America’s defense needs. Despite the ongoing drawdown in Afghanistan, America’s military commitments abroad are not shrinking, but the size of the force is. Without a clear understanding of how much the US military does to keep the peace in operations outside of war, America’s service members will face growing challenges as they struggle to meet the everyday demands that the nation expects and an increasingly unstable world requires. Only by adding these peacetime demands to a two-war force sizing construct can the Pentagon plan to win the wars of today and prevent those of tomorrow.

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Con- Marines Good- Philippines Terrorism

Marines in Okinawa provide amphibious training for counterterror operations in the Philippines. Nicholson, consultant US Special Operations Command, & Lt. General Wissler, Commanding General III Marine Expeditionary Force, & Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (George & John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

Sir, good afternoon, George Nicholson, a policy consultant with U.S. Special Operations Command. A question about interface in the theater. You had alluded to supporting counterterrorist operations in the Southern Philippines. What’s the lash-up with SOCPAC’s activities down there? And the other thing I think about two months ago, General Amos and also Admiral McRaven announced the starting I think this spring there’s going to be a five-man planning cell out of SOCOM or out of SOC deploying with each of the arcs going out that’s going to include having a JSOC rep to give you that interface. Along the same lines, we’ve withdrawn all of our rotary wing assets out of the Pacific until we put CV-22s out there. With the capabilities that you’ve got right now with MV-22s, is there any kind of interface with Admiral Locklear’s commanders and extremist force being able to provide airlift for that unit, which again, is the first? Our operations in the Philippines are directly in support of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, Philippines. So they’re tightly coordinated with the operations that are going on in SOCOM and SOCPAC. In fact, those Marines are – that’s their exclusive mission is to support the SOCPAC mission. So it’s not a mission that I have other than to support SOCPAC. To get to your question about the Special Operations Force liaison elements, the SOFLEs, they’ve deployed the first SOFLE now with 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is in the CENTCOM AOR. But similarly, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit just this week concluded operations in support of Charlie 11, which is an Army Special Operations Detachments headquartered in Okinawa, Japan. Brought them out onboard the amphibious ship, did through a rehearsal and planning, and then exercised what would be an embassy rescue, if you will, with Special Operations Forces, using those MV-22 Ospreys as a rotary wing lift capability in support of them. In addition to that, my headquarters will gain a Special Operations Forces Liaison Element from SOCKOR, from the Special Operations Command, Korea Elements.

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Con- Marines Good- Rapid Response

Marines provide unique rapid response and expeditionary capabilities—-withdrawal decks the credibility of US engagement—-makes crisis escalation likely IFPA 11 – Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis; Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., President, is the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies at The Fletcher School, Tufts University, 4/15/11, "The Marine Corps: America's Expeditionary Force in Readiness," Conference Report, 39th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on National Security Strategy and Policy, http://www.ifpa.org/pdf/ifpaFletch39th.pdf

As Lieutenant General Duane D. Thiessen, commander of USMC Forces in the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), pointed out, more than half the world’s population, including the four most populous nations, falls within in the Asia-Pacific area. The AOR contains six of the world’s largest militaries, including China’s and Russia’s. Asia is a major world economic engine and a key player in the U.S. economy. The Pacific Rim is home to nine of the world’s fifteen largest economies, with China, Japan, and the United States together accounting for 41 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). General Thiessen maintained that the overall stability in the PACOM AOR provided by U.S. forward presence over the past sixty years has underwritten the region’s strong economic growth. Nevertheless, Asia has been the scene of several wars: on the Korean Peninsula, in Vietnam, and between India and Pakistan, and there have also been several crises between Mainland China and Taiwan. A dynamic manufacturing sector, one of the region’s largest sectors, requires large-scale resource imports. Therefore, trade and freedom of navigation will remain pivotal issues in the PACOM AOR. One- quarter of global trade passes through the Strait of Malacca, into or out of the South China Sea. Some 90 percent of the oil imported by China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea transits the Strait of Malacca. Although Pacific countries themselves will act to maintain unimpeded access, the United States has a major interest as well in ensuring freedom of the seas and continued economic growth in PACOM’s AOR. Without a U.S. security presence, the stability of this vast area would be in question. The United States has five treaty allies in the Pacific: Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand, each of which has major concerns about trade and navigational access in the region. General Thiessen stressed not only that stability in Asia requires forward presence and credibility, but that U.S. credibility is based on its physical presence and the tangible evidence that leads allies, partners, and adversaries alike to conclude that the United States will remain actively engaged in the region. “Virtual presence is absolute absence,” he said. In light of the sheer size of the PACOM AOR, encompassing the Pacific and Indian oceans and extending to the eastern coast of Africa, the Marine Corps has a vital role to play in ensuring forward presence whenever and wherever needed throughout this vast geographic and maritime area. Its indispensable role is a function of its niche capabilities: readiness, an expeditionary focus, force protection, and sustainment. Forward-basing remains important both for troops and for warehousing and maintenance, as well as for purposes of dissuasion and deterrence. For example, the United States seeks to dissuade countries presently benefiting from U.S. security guarantees from going nuclear and to deter the outbreak of armed conflict, on the Korean Peninsula, in the Taiwan Strait, and between India and Pakistan, for instance. Additionally, PACOM needs strategic-lift capabilities in order to be able to respond rapidly in crisis situations.

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Con- Marines Good- Rapid Response

Maintaining a permanent base on Okinawa is key- dispersal doesn't solve their advantage due to new host backlash OR our links because they lose key training and response time Schoff 2013 (James L. Schoff, senior associate in the Carnegie Asia Program. His research focuses on U.S.-Japanese relations and regional engagement, Japanese politics and security, and the private sector's role in Japanese policymaking, JULY 17, 2013, "Getting Serious About U.S. Marine Relocation in Japan", http://carnegieendowment.org/2013/07/17/getting-serious-about-u.s.-marine-relocation-in-japan)

Nakaima faces a difficult political decision on the landfill permit with important implications. His main priority is to close Futenma quickly and reduce the U.S. Marine presence in Okinawa, and he criticizes the current Henoko plan as too slow. The majority of Okinawans want the marines to move off the island entirely, and the governor’s office has promoted an expedited “dispersal” alternative that would separate components of marines currently stationed at the Futenma Air Station and have them rotate around different existing Japanese commercial and military facilities in the rest of country. The dispersal concept is vague, but it essentially breaks up the marines in Japan into small units that would base and train temporarily at multiple locations outside Okinawa. This alternative is unworkable operationally because the marines need a certain critical mass and a reliable combined training regimen to maintain their capabilities and responsiveness. It also risks opening up a whole new can of political worms and inciting multiple local protests in these new host cities. Pursuing this “quick” solution would delay movement on the current plan and cause Futenma to stay where it is even longer than projected.

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Con- Marines Good- Readiness

The bases in Okinawa are known as Marine Air Ground Task Force bases, which means that they are fully equipped with all sea, air, and ground capabilities to stabilize the region. This MAGTF is best located in Okinawa because from there helicopters can reach the rest of Japan as well as Southeast Asia. Moving the base would destroy readiness. This location is also key for disaster relief. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Reason #3: The U.S. Marine presence enables the conduct of full-spectrum combat operations. The Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) on Okinawa is a flexible, scalable, tailored, self-contained, rapidly deployable, powerful military force that can fulfill any contingency that might arise throughout the region. A combined arms force that operates under the Marine Corps doctrine of Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF), the III MEF is comprised of organic ground, air, and logistics components under a single commander. A MAGTF requires collocation of its ground, air, and logistics components to enable coordinated training of integrated units. Ambassador Roos explained that the Marine helicopters on Okinawa enable the U.S. to: Rapidly move our ground combat and support units on Okinawa across the island chain that links Northeast and Southeast Asia to wherever they would be required. For heavier and longer-range operations, the Marines would be supported by our naval fleet in Sasebo, just a few days sailing time away, which could project both Marine ground and air power anywhere in the region. The Marines on Okinawa would “arrive first on the scene to secure critical facilities, conduct civilian evacuations, and provide forward land and air strike power.”[10] Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, former commander, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific, echoed Roos’s comments, noting that Okinawa Marines are trained to respond to dozens of different emergencies and contingencies: “When the 31st MEU [Marine Expeditionary Unit] is aboard ship in Okinawa, there is a 100 percent chance they are about a day’s transit time to either a U.S. defense treaty ally, a threat to regional stability, or a perennial disaster relief location.”[11]

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Con- Marines Good- Regional Cooperation

Navy and Marine presence increases regional confidence building and capacity Schoff, Senior Assoc Asia Program @ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, & Lt. General Wissler, Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (Jim & John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

Jim Schoff: Thank you. Very quickly I wanted to ask one other question, and it’s connected to that. People who hear me talk know that I’m a big proponent of regional security cooperation as, be it a confidence building measure or building capacity to deal with collective challenges and support collective interests. It’s a big part of the U.S. rebalance to Asia strategy, working with allies and partners in the region and regional institutions. We’ve made some progress, but a lot of the critics will say that what we’ve – it’s still so limited in terms of what we can do in the region, whether it’s for political reasons or because of capacity constraints in the region. From your vantage point, what are – where do we kind of stand with that policy or approach? What are some of the priorities that you see going forward if we’re going to make that to be a more valuable part of regional security going forward? How do we make it a little bit more successful? Lt. General Wissler: Well, I think we simply need to expand on some of the things that we’re already doing. I mentioned the exercise Cobra Gold. Republic of Korea Marines were involved in exercise Cobra Gold. We had Australian defense force, the Singapore military was there, U.S. military, Thai, the – I don’t remember all of the countries, but it was the largest multilateral operation. I think as we continue to do those sorts of multilateral operations, we will continue to build the partnership between countries. It’s very interesting, but most all of the militaries in the region want to work with the other militaries. And we can facilitate that because we can usually bring a capability, particularly with the Navy-Marine Corps team where we don’t provide much of an impact to infrastructure because we can come from the sea, if you will, and we can live on the sea, but we can come and partner with them. And then we can just as unobtrusively as we’ve arrived, we can leave those countries and continue to build those relationships. I think you’ll see Cobra Gold will expand even more; the Japan Self-Defense Force, as it has asked, that perhaps they be allowed to participate in the amphibious portion of that exercise in this coming year. Whether that takes place or not, I don’t know. That will probably be – I’m sure there’ll be many country-to-country discussions that have to take place to make that happen. But similarly, the Chinese were representative last year. One of my engineer platoons executed a humanitarian construction project, for lack of a better word, in Thailand, partnered side-by-side with the Chinese military. There’s a large command post exercise that takes place as part of that exercise. And the participants in that exercise are ever-expanding. So I think as we just continue to kind of chip away at these different exercises, I know that General Batista had mentioned – I have not seen confirmation of it – but he was attempting to hold, after our exercise Balikatan, which will commence here in May, he was trying to hold a one- or two-day multinational seminar to once again look at where we were successful in that multinational coordination center, but also to see where we weren’t so successful and how we can perhaps make that more successful and how we can build on a expectation of what other nations could bring to bear in the event of a crisis anywhere.

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Con- Marines Good- Regional Security

Withdrawing the base from Okinawa would violate the 1960 agreement signed with Japan that pledges to protect Japan and the rest of Asia. The removal of the bases would remove security from the region and drive other Asian nations into submitting to China’s will. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

The United States Marines stationed on Okinawa operate as one element of an integrated, comprehensive U.S. security strategy that uses individual service capabilities based on a specific contingency or operation. Removing Marine Corps assets from Okinawa would leave the United States with a two-legged security stool in a region where steadiness and support are essential. It is therefore essential that all parties recognize the following 10 reasons for maintaining the U.S. Marine presence on Okinawa. Reason #1: The U.S. Marine presence is a tangible sign of America’s commitment to defend Asia. U.S. forward-deployed forces in Asia are indisputable signals of Washington’s commitment to the obligations of its 1960 security treaty with Japan to defend its allies and maintain peace and stability in Asia. The U.S. Marines on Okinawa are an indispensable component of any U.S. response to an Asian crisis. The Marine presence is also a clear rebuttal to perceptions of waning United States resolve in the face of a rising and assertive China. Withdrawing the U.S. Marines from Okinawa would only affirm that perception and lead Asian nations to accommodate themselves to Chinese pressure. As a senior U.S. military officer commented, “U.S. dominance is not a given. You have to be on the court to be in the game.” Finally, an important question remains: What impact would the removal of U.S. ground forces have on President Obama’s much-hyped claim that “the U.S. is now back in Asia”?

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Con- Marines Good- AT: Guam Solves

Guam too far for rapid response. Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, 2009 (“U.S. Should Stay Firm on Implementation of Okinawa Force Realignment,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2352, December 15th, Available Online at http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg2352.cfm)

The rapid crisis response capabilities provided by the presence of the Marine Corps forces constitute a critical alliance capability.... [S]ustaining those capabilities, which consist of air, ground, logistics and command elements, remains dependent upon the interaction of those elements in regular training, exercises and operations. [Therefore,] the FRF must be located within Okinawa...near the other elements with which they operate on a regular basis. --U.S.-Japan Joint Statement[18] The Marine Corps trains, deploys, and fights in combined-arms units under the doctrine of Marine Air Ground Task Force. This method of operation requires co-location, interaction, and training of integrated Marine Corps air, ground, logistics, and command elements. The 3rd Marine Division ground component located on Okinawa relies on the 1st Marine Air Wing at Futenma to conduct operations and training outside Okinawa. Marine Corps rapid reaction is a core capability of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Marine transport helicopters on Okinawa can self-deploy to Southeast Asia for theater security operations by island-hopping. This is not possible from Guam because some helicopters would need to be transported by ship, which is a three-day transit. The DPJ advocacy for removing Marine helicopter units from Okinawa is analogous to a town demanding the removal of a police or fire station, but still expecting the same level of protection, which is impossible given the tyranny of distance.

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Con- Marines Good- AT: Kadena Solves

Kadena can't replace Futenma —- serve fundamentally different roles —- and removing Futenma makes Kadena ineffective anyway Dan Melton 2010, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-5 Community Policy, Planning, and Liaison, U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Japan/Marine Corps Bases Japan, and Robert Eldridge, PhD, Associate Professor at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, "U.S. marine presence in Okinawa Pref. essential," Mar 4 2010, https://www.academia.edu/11984129/U.S._Marine_Presence_in_Okinawa_Pref._Essential

The opinion piece entitled “Putting Okinawa Air Base in Perspective” by Michael O’Hanlon carried in The Daily Yomiuri on Feb. 3 is a thoughtful discussion of the US-Japan alliance. We fully agree with the “need to lift our sights above bickering over bases and put strategy and [dealing with] the world’s real problems back at the center of our alliance,” but w believe back at the center of our alliance,” but we believe Mr. O’Hanlon does not fully appreciate the importance of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma or understand the complex dynamics of the so-called “Okinawa problem.” Moreover, he downplays the vital role that forward-deployed United States Marines fulfill in meeting the obligation of the 1960 United States-Japan Treaty of Mutual Security and Cooperation. There is much to rebut in his op-ed, but we will concentrate on the following four faulty premises: 1) that the functions of MCAS Futenma are less important than Kadena Air Base (KAB) and thus can be forfeited as a political pawn; 2) that sacrificing MCAS Futenma would make KAB less of a political target and thus satisfy anti-base activists in Okinawa and elsewhere; 3) that the U.S. government has not regularly “factored in local sensitivities” into alliance management issues and has done nothing in the past to alleviate local concerns; and 4) that a contingency basing formula in which civilian airports are used is an operationally practical solution. While both KAB and MCAS Futenma are co-located in central Okinawa, they have fundamentally different roles and missions. Yet, there is an important synergy between the two airfields in daily operations as well as in a contingency if deterrence failed. A loss of the capabilities of either airfield could significantly impact operations during a crisis. When discussing them, it is not an either/or choice but a clear requirement for both. While scholars can hope for the best, planners need to prepare for the worst. One airfield reduces contingency options and creates a military planner’s worst nightmare: a single point of failure. We disagree that this option is a “tolerable one,” as he suggests, by any means, regardless of whether contingency access to other airfields is improved or not. There are numerous political and operational challenges to the concept of contingency use but the bottom line up front is: moving or spreading the functions of Futenma outside of the main island of Okinawa not only would critically affect the ability of the Marine Corps to perform its daily operations and training to sustain combat readiness as well to ably and quickly respond to crises, but could also impair the deterrence functions and credibility of our alliance and thus security in the entire region.

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viate local concerns an Con- Marines Good- AT: Navy Solves

Only Marines in Japan solve—-they're the only expeditionary ground troops which are necessary for effective deterrence and warfighting Lieutenant General Keith J. Stalder 10, Commanding General, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, "Marine General Stalder Speaks at Tokyo American Center," Feb 17 2010, http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20100217-71.html

There are some in Japan who say that the Navy that is based here is enough of a deterrent force. As someone who has served deployments on aircraft carriers, let me say that the technology at the disposal of the U.S. Navy is both sophisticated and devastating to adversaries. Our outstanding sailors and naval aviators are a key component of deterrence in this region, but they are limited by what they can accomplish from the sea and using their aircraft. And then there is the Air Force. Some of you know, I'm a fighter pilot. I flew F-4s and F-18s for most of my career, and I still take a helicopter up once in a while. The capabilities of our aircraft are stunning. The combat power of the U.S. Air Force, particularly when it combines efforts with the Japan Air Self Defense Force, is breathtaking. And yet, if we have learned nothing else over the last 50 years, it is that air power and sea power alone are inadequate to fight wars, and are inadequate as deterrents. In the days immediately following the attack on the World Trade Center, operations in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban were of necessity conducted exclusively with air power. Air power was able to destroy all Taliban and Al Qaeda targets, but it had no effect on the willingness of the enemy to discontinue fighting. U.S. ground forces were required to defeat the Taliban government. And regardless of what you may think about the Iraq conflict, and I realize there are different opinions in this room, certainly a lesson from Iraq is the limits of air and sea power. Only ground forces were able to defeat Saddam Hussein's forces in Iraq. Ladies and gentlemen, in the Asia Pacific, U.S. ground forces are Marines. The U.S. army maintains soldiers in the Republic of Korea, but those soldiers are not expeditionary for the purpose of responding to emergencies elsewhere. They are largely dedicated to remaining on the Korean Peninsula in support of the combined defense. This means the only deployable U.S. ground forces between Hawaii and India are the U.S. Marines on Okinawa. Those are the ground forces assigned to defend Japan and to maintain security in East Asia. The notion that "we like the Alliance but we don't need or want ground forces" won't work It is impossible to deter, defend and defeat without the ability to deploy ground forces rapidly in times of crisis. The U.S. cannot meet its Alliance obligation to defend Japan and maintain regional peace and security without ground forces equipped with the appropriate capabilities and training. Without expeditionary ground forces, the deterrent power of our Alliance would be greatly weakened.

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Con- Marines Good- AT: Small Number

Withdrawal is a unilateral declaratory policy of abandonment – consultation guides Japanese trust in the credibility of extended deterrence Rowberry 2015 (Ariana Navarro, Special Assistant at The White House's National Security Council, Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at the Brookings Institution, B.A. in Peace, War, and Defense; Political Science (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). This article was reviewed by Steven Pifer who is the Director of the Arms Control Initiative (Brookings) and a former Senior Adviser with the Center for Strategic & International Studies, "Advanced Conventional Weapons, Deterrence and the U.S.-Japan Alliance," Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, the article was published on 1/6/15, it was written in December 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2015/01/06-advanced-conventional-weapons-deterrence-us-japan-alliance-rowberry/advanced- conventional-weapons-deterrence-and-the-usjapan-alliance--rowberry.pdf)

While nuclear and conventional capabilities provide the “hard” aspects of extended deterrence, “soft” components, including U.S. declaratory policy, clear statements of U.S. support after provocative actions by adversaries, and formalized bilateral dialogue, are indispensable components of the extended deterrent relationship. Given the increasing uncertainty of Ja- pan’s security environment, continued U.S. political support for Japan is crucial as a means of assuring Tokyo. Washington sends strong signals to Japan and poten- tial adversaries through its declaratory policy, which outlines how and when the United States might use military force. As discussed above, the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan is the linchpin of the alli- ance. Article 5 states, “Each party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the Administration of Japan would be dan- gerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accor- dance with its constitutional provisions and process- es.”29 Despite the “mutual” defense commitments of both the United States and Japan, historically the United States has borne the majority of the burden for providing protection to the alliance. Declaratory policy under the mutual defense treaty has become particularly important in light of escalating ten- sions with neighbors. Some Japanese scholars have expressed concern that the United States could be reluctant to come to Japan’s aid in the event of a low-level con ict, such as a dispute over the Sen- kaku/Diaoyu Islands.30 In providing assurance to Japan, it is necessary to make clear that U.S. declar- atory policy applies to these types of contingencies. Another example of declaratory policy is the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, which serves as a guiding document for the Obama Administration’s nuclear policy. More than previous NPRs, the 2010 docu- ment stresses the importance of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy. However, the document also identi es strengthening regional deterrence and reassuring U.S. allies and partners as a key objective.31 As part of the e ort to assure Japan that changes in U.S. policy would not be to Japan’s detriment, U.S. and Japanese o cials conducted extensive consultations during the formu- lation of the 2010 NPR. Many Japanese o cials felt that those close talks resolved their anxieties regard- ing future U.S. policy on nuclear weapons.32 Crucial- ly, these consultations gave Japan an opportunity to provide input in the formulation of U.S. declaratory policy, and provided a channel for Japan to express its thinking about the U.S. extended deterrent.

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Con- JWTC Good

The JWTC offers unique training—its key Stars and Stripes “Welcome to the jungle: Surviving the "E Course" on Okinawa” Feb. 28, 2005. accessed aug 2, 2010 http://www.stripes.com/news/welcome-to-the-jungle-surviving-the-e-course-on-okinawa-1.29955

The “pit ‘n’ pond” begins in a cold pool of clay-colored, reptile-infested goo. The Marines stay low, blowing mud bubbles with their noses. They reach a series of ditches and crawl single-file on their elbows through the length of a very narrow, crooked football field. The ditches converge, revealing barbed wire above and a log blocking the way through the rest of the muck. They submerge for a few seconds, then reemerge to untangle themselves from the wire. The “E Course” at the Jungle Warfare Training Center tests ability and teamwork like few other training courses can — as 202 Marines, Navy Seabees and others found out Friday. The 3.8-mile course features 14 rappels down slippery, craggy hills and a host of unusual challenges designed to keep would-be conquerors mentally and physically strained for hours. “It’s much more than I expected,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Jeanette Cunningham of the Combat Assault Battalion. “They don’t baby us. They teach us exactly what we need to know.” Throughout the weeklong training, the servicemembers split time between the classroom and the jungle. While at their desks, they learn about the habu snakes and poisonous plants they might encounter. In the field, they learn controlled falling and how to react to ambushes, among other things. Instructors fire clay “assessment rounds” at ambushed teams, aiming at staff NCOs to see who will emerge from the lower ranks to take control in the midst of the chaos. Already confident in his senior NCOs, Gunnery Sgt. William Furness of Marine Air Support Squadron 2 said he learned a lot about the rest of his team from the exercises. “It’s awesome for the junior NCOs,” Furness said. “You can always watch someone order others to empty the trash cans. That’s garrison leadership. “It’s a big difference leading Marines in the field in an inherently dangerous situation. Out here is where it really counts.” The teams shrug off pain and minor sprains. More serious injuries get attention from Petty Officer 1st Class Ian Crow and two junior corpsman. Staff instructors and other NCOs keep a sharp eye on each of the course’s 37 obstacles, watching for broken limbs and hypothermia. “The jungle demands everything you have, if you’ve got bad ankles or not,” said Marine Staff Sergeant Clinton Thomas, NCO in-command and “godfather” of the E-course. Of all the obstacles, Thomas’ favorite may be the “peanut butter” at the course’s end. Teams carry one of their own on a thin tarp stitched to two wooden poles through a river of waist-deep mud the consistency of — you guessed it — peanut butter. Once free of the mud, they carry the stretcher up a mountain, over steep rocks and through gaps in trees. “That is when the tempers start flaring,” said Marine Pfc. Derek Thompson. “But you have no choice but to get through it. So you dig deep and you keep pushing.” On Friday afternoon, the fastest team made it in just over four hours. That is about average, although infantry units generally finish a little quicker, Thomas said. A reconnaissance team once made it through the course in one hour, 29 minutes, he said. Thomas also remembers a dental team that needed more than nine hours. Once finished, an instructor hoses off the exhausted teams with the gentle touch of a prison warden. It doesn’t much matter; everyone is smiling, shouting and congratulating each other on a job well done.

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Con- JWTC Good- AT: Environment

The JWTC has no environmental impacts—in fact it preserves the environment—there are no guns or vehicles there Jonathan Taylor, Ph.D Assistant Professor Geography Department California State University, Fullert 2002 accessed 2010 aug 2 http://www.uky.edu/~ppkaran/conference/Anti- Military%20and%20Environmental%20Movements%20in%20Okinawa.pdf

On the opposite extreme though is the other large military base in the North, now called the Jungle Warfare Training Center. This area is extremely undeveloped, with only a few facilities, one main road, and a few small helipads. The main use of this area is for jungle warfare training, which involves neither the firing of live bullets nor the use of many vehicles. There therefore have been extremely minimal environmental impacts on this area. In essence, this base is the de facto largest semi- wilderness area in Okinawa, and certainly by far the largest contiguous protected area in the Ryukyu Islands. Recent surveys have found scores of endangered endemic species which are found only in this area.4

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Con- JWTC Good- AT: Guam Solves

Guam can’t solve – no shift until 2019 and EPA ruling prohibit rapid JWTC replacement Japan Update “ Marines shift to Guam may delay 3~5 years from 2014” June 3, 2010 accessed Aug. 2, 2010 http://www.japanupdate.com/?id=10355

Money, environmental issues and a simple lack of enough construction capabilities in Guam appear to be forcing the United States and Japan to consider postponing the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, now scheduled for 2014 at the latest. The controversies surrounding relocating Futenma Marine Corps Air Station are not at the core of the issue, officials say, noting the infrastructure on Guam is simply not sufficient to handle the construction necessary to accommodate 8,000 additional troops and family members. Plans are now under way for U.S. Government agencies to restructure the construction planning that totals more than $2 billion. The U.S. and Japan have agreed to moving 8,000 Marines and their families from Okinawa to Guam, but sources say the agreement is “dependent on tangible progress” on relocating Futenma to another site in Okinawa. A more complex issue involves the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s announcements and rulings in February that the island’s infrastructure couldn’t handle the massive influx over a short period of time. The government is also trying to figure how to pay for it. It also blasted the military’s environmental assessment planning, but the EPA and U.S. Defense Department have now come to agreement, at least in principle, on strong measures addressing the lack of infrastructure concerning potable water and sewage on Guam. The EPA insists the new system must include curtail the influx of new people from outside Guam. Delays of 3-5 years are thought necessary, sources say, meaning even if Futenma’s replacement site is settled soon, the Marines still won’t be able to move until 2017-2019. The EPA has said Guam’s infrastructure won’t be able to keep up with significant population increases to be caused by the Marines’ move. The U.S. Congress still has to approve funding for the moves. Officials say any significant delays in the Futenma transfer operation could affect the replacement facility’s location, configuration and construction method, which Japan and the U.S. said on Friday—when the two countries signed the newest pact—would be worked out by the end of August.

No chance of a JWTC in Guam – they’re cutting down the jungle NY Times U.S. defense secretary tours military base in Guam accessed March 30, 2008 Aug.2, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/world/asia/30iht-gates.1.13338631.html

Dipping low over this tropical island in a navy helicopter on Friday, the U.S. defense secretary, Robert Gates, gazed out over one of the largest U.S. military construction projects in decades. Over the next six years, the Pentagon is planning to spend more than $15 billion to upgrade and expand World War II-era air bases, barracks and ports, and to carve out of the jungle new housing and headquarters to accommodate thousands of additional troops and their families who are scheduled to arrive. It is all part of the military's effort to remake Guam into a strategic hub in the western Pacific, underscoring both the increasing geopolitical importance of Asia to Washington as well as the Pentagon's priority to project power from U.S. territory rather than from foreign bases. Gates made Guam his first stop on a weeklong trip to Asia, his fourth to the region since becoming defense secretary 17 months ago. He also plans to attend a regional security conference in Singapore and confer with defense officials in Thailand and South Korea. An underlying theme of the trip, Gates said, would be "affirming that the United States is not distracted by our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from our long- term interests here in Asia." With U.S. officials warily watching China's military buildup and the continuing standoff with North Korea over its nuclear program, the massive construction projects already under way and on the drawing board here are striking. The military owns about one-third of this island, and much of the remaining jungle will be bulldozed to build military headquarters, housing, hospitals, schools and commissaries, officials said.

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Con- Allied Proliferation

Withdrawal sends a broad signal of disengagement Funabashi 2014 – Yoichi Funabashi, Chair of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, Distinguished Guest Professor at Keio University, Former Editor-in-Chief of the Asahi Newspaper, Contributing Editor of Foreign Policy, "Quiet Deterrence: Building Japan's New National Security Strategy", Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation Report, August, rebuildjpn.org/wp/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/NSS_en.pdf

U.S. forward-deployment of bases and personnel in Japan has been an essential source of Japan’s deterrence power against external threats throughout the Cold War and thereafter. For the United States, U.S. forward-deployed forces in Asian nations, including Japan, have been indisputable signals of U.S. commitment to the obligations of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty to defend Japan and maintain peace and stability in Asia during those years. The U.S. bases in Okinawa, in particular, have played the most critical role in maintaining the aforementioned deterrence power. In fact, the US Marine Corps in Okinawa have been an indispensable component of U.S. responses to contingencies on the Korean Peninsula and across the Taiwan Strait. In 2012, the United States announced its plan to redistribute the deployment of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) in the Asia-Pacific as part of its review of force postures in the region. The hub of this plan is relocation of the Marine Corps in Okinawa. On April 27, 2012, the joint statement of the Security Consultative Committee (‘2+2’) was released, announcing that adjustments will be made to plans outlined in the 2006 U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation (‘Realignment Roadmap’). Although the Roadmap stipulated 8,000 Marines relocating from Okinawa to Guam, the joint statement indicated that a total of approximately 9,000 Marines would be relocated from Okinawa to locations outside of Japan, and that the authorized strength of the US Marine Corps forces in Guam would be approximately 5,000 personnel. The joint statement also clarified that the United States plans to locate the MAGTF in Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaii. Prime Minister Abe made it clear that Japan would implement the realignment of U.S. bases in Japan in accordance with the existing agreements with the United States, and would seek to reduce the burden on Okinawa while maintaining deterrence. Japan and the United States will work together to promptly advance the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma and the Okinawa Consolidation Plan. The return of land currently being occupied by US MCAS Futenma will become possible in fiscal 2022 or later. Overall, the Realignment Implementation in Okinawa can be summarized as follows: MCAS Futenma (total return, shared use approximately 481ha) 1. Base facility for helicopters: The Futenma Replacement Facility will be constructed in the area from Oura Bay to south coast of Camp Schwab. 2. Base facility for aerial refueling tankers: Relocation to Iwakuni (deploy on a rotational basis to JMSDF Kanoya Base and Guam). 3. Base function for contingency use: Tsuiki and Nyutabaru Air Bases and others. Shared Use: • Camp Hansen is used for JGSDF training • JSDF will use Kadena Air Base for bilateral training with US Forces, while taking into account the noise impact on local communities Land Returns: • The remaining facilities and areas in Okinawa will be consolidated, thereby enabling the return of significant land areas south of Kadena Air Base (A detailed consolidation plan is being developed) • Army POL Depot Kuwae Tank Farm No. 1 (total return, approximately 16ha) • Makiminato Service Area (Camp Kinser) (total return, approximately 274ha) • Naha Port (total return, approximately 56ha) (A replacement facility will be constructed in the Naha Port and Harbor Plan Urasoe- Pier district) • Camp Kuwae (Lester) (total return, approximately 68ha); Camp Zukeran (Camp Foster) (partial return, some of approximately 596ha) Regarding the role of MCAS in Japan, in the wake of the natural disasters of March 2011, U.S. forces in Asia responded quickly and worked seamlessly with the JSDF. During Operation Tomodachi, the proximity of MCAS Futenma to Marine ground and logistics units was critical to the rapid deployment of supplies and personnel in transporting Marine assets within four hours of being tasked. In fact, helicopters, fixed-wing C-130 aircraft, personnel of the 31st MEU, the 3rd Marine Logistics Group, and the 1st Marine Air Wing from Okinawa were dispatched for HA/DR operations. With the rise of China in economic and military terms and the advent of the U.S. rebalancing strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, the role of U.S. forward presence in Okinawa is also becoming more critical. In particular, in light of the increasingly assertive and reinforcing Chinese maritime and naval activities in the East China Sea, including those around the Senkaku Islands, the strategic

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value of U.S. forward presence to Japan’s own security is becoming even more significant. Japan will need to redefine the value in its future strategy toward China in general and in its response to the Senkaku issue in particular.

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Con- Allied Proliferation

U.S. regional credibility stops multiple scenarios for nuclear war Goh 8 [Lecturer in International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the Univ of Oxford Evelyn, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, “Hierarchy and the role of the United States in the East Asian security order,” 2008 8(3):353-377, Oxford Journals Database]

The centrality of these mutual processes of assurance and deference means that the stability of a hierarchical order is fundamentally related to a collective sense of certainty about the leadership and order of the hierarchy. This certainty is rooted in a combination of material calculations – smaller states' assurance that the expected costs of the dominant state conquering them would be higher than the benefits – and ideational convictions – the sense of legitimacy, derived from shared values and norms that accompanies the super-ordinate state's authority in the social order. The empirical analysis in the next section shows that regional stability in East Asia in the post-Second World War years can be correlated to the degree of collective certainty about the US-led regional hierarchy. East Asian stability and instability has been determined by U.S. assurances, self-confidence, and commitment to maintaining its primary position in the regional hierarchy; the perceptions and confidence of regional states about US commitment; and the reactions of subordinate states in the region to the varied challengers to the regional hierarchical order. 4. Hierarchy and the East Asian security order Currently, the regional hierarchy in East Asia is still dominated by the United States. Since the 1970s, China has increasingly claimed the position of second-ranked great power, a claim that is today legitimized by the hierarchical deference shown by smaller subordinate powers such as South Korea and Southeast Asia. Japan and South Korea can, by virtue of their alliance with the United States, be seen to occupy positions in a third layer of regional major powers, while India is ranked next on the strength of its new strategic relationship with Washington. North Korea sits outside the hierarchic order but affects it due to its military prowess and nuclear weapons capability. Apart from making greater sense of recent history, conceiving of the US' role in East Asia as the dominant state in the regional hierarchy helps to clarify three critical puzzles in the contemporary international and East Asian security landscape. First, it contributes to explaining the lack of sustained challenges to American global preponderance after the end of the Cold War. Three of the key potential global challengers to US unipolarity originate in Asia (China, India, and Japan), and their support for or acquiescence to, US dominance have helped to stabilize its global leadership. Through its dominance of the Asian regional hierarchy, the United States has been able to neutralize the potential threats to its position from Japan via an alliance, from India by gradually identifying and pursuing mutual commercial and strategic interests, and from China by encircling and deterring it with allied and friendly states that support American preponderance. Secondly, recognizing US hierarchical preponderance further explains contemporary under-balancing in Asia, both against a rising China, and against incumbent American power. I have argued that one defining characteristic of a hierarchical system is voluntary subordination of lesser states to the dominant state, and that this goes beyond rationalistic bandwagoning because it is manifested in a social contract that comprises the related processes of hierarchical assurance and hierarchical deference. Critically, successful and sustainable hierarchical assurance and deference helps to explain why Japan is not yet a ‘normal’ country. Japan has experienced significant impetus to revise and expand the remit of its security forces in the last 15 years. Yet, these pressures continue to be insufficient to prompt a wholesale revision of its constitution and its remilitarization. The reason is that the United States extends its security umbrella over Japan through their alliance, which has led Tokyo not only to perceive no threat from US dominance, but has in fact helped to forge a security community between them (Nau, 2003). Adjustments in burden sharing in this alliance since the 1990s have arisen not from greater independent Japanese strategic activism, but rather from periods of strategic uncertainty and crises for Japan when it appeared that American hierarchical assurance, along with US' position at the top of the regional hierarchy, was in question. Thus, the Japanese priority in taking on more responsibility for regional security has been to improve its ability to facilitate the US' central position, rather than to challenge it.13 In the face of the security threats from North Korea and China, Tokyo's continued reliance on the security pact with the United States is rational. While there remains debate about Japan's re-militarization and the growing clout of nationalist ‘hawks’ in Tokyo, for regional and domestic political reasons, a sustained ‘normalization’ process cannot take place outside of the restraining framework of the United States–Japan alliance (Samuels, 2007; Pyle, 2007). Abandoning the alliance will entail Japan making a conscience choice not only to remove itself from the US-led hierarchy, but also to challenge the United States dominance directly. The United States–ROK alliance may be understood in a similar way, although South Korea faces different sets of constraints because of its strategic priorities related to North Korea. As J.J. Suh argues, in spite of diminishing North Korean capabilities, which render the US security umbrella less critical, the alliance endures because of mutual identification – in South Korea, the image of the US as ‘the only conceivable protector against aggression from the North,’ and in the United States, an image of itself as protector of an allied nation now vulnerable to an ‘evil’ state suspected of transferring weapons of mass destruction to terrorist networks (Suh, 2004). Kang, in contrast, emphasizes how South Korea has become less enthusiastic about its ties with the United States – as indicated by domestic protests and the rejection of TMD – and points out that Seoul is not arming against a potential land invasion from China but rather maritime threats (Kang, 2003, pp.79–80). These observations are valid, but they can be explained by hierarchical deference toward the United States, rather than China. The ROK's military orientation reflects its identification with and dependence on the United States and its adoption of US' strategic aims. In spite of its primary concern with the North Korean threat, Seoul's formal strategic orientation is toward maritime threats, in line with Washington's regional strategy. Furthermore, recent South Korean Defense White Papers habitually cited a remilitarized Japan as a key threat. The best means of coping with such a threat would be continued reliance on the US security umbrella and on Washington's ability to restrain Japanese remilitarization (Eberstadt et al., 2007). Thus, while the United States–ROK bilateral relationship is not always easy, its durability is based on South Korea's fundamental acceptance of the United States as the region's primary state and reliance on it to defend and keep regional order. It also does not rule out Seoul and other US allies conducting business and engaging diplomatically with China. India has increasingly adopted a similar strategy vis-à-vis China in recent years. Given its history of territorial and political disputes with China and its contemporary economic resurgence, India is seen as the key potential power balancer to a growing China. Yet, India has sought to negotiate settlements about border disputes with China, and has moved significantly toward developing closer strategic relations with the United States. Apart from invigorated defense cooperation in the form of military exchange programs and joint exercises, the key breakthrough was the agreement signed in July 2005 which facilitates renewed bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation (Mohan, 2007). Once again,

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this is a key regional power that could have balanced more directly and independently against China, but has rather chosen to align itself or bandwagon with the primary power, the United States, partly because of significant bilateral gains, but fundamentally in order to support the latter's regional order-managing function. Recognizing a regional hierarchy and seeing that the lower layers of this hierarchy have become more active since the mid-1970s also allows us to understand why there has been no outright balancing of China by regional states since the 1990s. On the one hand, the US position at the top of the hierarchy has been revived since the mid-1990s, meaning that deterrence against potential Chinese aggression is reliable and in place.14 On the other hand, the aim of regional states is to try to consolidate China's inclusion in the regional hierarchy at the level below that of the United States, not to keep it down or to exclude it. East Asian states recognize that they cannot, without great cost to themselves, contain Chinese growth. But they hope to socialize China by enmeshing it in peaceful regional norms and economic and security institutions. They also know that they can also help to ensure that the capabilities gap between China and the United States remains wide enough to deter a power transition. Because this strategy requires persuading China about the appropriateness of its position in the hierarchy and of the legitimacy of the US position, all East Asian states engage significantly with China, with the small Southeast Asian states refusing openly to ‘choose sides’ between the United States and China. Yet, hierarchical deference continues to explain why regional institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN + 3, and East Asian Summit have made limited progress. While the United State has made room for regional multilateral institutions after the end of the Cold War, its hierarchical preponderance also constitutes the regional order to the extent that it cannot comfortably be excluded from any substantive strategic developments. On the part of some lesser states (particularly Japan and Singapore), hierarchical deference is manifested in inclusionary impulses (or at least impulses not to exclude the United States or US proxies) in regional institutions, such as the East Asia Summit in December 2005. Disagreement on this issue with others, including China and Malaysia, has stymied potential progress in these regional institutions (Malik, 2006). Finally, conceiving of a US-led East Asian hierarchy amplifies our understanding of how and why the United States–China relationship is now the key to regional order. The vital nature of the Sino-American relationship stems from these two states' structural positions. As discussed earlier, China is the primary second-tier power in the regional hierarchy. However, as Chinese power grows and Chinese activism spreads beyond Asia, the United States is less and less able to see China as merely a regional power – witness the growing concerns about Chinese investment and aid in certain African countries. This causes a disjuncture between US global interests and US regional interests. Regional attempts to engage and socialize China are aimed at mediating its intentions. This process, however, cannot stem Chinese growth, which forms the material basis of US threat perceptions. Apprehensions about the growth of China's power culminates in US fears about the region being ‘lost’ to China, echoing Cold War concerns that transcribed regional defeats into systemic setbacks.15 On the other hand, the US security strategy post-Cold War and post-9/11 have regional manifestations that disadvantage China. The strengthening of US alliances with Japan and Australia; and the deployment of US troops to Central, South, and Southeast Asia all cause China to fear a consolidation of US global hegemony that will first threaten Chinese national security in the regional context and then stymie China's global reach. Thus, the key determinants of the East Asian security order relate to two core questions: (i) Can the US be persuaded that China can act as a reliable ‘regional stakeholder’ that will help to buttress regional stability and US global security aims;16 and (ii) can China be convinced that the United States has neither territorial ambitions in Asia nor the desire to encircle China, but will help to promote Chinese development and stability as part of its global security strategy? (Wang, 2005). But, these questions cannot be asked in the abstract, outside the context of negotiation about their relative positions in the regional and global hierarchies. One urgent question for further investigation is how the process of assurance and deference operate at the topmost levels of a hierarchy? When we have two great powers of unequal strength but contesting claims and a closing capabilities gap in the same regional hierarchy, how much scope for negotiation is there, before a reversion to balancing dynamics? This is the main structural dilemma: as long as the United States does not give up its primary position in the Asian regional hierarchy, China is very unlikely to act in a way that will provide comforting answers to the two questions. Yet, the East Asian regional order has been and still is constituted by US hegemony, and to change that could be extremely disruptive and may lead to regional actors acting in highly destabilizing ways. Rapid Japanese remilitarization, armed conflict across the Taiwan Straits, Indian nuclear brinksmanship directed toward Pakistan, or a highly destabilized Korean peninsula are all illustrative of potential regional disruptions. 5. Conclusion To construct a coherent account of East Asia's evolving security order, I have suggested that the United States is the central force in constituting regional stability and order. The major patterns of equilibrium and turbulence in the region since 1945 can be explained by the relative stability of the US position at the top of the regional hierarchy, with periods of greatest insecurity being correlated with greatest uncertainty over the American commitment to managing regional order. Furthermore, relationships of hierarchical assurance and hierarchical deference explain the unusual character of regional order in the post-Cold War era. However, the greatest contemporary challenge to East Asian order is the potential conflict between China and the United States over rank ordering in the regional hierarchy, a contest made more potent because of the inter-twining of regional and global security concerns. Ultimately, though, investigating such questions of positionality requires conceptual lenses that go beyond basic material factors because it entails social and normative questions. How can China be brought more into a leadership position, while being persuaded to buy into shared strategic interests and constrain its own in ways that its vision of regional and global security may eventually be reconciled with that of the United States and other regional players? How can Washington be persuaded that its central position in the hierarchy must be ultimately shared in ways yet to be determined? The future of the East Asian security order is tightly bound up with the durability of the United States' global leadership and regional domination. At the regional level, the main scenarios of disruption are an outright Chinese challenge to US leadership, or the defection of key US allies, particularly Japan. Recent history suggests, and the preceding analysis has shown, that challenges to or defections from US leadership will come at junctures where it appears that the US commitment to the region is in doubt, which in turn destabilizes the hierarchical order. At the global level, American geopolitical over-extension will be the key cause of change. This is the one factor that could lead to both greater regional and global turbulence, if only by the attendant strategic uncertainly triggering off regional challenges or defections. However, it is notoriously difficult to gauge thresholds of over-extension. More positively, East Asia is a region that has adjusted to previous periods of uncertainty about US primacy. Arguably, the regional consensus over the United States as primary state in a system of benign hierarchy could accommodate a shifting of the strategic burden to US allies like Japan and Australia as a means of systemic preservation. The alternatives that could surface as a result of not doing so would appear to be much worse.

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Con- Allied Proliferation

Withdraw sends a signal of abandonment to allies—independently, it shatters deterrence which solves territorial conflicts Auslin 2010, Resident Scholar at AEI, Michael, U.S.-Japan Relations: Enduring Ties, Recent Developments, https://www.aei.org/publication/u-s-japan-relations- enduring-ties-recent-developments/

Despite this litany of problems both real and perceived, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and the broader relationship it embodies, remains the keystone of U.S. policy in the Asia-Pacific region. There is little doubt that America and Japan share certain core values that tie us together, including a belief in democracy, the rule of law, and civil and individual rights, among others, which should properly inform and inspire our policies abroad. Moreover, after the cataclysm of World War II, we have worked together to maintain stability in the western Pacific, throughout the Cold War and after. Without the continued Japanese hosting of U.S. forces, our forward-based posture is untenable, particularly in a period of growing Chinese military power in which the acquisition of advanced weapons systems indicates increased vulnerability of U.S. forces over time. There are over 35,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, and another 11,000 afloat as part of the 7th Fleet, while three- quarters of our military facilities are in Okinawa. Maintaining this presence is a full-time job for officials on both sides of the Pacific. Both Washington and Tokyo have revised the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the U.S. military in Japan to respond to local concerns over judicial access to U.S. service members, and domestic pressures to reduce Japan’s $4 billion annual Host Nation Support (HNS) are a continuing feature of bilateral discussions. The new Japanese government has indicated its desire to consider further revision of SOFA and HNS, which portends continued, sometimes difficult negotiations between both sides, though I would be surprised by any significant changes in either. It is clear, however, that the presence of U.S. military forces is welcomed by nearly all nations in the Asia-Pacific region and sends a signal of American commitment to the region. From a historical standpoint, the post-war American presence in the Asia-Pacific has been one of the key enablers of growth and development in that maritime realm. And today, for all its dynamism, the Asia-Pacific remains peppered with territorial disputes and long-standing grievances, with few effective multilateral mechanisms such as exist in Europe for solving interstate conflicts. Our friends and allies in the area are keenly attuned to our continued forward-based posture, and any indications that the United States was reducing its presence might be interpreted by both friends and competitors as a weakening of our long-standing commitment to maintain stability in the Pacific. The shape of Asian regional politics will continue to evolve, and while I am skeptical of what can realistically be achieved by proposed U.S.-Japan-China trilateral talks, it seems evident that we must approach our alliance with Japan from a more regionally oriented perspective, taking into account how our alliance affects the plans and perceptions of other nations in the region.

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Con- China

Moving the Okinawan bases elsewhere creates a vacuum that China will fill. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

Of course they can, and the PRC would think this is a splendid idea. However, the aforementioned ‘time and distance’ problems — and consequently weakened deterrence — would apply. Moreover, such a move would suggest a weakened US-Japan political relationship (and lessened deterrence) by virtue of Japan’s central government being unwilling to make the political effort needed to maintain US bases on Okinawa. Additionally, moving US bases to mainland Japan would leave a vacuum. Vacuums get filled, and it is possible the PRC will fill this vacuum. But it is almost unthinkable that a future Japanese administration would allow this to happen as the result of a drastically reduced military presence on Okinawa’s main island in light of the PRC threat. Thus, even if US forces leave their Okinawa bases, JSDF forces will certainly replace them.

Relocating only weakens the base and makes China stronger than Japan; the timeframe is too short, if we remove bases now the current Japanese forces will be too weak to fight China. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

Importantly, in the absence of a US military presence on Okinawa, Chinese forces would be facing off more or less directly with Japan Self Defense Force units. Removing the deterrent effect on the PRC of the fear of harming US troops would be dangerous given deep-seated Chinese resentment of Japan and an increasing belief the PLA is a match for the JSDF. In the absence of ‘deterrent’ US forces on Okinawa, expect the PRC to push and ratchet up the pressure on Japan — and in the Ryukyus and the East China Sea, to which China has stated it is rightly entitled. This is dangerous. Other ideas that have been considered for reducing US bases and force presence on Okinawa while maintaining adequate operational and deterrent capability include a ‘virtual presence’ scheme and a scheme for ‘pre-positioning’ US equipment and flying in troops when contingencies arise. These are both doubtful concepts in terms of the ability to conduct effective military operations — and as importantly — to deter unacceptable behavior by regional nations.

Reverse causal—China perceives US commitment because of presence—tempers aggression Forsyth, 15—Visiting Fellow with the Military Transformations Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (Ian, “A Tale of Two Conflicts The East and South China Seas Disputes and the Risk of War”, RSIS Policy Report, January 2015, dml)

Perhaps the most crucial element in Beijing’s calculus is the support to Japan from the U.S. military. Washington has been unequivocal that the Diaoyus/Senkakus — by virtue of being administered by Japan — fall under Article V of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan. Beijing is on notice that an attempt to acquire the Diaoyus/Senkakus by force could mean a fight not only with Japan and its modern navy, air force and coast guard, but with the U.S. military as well. Compounding this is the fact the U.S. has forces stationed throughout Japan that can be rapidly mobilised in the event of a Sino-Japan conflict. In contrast, even though the Philippines is also a U.S. treaty ally, the relationship is not as close as that of the U.S. and Japan. That, coupled with the lack of permanent and imposing U.S. military presence on its shores, makes the Philippines alliance with the U.S. less foreboding to Beijing.

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Con- China

Current forward presence and allied reassurance ensures Chinese restraint Christensen 2015 (October, Thomas J. Christensen, Boswell professor of world politics and director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University, is a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Obama and Asia, Foreign Affairs 94.5, September/October 2015): 28- 36, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/obama-and-asia)

LESSONS LEARNED The Obama administration can also point to progress on various smaller issues in the U.S. relationship with China, from improved military-to-military ties, to meaningful dialogues on how to avoid incidents at sea, to the groundwork for an eventual bilateral investment treaty, to more easily secured visas for business travel and tourism. But it is the broader challenges posed by China’s rise—and the Obama administration’s successes and failures in addressing those challenges—that provide some lessons for future policy. In order to bolster regional security and dissuade China from settling its disputes through coercion, the United States needs to maintain a robust presence in Asia and build stronger military, diplomatic, and economic ties with allies and other regional partners, even as it avoids overly dramatic actions and rhetoric that might suggest that its efforts are designed to contain China. When trying to gain Chinese support for multilateral global governance initiatives on proliferation or regional and civil conflicts, Washington should focus not on regime change but on the proscribed behavior of the states in question. When possible, it should gain support from regional organizations before approaching China in such endeavors (as the Obama administration did in regard to Libya). On climate change, meanwhile, Washington should try to get Beijing to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions by leveraging Chinese leaders’ concerns about related domestic problems, such as low-altitude urban smog. The starting point for the United States’ China policy needs to be a recognition that the People’s Republic has become a great power with a large dose of nationalist pride but remains a developing country with enormous domestic challenges and insecurities. The financial crisis of 2008 exacerbated both these contradictory realities, making dealings with Beijing even trickier than before. But future conflict is hardly a certainty, and the odds of it can be reduced by a combination of U.S. strength and diplomatic awareness of the likely limits of Beijing’s willingness to cooperate with the United States and its allies in East Asia and beyond.

Withdraw green lights Chinese aggression and ends US regional credibility French 2014 (Howard W., associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, China's Dangerous Game, The Atlantic, 10/13, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/chinas-dangerous-game/380789/)

If the United States were to waver in its commitments to Tokyo, or to balk altogether, Beijing will have gone a long way toward achieving perhaps its biggest long-standing objective: undermining the alliance between America and Japan. Washington would lose credibility throughout the region, and nation after nation, possibly even including Japan, would begin making new calculations aimed at accommodating China.

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Con- China- Deterrence

Okinawan bases act as a deterrent against Chinese aggression by projecting power and a willingness to defend allies. No shots need be fired to defend Japan as long as the U.S. simply maintains its presence in Okinawa. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

Chinese behavior in the South China Sea shows it understands the role of ‘location’ as a part of deterrence. PLA forces operating out of Hainan Island can operate throughout the South China Sea. However, China’s recent island-building efforts much further south in the South China Sea demonstrate a clear understanding of the importance of basing forces ‘forward’ in the area one wants to control or influence. This forward location facilitates military operations — allowing a more rapid and constant presence — and it also ‘deters.’ Some critics have pointed out that China’s new man-made islands are indefensible in the event of war with a competent enemy. This is true enough, but it misses a larger point. Once the island bases – even with small military detachments in place — are established, they effectively ‘deter’ other countries from striking back — or even applying pressure — out of fear of provoking or starting a war with China. Thus, these small islands with military forces placed on them can restrain a potential adversary’s behavior. This restraining effect is otherwise known as ‘deterrence.’ US bases on Okinawa from which US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine, and US Army forces operate serve a similar function in bolstering American defense power and the possibility of using it in the region — as Beijing would probably admit.

Deterrence is working—-the level of Chinese provocation is qualitatively lower than in the past—-US presence is the reason Shaohan Lin 15, MA student in War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, Graduate Research Assistant at Calian, "After the Pivot to the Asia-Pacific: Now what?" Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2, 2015, http://w.jmss.org/jmss/index.php/jmss/article/download/597/577

Soft military procedures did not prevent China from retaliating in its own ways. When the US navy increased its presence in Asia-Pacific and took sides in the South China Sea disputes, China responded by a rapprochement with North Korea. Not only did China abandon all efforts in persuading North Korea to denuclearize, it also improved aid and trade relations with it[57]. China stymied US’ denuclearization efforts on another occasion; in 2012, just as the US and other states sanctioned Iran for its illicit nuclear program, China reached an arrangement with Iran to purchase oil[58]. Both the North Korea and Iran cases are definite responses to the pivot as China worked alongside the US before the latter’s increased involvement in the Asia-Pacific. Syria is yet another additional area of contention where China challenged the US. In spring 2014, China, along with Russia, vetoed a resolution backed by more than sixty-five countries to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for its numerous instances of human rights violations. This veto was in fact the fourth time China foiled Western resolutions regarding Syria[59]. Admittedly, it is unsure whether these sabotages were done out of spite or quite independently of the US pivot. What these examples of reprisals show is that China avoids directly compromising the security of the Asia-Pacific. It has not answered the US military presence by increasing its own military presence, at least not in a fashion that menaces the US. Granted, China did voice its discontentment towards American territorial “infringement” in the South China Sea, but contrarily to media and some scholarly claims, China has not escalated tensions because of the pivot; it may have very well done so without American interference in the region. As claimants challenges a rising China, it should be expected for the latter to make full use of its leverages, especially without the scrutinizing gaze of the Americans. It is not folly to believe that security conditions would be worse without displays of US commitment and force that serve as a check to Chinese aggression. The harassments of Vietnamese and Philippine survey vessels by Chinese patrol boats in 2011, 2012 and 2014 are often cited as proof of Chinese behaviour aggravated by US showboating. But in 2005, when US presence in the Asia-Pacific was minimal, Chinese ships fired at Vietnamese boats, killing nine people[60]. Assuming that US Navy has an impact on Chinese behaviour in the South China Sea, then it would be beneficial as cable-cutting and collisions, the primary mechanisms of violence today, are

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considerably milder than firing with the intent to kill. Thus far, the deterrence element of the pivot has succeeded in restraining real Chinese aggression and has not shifted the status quo in the region.

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Con- China- Deterrence

Deterrence - Plan collapses the credibility of deterrence—-causes Chinese grabs in the ECS Okamoto 2015 – Yukio Okamoto, Foreign Policy Commentator and President of Okamoto Associates Inc., Research Fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies, Former Diplomat in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aug 4 2015, "The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security," http://www.nippon.com/en/in- depth/a04502/

The deterrent is ultimately a matter of perceptions: It depends on the belief of neighboring countries that the Japan-US security arrangements are certain to operate. Absent this belief, the Japan-US Security Treaty becomes no more than a piece of paper. So the core of Japan’s deterrent power consists of the ongoing maintenance of a close alliance with the United States that leaves no room for doubt in the minds of other countries in the region. If, however, a large-scale reduction of the US forces in Okinawa were to be conducted in the face of local turmoil without a sound basis in military thinking, it would create a big hole in the fabric of the deterrent. Neighboring countries would sense a power vacuum. Consider what has happened in the South China Sea: After the United States pulled out of Vietnam, China grabbed the Paracels, and after the Russians left, it pushed the Vietnamese off Johnson South Reef. And after the US forces left the Philippines, China took over Mischief Reef from that country. If the Chinese judged that the US military had been driven out of Okinawa, it would greatly increase the likelihood of their grabbing the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from Japan by force. And once they landed on these islands, it would become very difficult to dislodge them. Doing so would mean undertaking a combat operation that could well result in the first deaths in action for Japanese armed forces since World War II. Would Japan actually fight to get the Senkakus back? It is possible that the Japanese government would instead declare its intention to “negotiate persistently,” a line it has often used, and that the Senkakus would remain under China’s effective control indefinitely, just as Takeshima has since South Korea took it over in the 1950s.

Strong Military Presence is key to deterrence – China proves that with decreasing US presence and increasing presence of China they control much of the political landscape in Asia Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute)

Taken collectively, these forces, exercises, permanent and rotational deployments, and operations participating in presence and engagement missions offer a snapshot of the US military’s steady-state requirements. They reflect the minimum demands on the United States as a global power to help train with local militaries, patrol the high seas, provide humanitarian assistance, fight extremism, and deter foreign aggression. Today, with airstrikes underway in Iraq and Syria, a resurgent Russia threatening Europe’s flank, and escalating Chinese assertiveness in Asia, demands on US forces are set only to grow, even as force structure declines. Two decades ago, the 1993 Bottom-Up Review found, “The presence of U.S. forces deters adventurism and coercion by potentially hostile states, reassures friends, enhances regional stability, and underwrites our larger strategy of international engagement, prevention, and partnership. It also gives us a stronger influence, both political as well as military, in the affairs of key regions.”100 The bipartisan National Defense Panel (NDP) recently reaffirmed this sentiment, arguing, “The effectiveness of America’s other tools for global influence, such as diplomacy and economic engagement, are critically intertwined with and dependent upon the perceived strength, presence and commitment of U.S. armed forces.”101 Furthermore, the NDP cautioned, “Absent America’s leadership, large parts of the world would likely evolve to dangerous imbalances, particularly in Eurasia, threatening American trade and investment, and potentially leading to conflicts greatly damaging to the United States.”102 In vital strategic regions of the world today, including Asia, we are seeing the NDP’s fears play out. Just as declining American military power is leading to a corresponding decrease in the effectiveness of our diplomacy, so too is rising

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Chinese military power increasing the effectiveness of its foreign policy, for instance. This trend—and similar ones with other competitors—does not lead the United States in a desirable direction in support of national and economic interests.

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Con- China- Perception

Perceived military decline spurs Chinese aggression and miscalculation Michael Swaine 2015 (Michael, PhD in government from Harvard, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies. Formerly a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, Swaine is a specialist in Chinese defense and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian international relations; Other contributors: Nicholas Eberstadt, M. Taylor Fravel, Mikkal Herberg, Albert Keidel, Evans Revere, Alan Romberg, Eleanor Freund, Rachel Odell, and Audrye Wong, all with their own extensive qualifications, Conflict and Cooperation in the Asia- Pacific Region, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/net_assessment_2.pdf Most notable of developments in the region, Beijing’s growing military capabilities and presence in the Western Pacific will pose a particular challenge to the U.S. strategy of continued predominance or primacy. In the absence of security assurances, perceptions (accurate or inaccurate) of increased Chinese capabilities or declining U.S. capabilities would increase the likelihood of miscalculations over particular incidents at sea or in the air. Worse still, they could lead one or both sides to deliberately undertake potentially dangerous behavior as a test of the other side’s ability or resolve. Although a stronger and more confident Beijing might moderate its approach toward some volatile issue (for example, maritime territorial disputes), this is by no means certain, especially in the absence of mutual restraint by other parties.

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Con- China- Taiwan

Okinawan bases protect Taiwan and other key Chinese targets simply by intimidating China. Hawaii and the rest of Japan are too far away to accomplish this effect. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

One should first ask what is being ‘deterred’? Put simply, US forces forward deployed on Okinawa as elsewhere in Japan are intended to deter countries that would attack other nations or seek to seize land territory or dominate seas and airspace that are either international global ‘commons’ or owned by somebody else. For many years, the Okinawa bases were seen as playing a role in deterring a North Korean attack on South Korea. However, in recent years the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has strengthened the case for the US bases’ deterrent value. The PRC’s rapid military build-up, increasing Chinese military activities throughout the region, and claims to nearly all of the South China Sea have unsettled China’s neighbors — nearly all of whom look (even if furtively) to the United States to restrain China. The Okinawa bases alone do not deter China or anyone else. But they are an important part of a larger network of American resources, power, and influence that give the PRC pause. One first notes Okinawa’s location. It is near Taiwan, close to contested areas in the East China Sea and the South China Seas, and not far from the Korean Peninsula. Okinawa is a perfect place from which to deploy and conduct a range of military operations to counter an aggressor or someone seeking to upset long established rules regarding freedom of navigation and flight, and even international boundaries. Time and distance still matter in warfare. Being close to where one will operate allows a more rapid and comprehensive response. Okinawa-based forces are able to move just about anywhere in Asia in a matter of days or even hours. This response time is much shorter than if based elsewhere in Japan — and weeks or months faster than US-based forces, even if based in Hawaii. Also, being nearby allows you to stay ‘on-scene’ longer. Try patrolling the South China Sea from bases in Hokkaido or Hawaii. By the time forces arrive it is almost time to go home.

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Con- China/Japan

Deterrence dampens Chinese and Japanese aggression—withdrawal causes multiple nuclear conflicts Mwombela, 14—University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (James, "U.S. Military Engagement Abroad: A Brief Case Analysis", Small Wars Journal, April 17, 2014) A U.S. exit from Asia would leave the safety of Japan’s territorial claims to the mercy of China’s superior military, igniting an arms race that could spread throughout the region. Washington welcomed Japanese officials last July to view confidential nuclear facilities in a gesture of assurance of U.S. nuclear posture and that Japan is protected from nuclear attack by the threat of U.S. retaliation (Makino). Without U.S. support, Japan would feel compelled to beef up its military security/surveillance methods even more than it already has and probably procure nuclear weapons. Other Asian nations such as the Philippines and South Korea would probably respond by pursuing nuclear weapons of their own as a defense measure against Chinese and North Korean aggression. As the authors of Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement pointed out, Taiwan and South Korea tried to acquire nuclear weapons during the Cold War and probably would have if not for U.S. security ties (Brooks). The rapid escalation of arms races would increase the chances of armed conflict breaking out between China and Japan due to miscalculation. It would also likely present what political scientists call a state of equivalent retaliation, a situation in which both sides believe that it is imperative to respond to any and all perceived slights, because it would be difficult to judge whether the other state’s accumulation and movement of warships and aircraft near disputed territories is intended to defend or attack (Carlson). The spread of nuclear arms throughout the region would raise the chances of disaster occurring through accidents or the seizure of nuclear weapons by terrorists or other dangerous third party groups. Incentives, Incentives Although U.S. commitment to defend the Senkaku/Diayou islands on behalf of Japan introduces the possibility of the U.S. being pulled into an armed conflict with China, it decreases the chances of such conflict actually breaking out. China crossing the line would present U.S. leaders with a situation in which failure to provide adequate aid to Japan would undermine U.S. ability to credibly commit to agreements with any of its allies. However, an armed conflict initiated by Japan would provide the U.S. with an incentive to provide only minimal support as punishment and an example to deter other allies from aggressive behavior, and other countries would be more likely to consider this action morally justified, leaving the United States’s reputation intact. U.S. and Japanese officials have also discussed “worst-case” contingency plans if China moves to capture the islands, plans which would lose effectiveness if Japan went on the offensive (“U.S., Japan). These factors provide Japan with confidence that the U.S. will provide adequate support in the case of a Chinese- initiated conflict while simultaneously discouraging Japan from acting aggressively. China, on the other hand, cannot afford to risk sparking an almost certainly disastrous war in the midst of its power ascendance with a U.S. backed Japan over some islands. The proportional increases in U.S.-Japanese joint defense and surveillance exercises in response to Chinese aggression and the international political costs which the U.S. would incur if it defaulted on its treaty obligation have allowed the U.S. to credibly commit to defend Japan and deter China from using military force to pursue its territorial claims (Smith, A. Sheila; "The Senkaku). If the U.S. were to leave Japan on its own, the expanding relative power gap between China and Japan would create difficulty for China in credibly committing to an agreement with Japan and incentivize Japan to act aggressively before China becomes an even greater threat to their territorial claims. Furthermore, this decision would probably initiate an arms race and increases in security and surveillance surrounding the islands which would increase the chances of armed conflict breaking out due to miscalculation or the difficulty in differentiating between intent to attack and intent to defend. Therefore, at least in the case of East Asia, the argument echoed in Brooks, Ikenberry, and Wohlforth’s paper provides a better foreign policy strategy for promoting peace and global economic stability than Posen’s recommendation.

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Con- China- AT: Vulnerability to Missile Attack

Okinawan bases could weather Chinese attacks—-they exaggerate vulnerability Don Kirk 14, veteran correspondent and noted author on conflict and crisis from Southeast Asia to the Middle East to Northeast Asia, Master's degree in International relations from the University of Chicago, http://japanforum.nbr.org/scripts/wa.exe?A3=ind1401&L=LIST&E=quoted-printable&P=139597&B=—- 600603132-1990664861-1388667358%3D%3A27186&T=text%2Fhtml;%20charset=utf-8&XSS=3&header=1

What would happen in the case of a missile or air attack on the Okinawa bases clearly DOES fall under the rubric of deterrence value of the bases. That yarn about the pinpoint accuracy of a Chinese missile that purportedly shot down a satellite makes for fun reading, but Chinese missiles, like the NKorean versions that once terrorized Israel without denting Israeli military strength, would not be real effective against Okinawa bases. The bit about Futenma not having the ammo storage space is incorrect. Of course it does. Marine pilots, in any case, may pick up ammo at Iwakuni, not Kadena, since that's where they have most of their planes these days in view of anti-base protests around Futenma. The U.S. view is they need two air bases on Okinawa in case of hostilities. (Some armchair strategists no doubt disagree.) Henoko, 10 mins or so flying time from Kadena, would inevitably have storage facilities. Marine aircraft are not going to have to fly to Kadena or Iwakuni every time they reload. Please. Talk of turning Kadena into a marine air station is an abstraction (distraction, actually). By the way, it's easy to check on who's flying in and of Kadena from the fourth-story of the Up- Kitty restaurant bldg. beyond the main runway. That's where Okinawa Defense Bureau logs all flights, keeping decibel count etc. while spectators, including tourists from China, come and go. I saw plenty of USAF planes, no marine aircraft, when I was up there researching a book. I also got a sweeping view of Futenma air station from roof of admin bldg. of university -- almost no take-offs and landings. Not many helicopters, the odd cargo plane, no fighters (though I'm told they do go in there from time to time). Oh yes, storage facilities were clearly visible too.

Kadena and Yokosuka are still vulnerable Yoshihara 12 [December 7th, 2012, Toshi Yoshihara, "How vulnerable are U.S. bases in the Pacific now?", globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/07/u-s-bases-in-japan-sitting-ducks/]

This time, China – armed with a large and growing arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles – is poised to reprise Pearl Harbor . The People's Liberation Army (PLA) now possesses the means, the motives, and the opportunities to deliver disabling blows against U.S. bases in Japan where the bulk of American military power in Asia is concentrated. First consider the means. The Chinese military can now lock their crosshairs on Japan, home to the largest U.S. naval and air bases in the world. China’s DF-15 ballistic missile can reach Kadena airbase in Okinawa , the hub of American airpower in Asia. The PLA’s non-nuclear version of the DF-21 missile boasts the range to hit all military facilities across the entire Japanese archipelago. According to the Pentagon’s 2010 annual report on the PLA, the DF-15 and the DF-21 missiles numbered over 300 and 80 respectively. Think about Yokosuka naval base , where the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, is permanently stationed. The DF-21s could be launched against fuel storage tanks, ammunition depots, dry docks, and pierside facilities located there. Docked warships and supply vessels fixed at their berths would be sitting ducks. Civilian and military personnel, including shipyard workers so essential to the base’s main functions, could also suffer casualties in such missile raids. Next consider the motives. China’s regional missile force would facilitate what the Pentagon terms “anti-access/area denial” operations, meaning efforts to bar regional bases to U.S. reinforcements while keeping military forces already in the theater from nearing China's backyard. In effect, China hopes to erect a no-go zone across large swathes of maritime Asia . For a local military campaign (against Taiwan, for example) to obtain its maximum effectiveness, the PLA would need to inflict substantial damage on Japanese airfields and naval facilities that are critical to U.S. air superiority and sea control, the two operational prerequisites for thwarting Chinese war aims. As such, salvoes of missile strikes to render inoperative Kadena airbase and Yokosuka naval base would likely be among the PLA’s opening moves ./ Crippling bases in Japan would by no means constitute a war winner for Beijing. But denying American use of bases near China would shove back the start line for U.S. warships and aircraft by thousands of kilometers to such military hubs as Guam and Hawaii. And the more distance U.S. forces must cover to reach China, the less staying power those same forces would enjoy while operating in the war zone. Finally, opportunities beckon. Perceptions of American overdependence on forward bases could tempt the Chinese to hit first and hard. No naval base in Asia rivals Yokosuka’s strategic location, physical infrastructure, world-class repair facilities, and highly-skilled local workforce . Chinese strategists believe , perhaps rightly , that if the PLA could knock out Yokosuka, the U.S. fleet would need to fall back to Hawaii or even San Diego to meet its critical logistical needs . A preemptive Chinese missile campaign, so goes this reasoning, could deliver a massive blow to the logistical foundations of U.S.

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power projection in Asia. By disrupting the supply system and degrading repair capabilities, Beijing may hope to choke off the American capacity to conduct combat operations at the outset.

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Con- Deterrence

Okinawa bases sustain overall deterrence – withdraw collapses escalation control RJIF 2014 (The Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation (RJIF) is a think tank established with the aim of forming a vision for the rebuilding of Japan in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, “Quiet Deterrence – Building Japan’s New National Security Strategy,” 2014, rebuildjpn.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/NSS_en.pdf)

National security strategy should look to the future and formulate an action plan based on a risk assessment of domestic and interna- tional environments. It is essential for national security strategy to set forth clear priorities based on proactive realism, upon which limited resources should be put to strategic use to identify national interests. Redefining of such national interests—referred to here as “strategic national interests”—can only be achieved through strategic actions. At the core of “strategic national interests” are the preservation of Japan’s national territories, waters and airspace, and the protection of the Japanese people. It is also in “strategic national interests” to deter any external force from compromising security and changing the status quo. What is needed is a construct for assuredly effective “quiet deter- rence,” built up with a firmness of will and level-headed actions. Unlike conventional deterrence, which aims at preventing the oppo- nents’ aggression or coercion by making their cost-benefit calculation more costly than inaction, or simply making it ineffective or unsuccess- ful in achieving their goals, quiet deterrence aims to avoid unnecessary provocation and escalation while cultivating capability to deter, defend and deny possible aggression. Quiet deterrence goes beyond a military strategy. It is a strategic concept for shaping the regional security order, which achieves the balance of power without security dilemma without suppressing the rise of China or outdoing China, while accommodating tremendous uncertainties associated with the rise of China. In the military dimension of quiet deterrence, it is important that Japan will firmly maintain the determination and stance of protecting one’s country on one’s own. Japan needs to enforce own defense capability profile to expand the area of responsibility, especially in Southwest island chain. Japan will close the window of opportunity for creeping expansion of Chinese maritime activity by regularized intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and by ensuring air and mari- time superiority vis-à-vis China. Japan’s increased responsibility in the low and medium intensity conflict will ensure seamless U.S. military engagement in higher intensity conflict, thereby function as an escala- tion control. Most critical element of the successfully extended deter- rence is the deployment of the U.S. combat-ready troops on Japanese soil. Without in-theater logistical and basing support, pre- planned mil- itary operations and augmentation of U.S. forces cannot be achieved. In this regard, U.S. bases in Japan, especially in Okinawa, remain to be a foundation of deterrence and escalation management.

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Con- Deterrence

Forward deployment in Okinawa key to deter Chinese and North Korean aggression, only U.S. marine presence can ensure Asian stability Richard C. Bush, director at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, March 10, 2010, Brookings Institute, “Okinawa and Security in East Asia,” http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2010/0310_japan_politics_bush.aspx, )

The threat environment in Northeast Asia is not benign. North Korea’s WMD capabilities are a matter of concern but will hopefully be a medium-term problem. More attention, however, is focused on China which has gradually developed a full spectrum of capabilities, including nuclear weapons. Their current emphasis is on power projection and their immediate goal is to create a strategic buffer in at least the first island chain. Although Taiwan is the driver for these efforts, they affect Japan. Of course, capabilities are not intentions. However, how will Japan feel as the conventional U.S.-China balance deteriorates and a new equilibrium is reached, especially knowing that China has nuclear weapons? There are also specific points of friction within Northeast Asia such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, the East China Sea, North Korea, and Taiwan, some of which involve and concern more than one government. Although we can hope that China will not seek to dominate East Asia at the U.S. and Japan’s expense, we can’t be sure of their intentions either. Hope is not a policy. The most sensible strategy—for both the U.S. and Japan—is to try to shape China’s intentions over time so that they move in a benign direction; so that it has more to gain from cooperation than a challenge. This has been the U.S. and Japan’s strategy since the early 1970s. The strategy has a good foundation in economic interdependence. However, it is easier said than done and is one of the biggest challenges of this century. The strategy requires at least two elements: engaging and incorporating China as much as possible, and maintaining the strength and willingness to define limits. This combination of elements is important because engagement without strength would lead China to exploit our good will while strength without engagement would lead China to suspect that our intentions are not benign. If engagement-plus-strength is the proper strategy for the U.S. and Japan each to cope with a rising China, it only makes sense that Japan and the United States will be more effective if they work together, complementing each other’s respective abilities. The strength side of this equation almost requires Japan to rely on the alliance since history suggests that it will not build up sufficiently on its own. An important part of strength is positioning your power in the right places. That is why forward deployment of U.S. forces in Japan has always been important. That is why our presence on Okinawa is important. Lieutenant General Keith Stalder, commanding general of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, recently spoke in Japan about the importance of Okinawa for the mission of the Marines. Among other things, he said that the U.S. Marine Corps is the emergency response force in East Asia. He explained that “The fundamental Marine Corps organizational structure is the Marine Air Ground Task Force, in which war fighting elements of aviation forces, ground combat forces, and logistics forces all operate under a single commander.” The Marine ground forces must train consistently with the helicopters that support them. Lieutenant General Stalder illustrated his point by saying that the “Marine Air Ground Task Force is a lot like a baseball team. It does not do you any good to have the outfielders practicing in one town, the catcher in another, and the third baseman somewhere else. They need to practice together, as a unit.” He went on to say that Okinawa is very important because it is relatively close to mainland Japan, to Korea, to the South China Sea, and to the Strait of Malacca. This geographic location is why, he said, “There is probably nowhere better in the world from which to dispatch Marines to natural disasters” than Okinawa. This importance of Okinawa is another reason why finding a solution to the realignment issue is essential. Any solution to the Okinawa problem should meet four conditions: efficiency of operations, safety, local interests, and permanence. Resolving the situation is also important because, as Lieutenant General Stalder pointed out, other nations are “watching to see whether the United States-Japan Alliance is strong enough to find a solution to the current issues.”[1] Of course, our two countries and China are not the only ones concerned with the alliance. South Korea has important stakes involved in the presence of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific. In the event of a conventional attack by North Korea, South Korea has a very strong military, but it also depends on the ability of the United States to move forces quickly to the Korean peninsula. It depends on those U.S. forces, including Marines, to dissuade and deter North Korea from even considering an attack. South Korea is comfortable with the relocation of 8,000 marines to Guam, in part because there are already other U.S. troops on the peninsula and in Japan, and also because moving Marines from Guam by air doesn’t take long. However, South Korea would likely be concerned by signs that the U.S.-Japan alliance was slowly dissolving. If U.S. troops were to be removed from, first, Okinawa and, then, the home islands, it would likely weaken deterrence. Taiwan also has concerns. The Marines on Okinawa, plus the U.S. air force, serve to strengthen deterrence in the event of aggression by China against Taiwan. China will be less likely to mount an attack because the U.S. has both ground troops and an air base on Okinawa. If China attacked U.S. installations on Okinawa, that almost ensures a serious conflict. The bases act as a tripwire demands. As previously mentioned, the public supports the alliance, but it has increasing doubts about DPJ leadership, in part because of Futenma.

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Con- Deterrence

US commitment to Asia is strong now—-perception of pulling back causes Asian prolif, Chinese aggression, miscalc and war Thomas Berger 14, Professor of International Relations at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies, PhD from MIT, "Re: Richard Samuel's NY Times quote," 3 Jul 2014, https://japanforum.nbr.org/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1407&L=LIST&F=&S=&P=19341

At this point in time, however, it would be premature to base policy on the expectation of inevitable American decline. The military balance continues to favor the US and its allies, and if they work together they should be able to avoid a too dramatic shift for a considerable time to come. Taiwan is not eager to reunify with China - data provided by Shelly Rigger and others show large majorities would prefer to remain independant, and while the Koreans feel they have to work with China, they remain deeply suspicious of China as well. A recent ASAN poll shows that 66% of South Koreans view China as a threat (down from 73% last year.) See figure 5 in the survey available athttp://en.asaninst.org/south-korean- attitudes-on-china/. A recent CSIS elite opinion survey shows likewise large majority of Korean elites would prefer a US led order. See http://csis.org/files/publication/140605_Green_PowerandOrder_WEB.pdf. And the United States continues to have considerable sources of strength that may endure over time. Since the end of the Second World war there have been periodic waves of predictions that the United States is in a state of inevitable decline - the current wave is probably the 4th - and it is far from clear that the current pessimists are more likely to be correct now than they were in the past. At the same time, it should be remembered that there are real risks to leaving balancing to regional powers. Japan, for instance, would be forced into taking much more aggressive actions than it is now if it were forced to rely on its resources. South Korea might be as well. Both countries would have to reopen the nuclear option, as might Taiwan, Australia and others. Perhaps not a bad thing, if you believe like Kenneth Waltz that the acquisition of nuclear weapons and the prospect of national incineration makes for more sober decision making - "more nukes less Kooks." China, in response might become more assertive as well, and the risk would go up of disastrous miscalculations leading to conflicts that inevitably would drag the United States back in. To paraphrase Lenin, the United States may not be interested in international politics, but international politics is definitely interested in the United States. The US experience in Europe in the 1990s was not very encouraging in this regard. When the Yugoslav crisis broke out, the United States tried to sit back and let the Europeans handle the problem. They failed - miserably. The conflict threatened to spread, cracks appeared within NATO and between NATO and Russia, and the US was pulled back in. Leaving it to the Europeans was, as Richard Haas warned at the time, a recipe for disaster. Would the Asians do much better? (And lets not even talk about the Middle East!)

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Con- Deterrence

Withdraw wrecks capabilities by separating training, command, and transport units—-Okinawa's key to response to conflicts regardless of trigger—-prevents escalation Brooks 11 – William L. Brooks, 2011 – adjunct professor for Japan Studies, has 15 years of experience as head at the Embassy Tokyo's Office of Media Analysis and Translation unit spanning from 1993 until his retirement in September 2009. Dr. Brooks also served as a senior researcher at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and provided the Secretary of State and Washington with policy analysis on Japan (1983-1987, 1990-1993). He earned his Doctorate degree from Columbia University in East Asian Studies, "CRACKS IN THE ALLIANCE? Futenma Log: Base Relocation Negotiations 2009-2010", www.reischauercenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Cracks-in-the-Alliance.pdf

No one can deny how deeply the alliance has been affected by a long-unresolved base issue that has been handled more as a political football than as a matter of security interest. A number of studies have come out over the last two years examining the extent of the damage. Satoshi Morimoto (see bibliography) argues that Japan’s national interests have been eroded by the festering issue. Takushoku University Professor Takashi Kawakami (Chapter 9 in Sasaki and Shimizu, pp. 199-215) tackles it from a strategic standpoint, which he insists has been ignored by the DPJ government in its frenzy to assuage opinion in Okinawa. He argues that the absence of combat marines from Okinawa would not only weaken deterrence vis-à-vis China but also hinder the U.S. forces’ response to a contingency in the region. He explains that the Marines on Okinawa have a significant military role to play in such a case, but it is not so much to deal with a contingency on the Korean Peninsula. There the Marines would have an ancillary role. Instead, the Marines would be needed for ready response to either a Taiwan-Strait or Senkaku-Island contingency. The SDF and the Marines would jointly respond to aggression against the Senkakus or Japan’s remote islands (ibid., pp. 207-208). Kawakami stresses that to resolve the Futenma relocation issue, three interrelated elements must come together: 1) the strategic needs of the Marines; 2) the views of the Okinawa people, as well as those at the candidate site; and 3) political factors within the ruling parties. On the first point, he notes that the Marines must be able to operate as one in an emergency. If their training facilities are scattered far and wide, it would hinder their ready-response capability. Keeping the combat and transport units of the Marines all in one place, like Okinawa, satisfies their strategic needs. Currently, all five types of facilities must be within 200 miles of each other: 1) base; 2) air field; 3) training ground; 4) port facility; and 5) supply facility.

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Con- Deterrence- SLOCs

SLOCs are vulnerable to disruption—-Okinawa's key to rapid response—-delays cause escalation Lin 2015 – Jenny Lin, Sasakawa Peace Foundation resident fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, February 2015, The US-Japan Alliance in Transformation: The Management of the US Marine Corps Futenma Airfield Relocation Facility (FRF), http://csis.org/files/publication/issues_insightsvol15no3.pdf

The presence of US forces in Okinawa is of strategic importance, because it provides the US with forward deployment and logistics capabilities. Japan hosts roughly 53,000 US military personnel and dedicates 89 facilities for their use; of the 89 facilities, 37 are on Okinawa.55 These major forward facilities allow the alliance to execute its overall strategic objectives under time constraints.56 Due to Okinawa proximity and access to Eurasia, the Pacific Ocean, Japan‟s sea lanes, and the region‟s sea lines of communication (SLOC), USFJ can respond rapidly. For instance, in contingencies arising in places surrounding Japan, USFJ response time is significantly shorter in comparison to deploying troops from the US mainland, Hawaii, or Guam. Without bases in Okinawa and mainland Japan, distance alone can delay response time. For example, the distance between Yokohama and San Diego is 5,607 miles (13 hours);57 it‟s 3,865 miles (7.7 hours) from Yokohama to Honolulu;58 from Yokohama to Guam is 1,546 miles (3 hours).59 Presence, and the ability to respond quickly in the region, is crucial because part of the challenge today is growing insecurity in SLOCs. With globalization expanding the flow of international commerce and trade, traffic on the high seas has been increasing. According to the 2010 World Shipping Council trade statistics, China, the US, and Japan exported 31.3 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units)60, 11.2 million TEUs, and 5.7 million TEUs, respectively, making them the top three exporters of containerized cargo. In the same year, the US, China, and Japan imported 17.6 million TEUs, 12 million TEUs, and 6.1 million TEUs, respectively, of goods in containers.61 Because it is essential for nations to receive energy-related cargos on a timely matter; a stable flow of crucial resources is a core security concern. This is especially true for Japan, which depends heavily on container cargos for energy imports. In 2011, Japan was the third- largest net importer of oil in the world. After the March 11, 2011 incident, Tokyo replaced lost nuclear power with low sulfur, heavy crudes for direct burn in power plants from Southeast Asia sources, i.e., Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. In addition, 96.4 percent of domestic natural gas is imported, and LNG is supplied by Australia, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and other nations.62 With proximity and time being the essence of a forward-deployed US presence, bases in Okinawa has been critical for the alliance. In the 2013 2+2, the US and Japan pledged to create a more robust alliance, while they acknowledged the difficulties in their relationship, namely, the relocation of the US Marine Corps Futenma Airfield on Okinawa and the construction of the Futenma relocation facility (FRF).63

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Con- Hegemony

A. U.S. military primacy is high – an aggressive force posture makes it sustainable, and there are no challengers Stephen G. Brooks and William C Wohlforth 2008 [ Profs. Gov’t @ Dartmouth, World out of Balance, p. 28-9]

The United States spends more on defense than all the other major military powers combined, and most of those powers are its allies. Its massive investments in the human, institutional, and technological requisites of military power, cumulated over many decades, make an effort to match U.S. capabilities even more daunting than the grit spending numbers imply. Military research and development (R&D) may best capture the scale of the long-term investments that give United States a dramatic qualitative edge in military capabilities. table 2.1 shows, in 2004 U.S. military R&D expenditures were me than six times greater than those of Germany, Japan, France, and Britain combined. By some estimates over half the military R&D expenditures in the world are American.' And this disparity has been sustained for decades: over the past 30 years, for example, the United States has harvested over three times more than the entire European Union on military R&D.'5These vast commitments have created a preeminence in military capabilities vis-à-vis all the other major powers that is unique after the seventeenth century. While other powers could contest US forces near their homelands, especially over issues on which nuclear deterrence is credible, the United States is and will long remain the only state capable of projecting major military power globally. This capacity arises from “command of the commons” –that is, unassailable military dominance over the sea, air, and space. As Barry Posen puts it,“Command of the commons is the key military enabler of the US global power position. It allows the United States to exploit more fully other sources of power including its own economic and military might as well as the economic and military might of its allies. Command of the commons also helps the United States to weaken its adversaries, by restricting their access to economic, military and political assistance….Command of the commons provides the United States with more useful military potential for a hegemonic foreign policy than any other offshore power has ever had.

B. Maintaining U.S. military dominance in East Asia is vital for U.S. hegemony – only through U.S. presence in East Asia can it maintain its primacy and deter rivalries Takashi Inoguchi - Japanese academic researcher of foreign affairs and international and global relationships of states. and Paul Bacon - Associate Professor of International Politics, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Japan. September 2005. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific. http://irap.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/5/2/117?rss=1&ssource=mfc)

After the cold war, the United States clearly sought to reinforce its hegemonic strategy in East Asia, seeking a special role for itself as the principal guarantor of regional order. The United States could have withdrawn in order to let a local balance of power emerge and undertaken the role of offshore balancer. It could also have promoted multilateral regional security organizations, or sought to construct a regional balance of power that contained China. However, it did none of these things. Mastanduno argues that the United States will retain its preponderant power status in the coming years but that the task of maintaining and completing US regional hegemony will become more difficult. The two biggest challenges that the United States faces are the global war on terror and the management of the rise of China, as a result of which the longer-term prospects for East Asian order are uncertain and problematic. There are two key features of US hegemonic strategy in the region. First, the United States has cultivated a set of bilateral relationships with other key states in the region, the most important and enduring of which have been the ties with Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, the United States has reaffirmed its close partnership with Australia and sought to engage rather than contain China. This preference for a primary set of bilateral relationships is referred to as the ‘hub and spokes’ approach. The second institutional feature of US hegemony has been the US forward presence in the region, and the US intention to maintain a substantial political and military commitment to the region for an ‘indefinite duration’. US hegemonic strategy in the region has contributed to order in several ways. For China, the US presence effectively ‘contains’ Japan, and, similarly, for Japan, the US presence deters China from a bid for regional dominance. The US presence has helped to deter major powers from intensifying dangerous rivalries, and it has, in so doing, reassured smaller states whose security and autonomy would otherwise be threatened by these large states. East Asia is a dangerous neighborhood, in which smaller states must coexist with larger states that have geopolitical ambitions, territorial claims, and a history of enmity. The United States has also worked hard to manage and stabilize regional conflicts that have the potential to develop into local and possibly even systemic wars. In the 1990s, for example, the United States took initiatives in security crises between China and Taiwan, in North Korea, and in the Kashmir

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conflict. Finally, the United States has striven to discourage nationalist economic competition. It has pushed Japan over domestic economic reform, sought to integrate China into a globalizing world economy, and maintained access to sources of global liquidity and US markets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. US hegemonic strategy has, therefore, made a substantial contribution to regional order in East Asia, but it also has its limitations.

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Con- Hegemony

C. Only US leadership can create international stability—less engagement guarantees regional wars in Asia and the Middle East, and WMD terrorism against the US Robert Lieber, prof of gov’t and int’l affairs at Georgetown, 2005 [,The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century, 7-8]

This book presents arguments supporting these propositions in some detail. It also considers the circumstances in which American primacy could be diminished by, for example, a grave economic crisis, a shattered domestic consensus, involvement in a Vietnam-style quagmire, or a mass casualty on the continental United States involving nuclear weapons or a viral biological agent. I also consider the implications for international order were the United States to play a far less engaged world role. I suggest that this would bring heightened instability and more dangers competition and conflict among regional powers, for example in East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) South Asia (India and Pakistan), and throughout the Middle East. In sum, at a time when the threats from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction are no longer remote contingencies, and when the values of human rights, peace and stability cannot be reliably assured by institutions such as the U.N. and the European Union, global activism on part of the United States becomes a necessity, not something about which to be apologetic. In the urgent debate about America’s place in the world, this book insists that we grasp the differences between the global arena as we might wish it to be and what it is, the ideals of the U.N. was created to serve and why that institution so often falls dangerously short, the reasons why our European allies are often motivated to define their identity in contrast to ours but in the end remain tied to us, the cultural and societal causes of admiration and resentment, and the reasons why in the most dangerous regions of the world, the absence rather than presence of the United States is more likely to cause harm. Ulitmately, it is the inevitable lack of global governance, the burdens of primacy, and the lethality of external threats that shape the requirements of the American era.

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Con- Hegemony

Maintaining a strong presence in Okinawa is vital—relocation would devastate deterrence and power projection Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, 2009 (“U.S. Should Stay Firm on Implementation of Okinawa Force Realignment,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2352, December 15th, Available Online at http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg2352.cfm)

Okinawa's strategic location contributes to potent U.S. deterrent and power projection capabilities as well as enabling rapid and flexible contingency response, including to natural disasters in Asia. Marine ground units on Okinawa can utilize Futenma airlift to deploy quickly to amphibious assault and landing ships stationed at the nearby U.S. Naval Base at Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture. Okinawa has four long runways: two at Kadena Air Base, one at Futenma, and one at Naha civilian airfield. The Futenma runway would likely be eliminated after return to Okinawa control to enable further civilian urban expansion. The planned FRF would compensate by building two new (albeit shorter) runways at Camp Schwab. However, if the Futenma unit redeployed to Guam instead, no new runway on Okinawa would be built. Japan would have thus lost a strategic national security asset, which includes the capability to augment U.S. or Japanese forces during a crisis in the region. Not having runways at Futenma or Schwab would be like sinking one's own aircraft carrier, putting further strain on the two runways at Kadena. Redeploying U.S. forces from Japan and Okinawa to Guam would reduce alliance deterrent and combat capabilities. Guam is 1,400 miles, a three-hour flight, and multiple refueling operations farther from potential conflict zones. Furthermore, moving fixed-wing aircraft to Guam would drastically reduce the number of combat aircraft sorties that U.S. forces could conduct during crises with North Korea or China, while exponentially increasing refueling and logistic requirements.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Abandonment

Japan sees the withdraw as abandonment David J. Berteau et al 2012, Director of the CSIS International Security Program, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University' Security Studies Program and at Syracuse University' Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and Dr. Michael Green, CSIS Senior Adviser and Japan Chair, co-directors; Gregory T. Kiley and Nicholas F. Szechenyi, Principals; Ernest Z. Bower, Victor Cha, Karl F. Inderfurth, Christopher K. Johnson, Gary A. Powell, Stephanie Sanok, contributors, "U.S. Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Paci¬fic Region: An Independent Assessment," August 2012, http://csis.org/files/publication/120814_FINAL_PACOM_optimized.pdf

Geostrategic Security/Political Military—Actions all carry significant negative consequences, especially in the Army action. While ROK ground forces are capable, removing U.S. ground forces would raise alarms regarding U.S. commitment. This would weaken U.S. ability to enhance joint capabilities, interoperability, and partnership capacity, while significantly reducing U.S. influence over escalation control and coalition formation in Northeast Asia. For the USMC action, reduction of USMC presence decreases the ability to shape partnership capacity building, including Expeditionary Defense and amphibious operations with Japanese, ROK, Australian and New Zealand forces. It would also reduce the capacity to respond to smaller regional crises that have the potential to escalate or draw in larger powers. While Japanese political opinion would be divided, since many political leaders would welcome an accelerated reduction of Marines on Okinawa, strategically influential elites in Japan could easily read the move as the beginning of overall U.S. disengagement from the region, triggering fears of abandonment. For the Air Force action, the Government of Japan has previously raised objection to Misawa AB withdrawal, especially as viewed in the context of the growing threat from North Korea but not for specific operational reasons. A Misawa AB drawdown undermines an example of an existing shared-use facility. For Engagement, this action limits training options and opportunities to shape interoperability bilaterally and among potential coalition partners. All actions would raise concerns among other global and regional partners and embolden potential adversaries in contravention of U.S. national interests.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Commitment

Japan's defense establishment thinks withdraw undermines the credibility of our commitments to them Yuki Tatsumi 13, senior associate and director of the Japan program at the Stimson Center, with contributions by Matthew Leatherman, a former research analyst in the Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program at Stimson, citing interviews and surveys with Japanese defense officials and SDF officers, "Opportunity out of Necessity," http://www.stimson.org/images/uploads/research-pdfs/Opportunity_out_of_Necessity-WEB.pdf

Almost every participant acknowledged that the value of the US military presence is larger than the capability it represents for the narrow purpose of defending Japan. As a JGSDF officer argues, the US military presence in Japan not only provides the credibility of the US defense commitment but also ensures other US allies in the Asia-Pacific region and keeps potential adversaries at arm’s length.103 But what do they have in mind when they make a reference to “US military presence”? There seems to be roughly three groups./ The first group focuses on the number of personnel as the tangible demonstration of the US security commitment to Japan.104 As a senior JASDF officer suggests, the presence of the Marines is very closely linked with the concept of “US military presence” and “deterrence” because of its visibility in Japan (including the defense establishment).105 Those who take this view also value the US military presence in Japan not only for providing greater opportunities for the JSDF to improve its readiness through more frequent joint training and consultations, but also for enhancing personal relationships between JSDF and US military personnel.106 It is interesting to note that, regardless of JSDF services or civilians, the only reference point they use to measure the US force presence is the number of the Marines stationed in Japan.107/ The second group places greater value in the US positioning its key strategic and tactical assets in US military bases and facilities throughout Japan. Those who take this position consider that forward-deployed US air and naval capabilities will be critical in the emergencies that Japan and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region are most likely to face. As such, they suggest it is extremely important for Japan to continue to host key US assets that would allow US military to project its power from its forward-deployed facilities. They strongly argue that these forward-deployed capabilities, combined with their supporting infrastructure in Japan, amounts to a presence that is more meaningful than simply having many US military personnel stationed there. They also believe that maintaining those key capabilities can be cost-efficient because a reduced number of personnel would make the US military presence in Japan more politically sustainable.108 It should be noted, however, that those who take this position, while they have confidence in the US military’s capability in Japan, are less certain about the US intention to use it helping to defend Japan.109/ Finally, the third group –which is the majority — refers to “US military presence” as the combination of both personnel and capabilities. They acknowledge that the requirement for forward-deployment varies among the four military services.110 They are also very sensitive to the outside perception of the US military presence in Japan: they consider whether a change to the US force posture there would undermine the deterrence goal, depending on how such changes are perceived outside Japan.111 In this context, they consider the peacetime activities by US military in the region as having an intangible yet very positive impact on the region’s stability. In their view, credible US military capabilities forward-deployed in Japan in a politically sustainable way would reassure Japan of US’s continued robust engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, including its alliance relationship with Japan.112

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Con- Japan Alliance- Confidence

Withdraw creates a crisis of confidence in the alliance—-far worse than the squo Michael J. Green 2010, senior adviser and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and associate professor at Georgetown University, and Nicholas Szechenyi, deputy director of the Japan Chair and fellow at CSIS, "A 12-Step Recovery Plan for the U.S.-Japan Alliance," http://csis.org/files/publication/100512_Platform.pdf

Damage Control. Step 3 is damage control in Okinawa. If the base realignment plan falls apart, the media will likely shift its attention from Hatoyama to the burden of the U.S. military presence. The Marines will be forced to continue operating from Futenma, with all the attendant risk from accidents and public frustration that the base is still there 15 years after the two governments promised to close it and find a replacement. That is not a good situation, but unilaterally withdrawing would create an even greater crisis of confidence in the alliance—particularly in the region—and increase the pressure on Kadena and other critical U.S. bases. Instead, the U.S. and Japanese governments will have to take steps to ameliorate the impact of U.S. operations in Futenma and Okinawa on the Japanese people. The deployment of Marines to Iraq and Afghanistan has lowered the operational tempo at Futenma. Still, the U.S. and Japanese governments will have to think about what else can be done to soothe the damage done to Okinawans’ trust in both Washington and Tokyo. Smarter outreach, rotation of training and exercises away from Okinawa whenever possible, initiatives to strengthen environmental standards at bases, and other proactive steps will be worth some operational inconvenience in the short term.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Confusion

Withdrawal now is too much too fast---causes alliance confusion Yukio 8-4-2015 – served as a career diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1968 to 1991, including a term as director of the First North America Division. Special advisor to the prime minister, 1996–98 and 2003–4. Research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies since 2012, (The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security, www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/) Is there an alternative? When I expressed my opinions to the National Diet committees, I called for the adoption of “Plan B.” Though I did not state the specific contents of this plan, the idea was to make the move to a new facility at Henoko unnecessary by revising the deployment structure of the US Marine Corps in Okinawa and elsewhere in the western Pacific and modifying the role of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. This would have required careful bilateral deliberations with the United States over an extended period of time, meaning a delay in reversion of the Futenma facility. But considering that almost two decades had passed since the original US-Japan agreement on the matter, I felt that it was worth considering my proposal. But the government ended up sticking with the existing plan, and in December 2013 the governor of Okinawa gave his go- ahead for the landfill at Henoko, where work has now started. At this point, pushing for an alternative approach will only confuse matters. So I have regretfully decided to put my Plan B under wraps and return to supporting the move to Henoko as the best we can hope for under the current circumstances.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Cooperation

Mutual defense cooperation revitalizes the US-Japan alliance, only withdrawal can crush resiliency Sullivan 2015 (5/1, Alexander Sullivan is a Research Associate in the Asia-Pacific Security Program, where he focuses on U.S.-China relations, maritime security, regional military modernization and U.S. alliances, and the role of energy in geopolitics. His writing and analysis has appeared in Foreign Policy, The National Interest, The Diplomat, China-US Focus and various CNAS publications. “The New and Improved U.S.- Japan Alliance: A Good Deal for Washington?”, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-new-improved-us-japan-alliance-good-deal-washington-12781?page=2)

The United States’ strategic and military presence in the Asia-Pacific has lent the region relative stability and enabled historic gains in prosperity, and is welcomed today by nearly all countries in the region. Nevertheless, as CNAS research has demonstrated, “the nature of America’s military presence in Asia must be based on viable and enduring political arrangements and conducted in ways that contribute to (or at least do not undermine) vital political support in host countries.” The announcements made during Abe’s visit contribute to the long-term sustainability of U.S. strategic presence in Japan and the broader region in at least four ways. Firstly, the statements accompanying the guidelines articulate a positive strategic vision that the two countries share: for “a strong rules-based international order based on a commitment to rules, norms and institutions that are the foundation of global affairs and our way of life.” This depth of common purpose lends the alliance a durability that makes a crisis or mere strategic drift unlikely to dislodge each nation from the other. Secondly, the alliance is more sustainable when it is stronger. The guidelines—especially the new seamless, whole-of- government standing alliance coordination mechanism—make it more capable and interoperable, and therefore increase its deterrent power. This lessens both the likelihood of a crisis erupting and the chance that any potential crisis could go wrong in a way that sunders the alliance. Thirdly and relatedly, the guidelines seek to “promote a more balanced and effective Alliance” by committing Japan to come to the aid of U.S. forces under attack even if no armed attack against Japan has taken place. This hedges against a potentially extreme disjuncture in the alliance in which Japan—under its old strictures—could not have used force to protect Americans in danger. A more equal footing for the alliance helps to secure its future for the long term. Finally, the Japanese government is dedicated to finding a sustainable footprint for U.S. forces on Japanese soil, including through the U.S. Marine Corps’ distributed laydown. As the U.S.-Japan Joint Vision Statement put it, Prime Minister Abe’s visit “marks a historic step forward in transforming the U.S.-Japan partnership.” Much will depend on implementation and could be attenuated by legislative battles in Japan. But the revitalized alliance is making the U.S. position in Asia more geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable. Among many other achievements, this should be cause for celebration in Washington and Tokyo.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Forward Deployment

US forward deployment key to alliance – ensures Japanese and regional security – turns the advantage Timothy D. Stone, lieutenant colonel and prosecutor within the Office of the Chief Prosecutor, 2006 (“US-Japan SOFA: A necessary document worth revising” originally printed in the 2006 Naval Law Review accessed on Lexis Nexis) The principles enshrined in Chapter II, Article 9 of Japan's post-war Constitution places its self-defense forces in a secondary role behind the United States military when it comes to security issues, both in Japan and the East Asian region. n1 Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Japan has steadfastly supported the U.S. in the Global War on Terror n2 and has re- affirmed its security alliance with the U.S. n3 The U.S.-Japan alliance is at the forefront of the U.S. defense strategy in Asia, and critical to regional stability and the national security of both nations. n4 "The alliance is dedicated to preserving the status quo in the Far East, that is, deterring the use of force as a means of altering political borders." n5 The foundation of the alliance is the forward basing of American [*230] military personnel in Japan. "The governments share the understanding that Japan's provision of bases to the United States, allowing those forces to implement the United States' strategic plan in the region, balances the U.S. commitment to defend Japan." n6 "That exchange is the core of the agreement, and neither side considers the arrangement unfair." n7

US forward deployment key to alliance – recent naval deployments and security issues prove Hirofumi Nakasone, former Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, 9-26-2008,(‘Japan: FM Nakasone greets arrival of USS George Washington accessed on LexisNexis) A strong Japan-US alliance is the linchpin of Japan's diplomacy. As you know, the security environment in East Asia remains harsh as illustrated by such problems as North Korea's nuclear issue. The Government of Japan welcomes wholeheartedly the forward deployment to the western Pacific of an aircraft carrier that bears the very name of a famous Founding Father of the US, symbolizing the firm commitment of the United States to the Alliance. USS GEORGE WASHINGTON is the first nuclear propelled aircraft carrier to be forward deployed to the western Pacific. The Japanese people pay particular attention to the issues of nuclear safety. The United States Government has expressed its intention to continue to strictly honour all of its previous commitments regarding the safety of all US nuclear vessels including USS GEORGE WASHINGTON. The Government of Japan will also continue to expend all possible efforts to assure their safety. 2010 will mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-US Security Treaty. The firm presence of US Forces in this region under the Japan-US Security Treaty is the very reason Japan has been able to enjoy peace and prosperity for the past half century.

Hurts the alliance – forward deployment is needed to uphold American treaty obligations to Japan States News Service, 12-15-2009 (“U.S. should stay firm on implementation of Okinawa force realignment” accessed on LexisNexis) Forward Deployment Critical to U.S. Fulfilling Treaty Obligations The forward-deployed U.S. military presence in Japan, including Okinawa, demonstrates Washington's commitment to fulfilling its 1960 bilateral security treaty obligations. Although not widely known, the security treaty obligates the U.S. not only to defend Japan, but also to fulfill broader regional security responsibilities. "For the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East,the United States of America is granted the use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan."[14] Alliance security objectives extending beyond the defense of Japan have been affirmed in recent bilateral agreements.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Time Frame

Announcement of withdrawal wrecks the alliance before withdrawal actually occurs Lawless, 10—former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs (Richard, interview with the Asahi Shimbun, “U.S. official: Japan could lose entire Marine presence if Henoko plan scrapped”, http://www.dmzhawaii.org/?p=6237)

A forced departure, or a decision that forces us to consider departing our forces from Okinawa, would impact the overall political relationship long before any forces depart Japan. Just the fact that we would have to examine this possibility seriously will, in itself, set in motion a whole chain of considerations and reassessments. So it is not the physical departure that triggers this; it’s the fact that we have to consider, almost immediately, when, how, what our options are. That, in turn, is going to get our Congress involved, and it will compel our military planners involved. This situation will quickly get out of control, and once the momentum and goodwill move away from Japan, it will be very difficult for Japan to put this problem back in the box. The “knock-on” effect of a forced Marine departure, on the alliance itself but on all of our security relationships in Asia, shouldn’t be underestimated. A fundamental re-examination would lead us to make decisions that are lasting.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Troops

US troops in Japan are key to the security alliance Daily Yomiuri, 02-03-2010 (“Cooperation with U.S. key to Japan’s Defense” accessed on LexisNexis) Meanwhile, senior foreign and defense officials from Japan and the United States entered into discussions in Tokyo aimed at deepening the bilateral alliance, as the current bilateral security treaty marked its 50th anniversary this year. Dangers must be considered It is vital that the acknowledgement of the threats posed by China's military expansion and North Korea's nuclear development presented in the report should be reflected in future discussions. In light of the rapid modernization of China's military, it is indispensable to strengthen cooperation between the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military and to make an effort to strengthen deterrence. The report hammered out a policy to steadily implement the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, ensuring the long term presence of the U.S. forces in Japan and the reorganization of U.S. forces in Guam. It is important that Japan and the United States share awareness of the security environment of Asia and the rest of the world, then continue strategic discussions on examining rolesharing and cooperation. At the same time, to enable such discussions, it is indispensable to resolve the relocation issue of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, by the end of May. Putting off the issue is no longer acceptable.

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Con- Japan Alliance- Unilateral

Resolving Futenma can't build strong alliance, but unilateral revisions destroy it- prior review and clear bilateral strategic framework agreement are key prereqs Cronin, 2012 — Patrick Cronin, Senior Advisor, Center for a New American Security, Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, Former Senior Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University, Director of Studies at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). At the IISS, he also served as Editor of the Adelphi Papers and as the Executive Director of the Armed Conflict Database. Before joining IISS, Dr. Cronin was Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Assistant Administrator for Policy and Program Coordination, the third-ranking position at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Cronin served as Director of Research at the U.S. Institute of Peace, founding Executive Editor of Joint Force Quarterly, He has also been a senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, a U.S. Naval Reserve Intelligence officer, and an analyst with the Congressional Research Service and SRI International, Dr. Cronin has taught at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, The Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and the University of Virginia's Woodrow Wilson Department of Government, "Okinawa and the Burden of Strategy", http://www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/chijiko/chian/naha_port/documents/h24reporten-1.pdf

In summary, strategic requirements demand caution, concerted review, and prudent steps to further reduce burdens on local populations that must endure the privations that come with hosting military bases. But the issue of a replacement for most Marine Corps aviation functions currently handled at Futenma cannot be the basis of a strong or sustainable alliance. Decisions must begin and end with clarity over alliance strategic objectives. This is not to suggest that problems with the long-planned move from Futenma to Camp Schwab are trivial. Far from it; they are very serious and have had a corrosive effect on a pivotal security relationship. Beyond the obvious local concerns regarding potential accidents and a negative impact on the environment, there are practical issues related to cost and operations. Moving major forces is expensive, and the present period of austere budgets will make legislatures less rather than more generous when it comes to paying for new defense facilities. Likewise, given regional military trends, policymakers must again confront questions about whether the planned runway at Henoko-saki is truly of sufficient length to accommodate the full range of plausible emergencies. Military planners should be heard before officials invest too much money into what might be a suboptimal plan. But because a serious review of current plans must be undertaken within the larger strategic framework mentioned above, officials need some time to reflect rather than rush into a bad decision that they will long regret. This will not be a welcome message to some on Okinawa. However, delay does not mean governments cannot take intermediate steps to further reduce the U.S. military footprint on Okinawa. That is why the de-linking of issues in April 2012 was helpful. Although tensions were again exacerbated with the deployment of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to Futenma, the deployment offers new opportunities. In particular, because of the greater range of the aircraft, which operates like an airplane rather than a helicopter, the path is open toward conducting more Marine training on Honshu and other islands than Okinawa. Even in the midst of a strategic review, alliance managers should be able to muster support for remote training that could further reduce burdens on the people of Okinawa. In addition to reducing training on Okinawa, national security planners in the United States and Japan should also continue to advance more military- to-military integration, which would include more co-location of forces, as well possible civil-military dual-use. These interim steps can slowly build a more positive basing record. Combined with smart investments in Okinawa’s economic development, these steps can pave the way for a long-term solution to the nagging problem of Futenma.

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Con- Japan Control (Misawa/Atsugi Model)

By working together Japan and the U.S. create a political deterrent against China that projects more power than the U.S. acting alone. The best way to accomplish this bilateral projection is to keep the U.S. bases in Okinawa and to put them under Japanese control, as is the case in Atsugi and Misawa air bases. Instead of withdrawing forces, the U.S. should give more control of its own forces to Japan and thereby project to China a strong alliance that will be modeled globally. Newsham 2015 (Grant, Senior Research Fellow, Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. “US military bases on Okinawa — still an essential deterrent” http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/Oct. 30, 2015).

Ultimately, US bases on Okinawa — with all the challenges and costs they involve — demonstrate a political commitment on the part of both governments — to include America’s promise to defend Japan. This sort of commitment is closely watched as an adversary decides how much to push. One recalls the classic example of Saddam Hussein miscalculating the United States’ willingness to defend Kuwait in 1990 that led to the First Gulf War. One often detects a degree of puzzlement on the PRC’s part over the US’s willingness to defend Japan –and particularly certain territory in the Ryukyus, such as the Senkaku Islands. Solidly linked US and Japanese forces that are able to operate effectively together – to include forces based on Okinawa — are ultimately evidence of a strong political link between the two countries. This directly affects deterrence.The deterrent effect of American bases on Okinawa depends heavily on the state of the US-Japan political relationship. The stronger the political relationship, the more likely the US will use the bases (and its other military and non-military resources) to defend Japan – and the more likely it is that the Japanese government will make the necessary efforts to preserve the US bases. One tends to depend on the other. In this regard, the US and Japan should seriously consider integrating JSDF forces as fully as possible onto US bases in Okinawa — to include bringing the bases under Japanese control, such as at Atsugi and Misawa air bases. This would be politically beneficial as well as operationally useful. The deterrent effect of US and Japanese forces operating as ‘full’ allies and completely interoperable would be immense. This combination of military and political linkage has a deterrent value of its own and gives PRC strategic and operational planners considerable headaches.Although not widely reported in the press, PRC political warfare efforts on Okinawa to create opposition to US bases and other friction for the central government demonstrate China’s awareness of political deterrence arising from a strong US-Japan relationship. Such political warfare efforts are ongoing in Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas (CNMI) as well — where additional US bases are being built or planned. Importantly, the Guam/CNMI bases are intended to augment US bases on Okinawa and provide strategic depth and enhanced deterrence for US military capabilities in East Asia. Political deterrence also extends to third countries. The presence of US forces in Japan — and on Okinawa — is, as noted earlier, something many other regional nations desire and find reassuring. This tends to bolster their willingness — both individual and collective — to stand up to Chinese threats and/or blandishments — thus, deterring Chinese behavior that would otherwise be even more aggressive and assertive.

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Con- Japan Security

Marine presence in Okinawa acts as a key deterrent against enemy attacks and maintains Japan security Bruce, Klingner, a Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation. May 28, 2010, The Heritage Foundation, “With Re-Acceptance of Marines on Okinawa, Time to Look Ahead,”http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2010/05/With-Re-Acceptance-of-Marines-on-Okinawa-Time-to-Look-Ahead)

The DPJ policy reversal is the result of senior Japanese officials having a belated epiphany on geostrategic realities. They now realize that the Marines on Okinawa are an indispensable and irreplaceable element of any U.S. response to an Asian crisis. Foreign Minister Okada affirmed that “the presence of U.S. Marines on Okinawa is necessary for Japan’s national security [since they] are a powerful deterrent against possible enemy attacks and should be stationed in Japan.” Prime Minister Hatoyama now admits that after coming to power he came to better understand the importance of the U.S.–Japan alliance in light of the northeast Asian security environment. He commented, “As I learned more about the situation, I’ve come to realize that [the Marines] are all linked up as a package to maintain deterrence.” Japanese officials also remarked that rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula—triggered by North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean naval ship[1]—made clear to Japan that it lives in a dangerous neighborhood and should not undermine U.S. deterrence and defense capabilities.

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Con- Japan Leadership

Status quo is goldilocks—-Japanese middle power diplomacy is increasing and effective, but dependent on strong U.S. presence—-there's no offense because there's zero political will for great power leadership Soeya 2008 – Yoshihide Soeya, Professor of political science at Keio University, reported by John Feffer, "Japan as Middle Power", IPS News, 11-24, http://www.ipsnewsasia.net/bridgesfromasia/node/132

Central to Soeya’s argument is the assertion that Japan itself is not and does not want to be a great power. The country’s constitution and its alliance with the United States -- which Soeya argued had not changed in the last half century and would not likely change in the near future -- constrained such ambitions, even if they sometimes crop up on the popular debate. "Particularly in the domain of traditional security, where the military plays an important role, Japan’s role has not been that of a great power," Soeya said at the seminar sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. "And there is nothing to suggest that Japan is moving in that direction. Some discourses in Japan might give you the impression that that is happening. But it is not taking place at the policy level."/ MIDDLE WAY/ To illustrate this point, Soeya identified elements of middle-power diplomacy in Japan’s postwar policy. It provided economic assistance to South-east Asia and China. It emphasised the concept of human security, which expands traditional definitions of security to include human needs such as food and shelter. And it laboured long and hard within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations./ That tradition continues today, he pointed out. "Japan and Australia signed a joint security declaration last year," Soeya related./ "If you look at the substance of the declaration, it’s a typical middle-power security declaration: capacity building, peacekeeping, disaster relief. There are no elements of traditional military cooperation. That’s natural for Japan and Australia, as middle powers,” he explained. “My dream as a realist -- and I know that this will not happen during my lifetime -- is that the same thing can be repeated between Japan and South Korea. That would be a sea change in the security landscape in North-east Asia."/ Soeya translated such middle-power diplomacy into a specific regional strategy in which Japan works with other countries in the region to carve out a more autonomous space between China and the United States./ "Imagine Japan ganging up with Australians, Koreans, and South-east Asian people and saying to America, ‘we like this, we don’t like this’. They would create a regional order, and say to the Americans and Chinese, ‘that’s how we want to live and you’ll have to live with it’."/ STRONGER MILITARY/ Even as Japan articulates this middle-power diplomacy, however, it has been acquiring new military capabilities. U.S. instructors have trained Japanese pilots in air-to-air refueling procedures in preparation for Japan to receive new KC-767 refueling and strategic transport aircraft, which will considerably extend the distance Japanese fighter planes can fly./ It has acquired Aegis ballistic missile defense systems, the F-2 Attack Fighter, and top-of-the-line battleships. It is developing a light air craft carrier. It also persuaded the Bush administration to sell the advanced F-22 Raptor stealth planes until Congress nixed the deal in August 2007./ "The Japanese security force has been steadily increasing its capability over time," observed Michael Auslin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "It has been gaining capabilities that put it at a qualitatively different level. It can carry out strike operations and reach out beyond the Japanese homeland with refueling and other Self Defense Forces capabilities."/ Auslin noted that these new capabilities not only change the nature of Japan’s military but the alliance with the U.S. as well. "When those capabilities outstrip the structures, over time they accrete and create a fundamentally different condition in the alliance and in what the alliance can feel that it can do," he said./ Soeya disagreed. "Japan’s defence budgets have been decreasing, not increasing over the years," he noted. "What’s happening is the readjustment of resource allocations among the Self-Defence Forces, not the acquisition of long-distance bombing capabilities. It’s the further integration of Japanese military preparedness in overall regional planning."/ TIED TO THE U.S./ Japan’s future security path depends not only on domestic political calculations but external factors as well, mainly those relating to the United States./ Auslin pointed out that a crisis might take place in the region that could put an immediate strain on the U.S.-Japan alliance. It might "strip away the veneer of our supposed willingness to act together," he said. "Unmet expectations and satisfactions are suddenly brought to the fore. That can cripple an alliance. There are serious people on both sides of the Pacific thinking about that, about a North Korean contingency that would lay bare whether Japan wants to be right next to the U.S. and whether the U.S. wants to be next to Japan."/ "If the U.S. commitment changes, both its general reliability and its extended nuclear deterrent, then Japan would have to face some very important choices," Alan Romberg, distinguished fellow at the Henry L Stimson Center, concurred. "It would be a potentially revolutionising event. But I don’t see any indication anywhere in the policy community in the U.S. that would call into question the U.S. commitment to the alliance with Japan and the maintenance of peace in the region."/ "The cost of the breakup of the alliance would be disastrous," Romberg added. "And that would make the alliance continue."

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Con- Missile Defense

A. Okinawa hosts Missile defense for Japan Axe 10 (David Axe is an independent military correspondent, http://the-diplomat.com/2010/06/28/why-allies-need-okinawa-base/) Aside from US forces in South Korea (which are exclusively focused on the North Korean land threat) there are just two significant concentrations of US troops in East Asia: in Okinawa and on the Pacific island of Guam. Okinawa lies just an hour’s flight time from both the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan; Guam, by contrast, is 1000 miles from any potential theatre of war. ‘It may be easier for us to be there [in Guam], as far as the diplomatic issue is concerned,’ says Air Force spokesman John Monroe. ‘But if we’re in Guam, we’re out of the fight’ due to the distance. For combat forces to be capable of reacting quickly to the most likely crises, Okinawa is the only realistic option. Without its 2 Okinawan air bases and their 3 roughly 10,000-foot runways, the US military—and by extension, US allies—would depend almost entirely on a handful of US aircraft carriers for bringing to bear aerial firepower in East Asia. That might be a realistic option, except that China has lately deployed several new classes of anti-ship weaponry specifically meant for sinking US carriers, including the widely-feared DF-21 ballistic missile and a flotilla of stealthy fast-attack vessels. In recognition of Okinawa’s growing importance, the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars in the past decade modernizing forces and facilities on the island. The US Army deployed Patriot air-defence missiles capable of shooting down enemy aircraft as well as ballistic missiles, a favourite weapon of both China and North Korea. Kadena got extensive new storage bunkers for bombs, missiles and spare parts, allowing the base to support potentially hundreds of aircraft flown in from the United States during an emergency.

B. Ending missile defense cooperation destroys the foundation of the alliance Rubinstein 2007 (Gregg A., consultant on Security, Trade and Technology at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, September 5, “US-Japan Missile Defense Cooperation: Current Status, Future Prospects”, http://www.japanconsidered.com/OccasionalPapers/Rubinstein%20USJA%20BMD%20article%20090507.pdf)

Development of missile defense cooperation has been critical to a process of “alliance transformation” that ranges from an updated concept of roles missions and capabilities for defense cooperation, to a realignment of the US force structure in Japan. 8 BMD matters have had significant impact on key areas of alliance activity: • Policy: Moving from agreement on the need for missile defense to implementing BMD cooperation has brought policy planners on both sides into closer consultation on regional security strategy, arms control/non-proliferation policy, and an expanding scope of bilateral cooperation. The US government has been obliged to rethink its positions on alliance participation in US missile defense programs, as well as the release of sensitive defense technologies to key allies. Similarly, development of BMD activities will compel the Japanese government to reconsider long-standing positions on such policy-sensitive matters as Japan’s self-imposed ban on collective defense operations, and its inflexible approach to arms export controls (see below). • Operations: Cooperation between Japan and the US on BMD operations in Northeast Asia will require a level of coordination between US and Japanese defense forces that gives unprecedented meaning to the term ‘interoperability.’ Issues of concern here include timely sharing of critical intelligence data, development of an effective command, control, and communications (C3) infrastructure, and revision of outdated polices that obstruct joint response to imminent missile threats. • Acquisitions: The SCD project initiated last year is also unprecedented in being the first effort to jointly develop a defense system for use by both countries – and probably third country allies as well. While this effort may not seem remarkable to those familiar with multinational defense projects in NATO or the EU, implementing SCD has required substantial adjustments in interaction among program management bureaucracies and defense industries on both sides. Here too BMD cooperation has brought both sides beyond the limits of long- established practices and attitudes. Missile defense cooperation points to a critical influence on US-Japan alliance evolution often overlooked in discussion of political leaders or key administration officials – the growth of institutional interaction between the US and Japanese defense establishments.

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Con- Missile Defense

BMD is the lynchpin of U.S.-Japan cooperation Gregg A. Rubinstein, Consultant on Security, Trade and Technology at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, September 5, 2007, “US-Japan Missile Defense Cooperation: Current Status, Future Prospects”, http://www.japanconsidered.com/OccasionalPapers/Rubinstein%20USJA%20BMD%20article%20090507.pdf | Suo

Can missile defense continue to “lead the way” on defense cooperation between the US and Japan? There can be little question that US-Japan interaction on BMD has been critical to transition from a relatively passive security relationship to a more proactive alliance. From the perspective of capabilities development and operational activities, missile defense has energized engagement between US and Japanese defense institutions to the point where it is almost self-sustaining. Only a major shift in alliance relations would derail the process of BMD cooperation now established. Still, the degree of US-Japan interaction – as summarized in the ‘integrated’ and ‘default’ paths described above – remains uncertain as both countries continue to seek their way through untravelled territory.

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The only option left for Japan if the bases leave is to amend article 9 and boost their own military. If this does not happen, Japan is vulnerable to Chinese and North Korean aggression. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Neither is likely. Repeated diplomatic entreaties have failed to curb Pyongyang’s and Beijing’s growing capabilities and increasingly assertive policies. For the latter to happen, Japan would have to amend its constitution, alter its interpretation of collective self-defense, significantly increase its defense budget, develop military capabilities it does not now have, and gain domestic and foreign support for a dramatic shift in Japanese military policy. Tokyo has shown no inclination to push forward on any of these issues and, indeed, has been strongly resistant to any such change.

U.S. military presence in Okinawa prevents Japanese rearmament and arms races Eric Vogel, Prof. @ Harvard U, 2003 Asian Studies Newsletter http://www.aasianst.org/Viewpoints/Vogel.htm)

Why is the Tokyo government ready to pay the support for the housing of U.S. troops in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan? Because Japan’s alternatives to a security pact with the United States, developing an independent military capacity to defend themselves or engaging in unarmed neutrality, are less attractive. An independent Japanese military capacity is likely to unnerve the Chinese and Koreans, and the prospects of an arms race between Japan on the one hand and China or Korea on the other, would be high; most Japanese would prefer to have better relations with China and Korea. Unarmed neutrality would leave Japan open to the intimidation of neighbors, including North Korea, something the Japanese public is not likely to tolerate in the long run. Given the alternatives, thoughtful people in the Diet and elsewhere in Japanese policy circles prefer an alliance with the United States. Japanese political leaders who need cooperation from other parties in Japan take a low posture and tone down their proclamations on controversial issues, but when the crunch comes they vote to keep the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance. And that is why so many Japanese politicians support the Guidelines worked out between defense specialists in Japan and the United States to specify what Japan could do to respond in case of emergencies. What is the new role of the U.S.-Japan Security alliance after the end of the cold War? It is to be ready to respond in case of emergencies and to help keep a stable environment so that Japan, China, and Korea do not feel the need to start an arms race in order for each to achieve security. Regional stability is sufficiently important that the United States, having learned the cost of isolationism in 1914 and 1941, is willing to play a considerable role in guaranteeing regional security. Chalmers Johnson wants U.S. troops to pull out of Okinawa but he wants Japan and the United States to keep their treaty alliance. Unfortunately it is not possible to do both. If the United States is to respond quickly to emergencies in places like the Korean peninsula it needs to have troops and supplies readily on hand. The North and South Koreans both know that U.S. troops would defend South Korea if the North attacks because U.S. troops are in Korea and would be affected. Most Japanese believe that U.S. troops would fight to defend Japan. But if U.S. troops were not in Japan, many more Japanese would doubt the U.S. willingness to defend them, and the temptations to develop their own military capacity would be very real; Korea and China would be unlikely to stand idly by. The United States does not negotiate with Okinawa; it negotiates with the government of Japan, in Tokyo, and the Japanese government has chosen to keep bases in Okinawa. U.S. military officials in Okinawa have worked hard and continue to work hard to keep good relations with civilians in Okinawa and to keep incidents to a minimum. We do not live in an ideal dream world where everyone would be perfectly happy. But preserving security in Asia and avoiding a new arms race and regional conflict is too important to the lives of all Asians to be cavalier about advocating U.S. troop withdrawal from Japan without carefully considering the consequences.

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Presence in Okinawa restrains aggressive and independent Japanese foreign policy that triggers regional war and arms races–re-draws in US Curtis 2013 - Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University Gerald l. "Japan's Cautious Hawks", Foreign Affairs, March/April, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2013-03-01/japans-cautious-hawks

That quest for survival remains the hallmark of Japanese foreign policy today. Tokyo has sought to advance its interests not by defining the international agenda, propagating a particular ideology, or promoting its own vision of world order, the way the United States and other great powers have. Its approach has instead been to take its external environment as a given and then make pragmatic adjustments to keep in step with what the Japanese sometimes refer to as "the trends of the time." Ever since World War II, that pragmatism has kept Japan in an alliance with the United States, enabling it to limit its military's role to self-defense. Now, however, as China grows ever stronger, as North Korea continues to build its nuclear weapons capability, and as the United States' economic woes have called into question the sustainability of American primacy in East Asia, the Japanese are revisiting their previous calculations. In particular, a growing chorus of voices on the right are advocating a more autonomous and assertive foreign policy, posing a serious challenge to the centrists, who have until recently shaped Japanese strategy. In parliamentary elections this past December, the Liberal Democratic Party and its leader, Shinzo Abe, who had previously served as prime minister in 2006–7, returned to power with a comfortable majority. Along with its coalition partner, the New Komeito Party, the LDP secured the two-thirds of seats needed to pass legislation rejected by the House of Councilors, the Japanese Diet's upper house. Abe's victory was the result not of his or his party's popularity but rather of the voters' loss of confidence in the rival Democratic Party of Japan. Whatever the public's motivations, however, the election has given Japan a right-leaning government and a prime minister whose goals include scrapping the con-stitutional constraints on Japan's military, revising the educational system to instill a stronger sense of patriotism in the country's youth, and securing for Tokyo a larger leadership role in regional and world affairs. To many observers, Japan seems to be on the cusp of a sharp rightward shift. But such a change is unlikely. The Japanese public remains risk averse, and its leaders cautious. Since taking office, Abe has focused his attention on reviving Japan's stagnant economy. He has pushed his hawkish and revisionist views to the sidelines, in part to avoid having to deal with divisive foreign policy issues until after this summer's elections for the House of Councilors. If his party can secure a majority of seats in that chamber, which it does not currently have, Abe may then try to press his revisionist views. But any provocative actions would have consequences. If, for example, he were to rescind statements by previous governments that apologized for Japan's actions in World War II, as he has repeatedly said he would like to do, he not only would invite a crisis in relations with China and South Korea but would face strong criticism from the United States as well. The domestic political consequences are easy to predict: Abe would be flayed in the mass media, lose support among the Japanese public, and encounter opposition from others in his own party. In short, chances are that those who expect a dramatic change in Japanese strategy will be proved wrong. Still, much depends on what Washington does. The key is whether the United States continues to maintain a dominant position in East Asia. If it does, and if the Japanese believe that the United States' commitment to protect Japan remains credible, then Tokyo's foreign policy will not likely veer off its current track. If, however, Japan begins to doubt the United States' resolve, it will be tempted to strike out on its own. The United States has an interest in Japan's strengthening its defensive capabilities in the context of a close U.S.-Japanese alliance. But Americans who want Japan to abandon the constitutional restraints on its military and take on a greater role in regional security should be careful what they wish for. A major Japanese rearmament would spur an arms race in Asia, heighten regional tensions (including between Japan and South Korea, another key U.S. ally), and threaten to draw Washington into conflicts that do not affect vital U.S. interests. The United States needs a policy that encourages Japan to do more in its own defense but does not undermine the credibility of U.S. commitments to the country or the region.

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Con- Rearm

Credible US security commitment key to prevent remilitarization – Chinese response ensures spiraling crises – leads to prolif and nuclear escalation Swaine et al 2013 (Michael, PhD in government from Harvard, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the most prominent American analysts in Chinese security studies. Formerly a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, Swaine is a specialist in Chinese defense and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian international relations; CHINA'S MILITARY & THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE IN 2030, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/net_assessment_full.pdf)

Scenario 6—Sino-Japanese Rivalry. The sixth and nal scenario would be marked by a very different strategic consequence of the U.S. withdrawal or hollowing out in the Western Paci c. In this instance, Beijing would seek to take advantage of the situation by increasing pressure on Tokyo in a range of political and economic disputes, particularly those related to territorial and resource claims in the East China Sea and possibly also historical issues. Out of a sense of insecurity fostered by the U.S. withdrawal and provoked by aggressive Chinese behavior, Tokyo would implement a major realignment in its national security strategy, moving toward an independent military capability that most likely would include nuclear weapons, as well as all the doctrinal and force structure accoutrements of a “normal” con- ventional military power. The result would be a sharpening Sino-Japanese rivalry. For its part, China would seek to greatly increase its military capability to coerce Ja- pan without the use of force, relying on enhanced conventional and nuclear capabilities in speci c areas. Under this scenario, the process through which Japan were to develop and deploy nuclear weapons would have an enormous in uence on the propensity for crises or even con ict with Beijing. For example, to establish a credible and timely deterrent before Beijing might conceivably attempt to coerce Japan militarily, such as over disputed ter- ritorial and resource claims, Tokyo would need to establish a survivable and highly potent second-strike nuclear capability within a relatively short time frame. This scenario would result from a badly prepared and probably precipitate U.S. with- drawal from the Western Paci c, most likely brought on by a far more intense and pro- longed economic crisis than the recent global nancial crisis of 2008, and would almost certainly involve a severe hollowing out, if not abrogation, of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Secu- rity Treaty. It would also likely require the emergence of (1) a highly nationalist, aggressive, and risk-acceptant leadership in China, in the context of continued mid to high levels of economic growth accompanied by inadequate reforms, signi cant social unrest, and sharp leadership debate, (2) a greatly alarmed Japanese public willing to acquire nuclear weapons to ensure its security; and (3) a sea change in U.S. leadership attitudes or a level of domes- tic political discord that compels a rapid U.S. withdrawal, despite China’s more aggressive behavior. In terms of trajectories from the country chapters, this “Sino- Japanese Rivalry” scenario would combine the “Aggressive Ultranationalism” China trajectory, Japanese “Inde- pendence,” and a domestically focused, disorganized variant of the “Withdrawal” trajectory in the United States. Needless to say, this scenario would present an enormous potential for severe crises and escalation and thus marks the most unstable of the six scenarios. Fortunately, this scenario is also extremely unlikely, given the limited possibility that the United States would withdraw from the region in the face of high levels of Chinese assertiveness and acute Sino-Japanese security competition. Even if confronted with major economic constraints, Washington would likely go to great lengths to prevent such a scenario from unfolding. Moreover, Beijing would probably recognize the self- defeating aspects of adopting such a belliger- ent stance in the face of a withdrawal by Washington, and it would thus be more likely to respond in the manner presented in Scenario 5.

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Decreased Japanese confidence in the US commitment causes nuclearization Easton 15 (Ian, research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute. Ian holds an M.A. in China Studies from National Chengchi University in Taiwan and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “CHAPTER 7 JAPANESE STRATEGIC WEAPONS PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES: FUTURE SCENARIOS AND ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES” published by the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center on May 05 2015) http://npolicy.org/books/East_Asia/Ch7_Easton.pdf

So what do these scenarios tell us about potential Japanese strategies? U.S. Naval War College professors Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes have previously argued that “a strategy of calculated ambiguity that at once played up Japanese capacity to go nuclear and remained noncommittal on Japanese intentions of doing so would offer Tokyo its best diplomatic option should security conditions continue to decay in East Asia.”14 These scenarios agree with this assertion. Strategic ambiguity would probably have been pursued to varying degrees in at least two of the three scenarios. Especially in the second scenario – this chapter’s most daring – Japan might have initially attempted to maintain some ambiguity. The first two scenarios both paint pictures of nuclear breakout events in Japan. They emphasize the point made by Yoshihara and Holmes that “even barely perceptible signs of weakness in the U.S. nuclear posture (either perceived of real) could trigger alarm and overreaction in Japan.”15 Given Japan’s utter dependency on the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent for neutralizing strategic threats to Japan’s security, it holds that the greater the crisis of three of the scenarios. In the first scenario, these capabilities are limited to a small number of low-yield nuclear bombs intended for delivery by F- 2s and future F-35/F-3 strike fighters. Presumably, Japan also develops other forms of conventional strike capabilities in this scenario, but these are not discussed and probably would not be significant compared to its nuclear bombs. Scenario one assumes that Japan would only target two key cities (Beijing and Shanghai) in a fashion that holds symbols of power that the Chinese Communist Party leadership would value at risk. This is not a traditional “counter value” strategy that targets cities for the sake of threatening the wholesale slaughter of innocent people. Given the limited range of its delivery platforms and weapons – and China’s dense array of integrated air defense systems – China’s nuclear strike force is not considered as a target. The second scenario presents the reader with an unlikely “black swan” type event where Japan feels compelled to develop numerous nuclear strike capabilities. Here Japan risks a nuclear arms race with China. Given the presumed severity of Japan’s strategic situation in this scenario, it is posited that Japan would choose to invest in a large-scale program to outfit modified diesel- electric submarines with nuclear cruise missiles. The scenario also sees Japan building penetrating stealth bombers with air-launched cruise missiles. This gives Japan a two- legged nuclear deterrent. In terms of targeting, this scenario does not provide specifics. However, it suggests that Japan, as an independent nuclear power facing a rapidly growing Chinese nuclear force, would probably quickly move toward a counterforce approach. This approach might assume that China’s rigid military organizational system could have single nodes of failure, and Japan could affect paralysis-inducing strikes without targeting every Chinese strategic launch system. However, it might be assumed from this scenario that China’s own ability to target Japanese nuclear strike capabilities could quickly place Tokyo in a reactive position. This scenario could see Japan attempting to achieve strategic parity with China, but with little prospect of long- term success. The third scenario, in contrast with the first two, presents the reader with a more moderate and “realistic” alternative future for Japan. This scenario assumes that the coming two decades will not be marred by any major regional security crisis that might shatter Japan’s confidence in U.S. extended deterrence. As a result, this scenario sees Tokyo decide to forego the option of developing nuclear weapons in favor of increased investments into capabilities to ensure allied power projection from bases on Japanese territory. Japan also develops its own counterstrike capabilities alongside the U.S. in order to strengthen the alliance and maintain superiority against China at the conventional level of warfare.

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Con- Rearm- Extended Deterrence

Okinawa withdrawal undermines US extended deterrence – causes Japan nuclearization William Choong, Senior Writer at The Straits Times, January 26, 2010, “US-Japan security pact not as solid as it seems; Battle to move marines' air base in Okinawa shows fragility of long-standing alliance”, Lexis | The last two are the most pertinent. There are two interconnected dynamics here: Japanese fears of a 'Group of 2', or G-2, between Beijing and Washington, might compel it to abandon its 'three noes' nuclear position and adopt an independent nuclear deterrent. For now, at least, there is nothing to suggest that Japan would do so. But calls for it to go nuclear will grow as China and the US become increasingly tied in what one former US State Department official has called a 'mutual death grip' of shared interests. Japan's problem can be boiled down to two words: extended deterrence. For decades, Japan has depended on Washington's extended deterrence posture - a sophisticated term for saying that the country's security is guaranteed by America's nuclear umbrella. The doubt is simple: In a nuclear confrontation with a nuclear-armed state such as China, for example, would the US risk Los Angeles in order to save Tokyo? If at some point Tokyo feels that the US guarantee is no longer ironclad, it might decide to mull over other alternatives. In the battle for Okinawa in May 1945, the US and its allies fought tooth and nail to secure Okinawa as a base for the conquest of Japan. Allied victory in that war and a long-standing US-Japan alliance has secured dividends not only for Tokyo, but also the Asia-Pacific. Hopefully, the second 'battle' for Okinawa will not lead to the US exiting Japan via that island.

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Con- Rearm- Public Perception

Public perception – fear of external threats flips calculations and will reverse the current course Machida 14 [Satoshi Machida (Professor of Political Science @ University of Nebraska Kearney, Ph.D., University of Kentucky), “Who Supports Nuclear Armament in Japan? Threat Perceptions and Japan's Nuclear Armament”, Asian Journal of Political Science, Volume 22, Issue 2, May 2014, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02185377.2014.913492]

In a quickly changing environment in East Asia, it has been reported that Japan has been going through important changes. Surrounded by increasing levels of threat from its neighboring states, Japan has begun to adopt a more aggressive security policy with the growing capability of the SDF. Along with this tendency, the possibility of Japan's nuclear armament has become a focus of the debate involving both policy-makers and academics. The goal of this study has been to examine the prospect of Japan's nuclearization. I investigated this question by paying particular attention to public perceptions of nuclear armament. The statistical analysis relying on the survey data in Japan has found that people's threat perceptions powerfully determine their attitudes toward nuclear armament. Specifically, the results indicate that it is people's perceptions of China as a military threat that significantly boost their support for nuclear armament. Consistent with the security model of nuclear proliferation, this study has verified that threat perceptions powerfully shape the content of public opinion regarding nuclear weapons (Beckman, 1992: 14). These findings have important implications for the prospect of nuclear proliferation involving Japan. As of now, most scholars dismiss the possibility of Japan's nuclear armament. Hughes (2007) suggests that a variety of domestic constraints that are deeply embedded in Japan will continue to prevent Japan from pursuing the option of nuclear armament. Similarly, Yoshihara and Holmes (2009) maintain that Japan will try to secure its survival in strengthening its ties with the United States rather than attempting to develop nuclear weapons (Hughes, 2006). Under the assumption that Japan is protected by the US security guarantee, Japan's nuclear armament is unlikely. However, this does not mean that Japan will never consider the option of nuclear armament. Based on the findings from this study, we can predict that people's support for Japan's nuclear armament will grow along with increasing levels of military threat from China. As China becomes more aggressive with its growing military capability, the Japanese will be increasingly concerned about the situation. As a consequence, it is possible that Japan will eventually embrace the option of nuclear armament to counter the threat from China. As Japanese history shows, a state's path can change drastically. A state that was dictated by the fascist ideology was transformed into a ‘peaceful’ country after the end of World War II in 1945. Facing external threat, one cannot deny the possibility that Japan may turn its course once again to become a more aggressive state in the international system. Indeed, one can observe a number of changes in Japan that could drive the country toward the option of nuclear armament (Tanter, 2005). The recent debate concerning the possible revision of the Japanese constitution should be understood in this context (Japan Times, 2013).

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Con- Rearm- Impact

Japanese armament causes every impact (Proliferation, Asian stability, economy, treaty credibility, US credibility, Japan/US alliance Roberts 2013 ~{Brad, former visiting fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies of the Ministry of Defense of Japan, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy in the Obama Administration, Ph.D. in Political Science (Erasmus University Rotterdam), M.Sc. in International Relations (London School of Economics and Political Science), B.A. in International Relations (Stanford University), Director designate at the Center for Global Security Research (Livermore National Laboratory), "Extended Deterrence and Strategic Stability in Northeast Asia," NIDS Visiting Scholar Paper Series, No.1, 8/9, http://www.nids.go.jp/english/publication/visiting/pdf/01.pdf}

A final model is sometimes proposed by Japanese politicians and pundits: a nuclear-armed Japan. This is not a model of extended U.S. deterrence. The case is sometimes made that perhaps Japan could arm itself and join Britain and France as a nuclear-armed ally of the United States. It is difficult to imagine how this step might be taken in the current security environment. Britain and France became nuclear weapon states before the NPT; for Japan to do so now would require NPT withdrawal, with significant political and economic consequences. Moreover, Japan’s decision to seek an independent nuclear deterrent would presumably reflect profound lack of confidence in U.S. credibility; it is difficult to see how or why the U.S.-Japan alliance would survive a Japanese decision to acquire nuclear weapons. And of course Britain and France were able to acquire nuclear weapons without generating significantly adverse reactions among their immediate neighbors in Europe, whereas Japan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would likely generate significantly adverse reactions in Asia.

Japan prolif sparks a nuclear arms race that destabilizes Asia Nikitin and Avery 2009 (Mary Beth Nikitin and Emma Chanlett-Avery, Nikitin is an Analyst in Nonproliferation for the Congressional Research Service and Chanlett-Avery is a Specialist in Asian Affairs for the CRS. “Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests” 2/19/09) http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34487.pdf

Any reconsideration and/or shift of Japan’s policy of nuclear abstention would have significant implications for U.S. policy in East Asia. In this report, an examination of the factors driving Japan’s decision-making—most prominently, the strength of the U.S. security guarantee— analyzes how the nuclear debate in Japan affects U.S. security interests in the region. Globally, Japan’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would damage the world’s most durable international non-proliferation regime. Regionally, Japan “going nuclear” could set off an arms race with China, South Korea, and Taiwan. India and/or Pakistan may then feel compelled to further expand or modernize their own nuclear weapons capabilities. Bilaterally, assuming that Japan made the decision without U.S. support, the move could indicate a lack of trust in the U.S. commitment to defend Japan. An erosion in the U.S.-Japan alliance could upset the geopolitical balance in East Asia, a shift that could strengthen China’s position as an emerging hegemonic power. All of these ramifications would likely be deeply destabilizing for the security of the Asia Pacific region and beyond.

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Con- Rearm- Impact- Democracy

Amending Article 9 would be anti-democratic as well as potentially dangerous as Japan would be building its military back up at a time when it refuses to acknowledge past wrongs Gesner and Brignone 2015 (Jared and Michelle, “Shinzo Abe and the Japanese Constitution” http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/shinzo-abe-and-the-japanese-constitution/ July 2015)

Domestic opponents of the legislation, who include more than 10,000 scholars, insist the bills are unconstitutional. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is clear: “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes . . . land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Furthermore, Article 96 dictates that amendments to the Constitution must pass a two-thirds majority in each house before being ratified by a majority of the people, a process that Abe knows would surely fail as 61 percent of the Japanese public oppose the changes that he is making. In addition, serious concerns have also been raised about the vagueness of the adopted provisions, which opponents argue would give the current and future government too much leeway to interpret when and where troops might be deployed in an offensive capacity. Given Japan’s history, there is wisdom in the views of the Japanese public. The last time Japan deployed its military on foreign soil, it seized, annexed, and invaded its way across southeast Asia, acquiring natural resources and great wealth. The Japanese military, under the direction of the government, murdered between three and ten million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese. It committed human-rights atrocities across the entire Asian theater, including the sexual slavery of tens to hundreds of thousands of women, and the indescribable horrors of Unit 731 in Harbin, Manchukuo, where Japanese scientists conducted dissections and other unspeakable experiments on live prisoners. These atrocities are well documented, yet, unlike Germany, which has worked to learn from and make recompense for the sins of its past, the modern Japanese government refuses to admit to, apologize for, teach, or learn from these events.

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Con- Rearm- AT: Technical Barriers

No technical barriers to Japanese nuclearization—energy and space programs could quickly be converted to weapons manufacturing Joseph Circione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 2000 “The Asian Nuclear Reaction Chain”, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/Ning/archive/archive/118/asiannuclear.pdf]

Japan has powerful reasons for remaining a non-nuclear-weapon state, and it is unlikely to act precipitously. However, the primary barriers to a Japanese nuclear-weapon program are political and psychological, not technical. If the political dynamics in Asia continue to shift, Japan could move quickly. Japan's plutonium-based nuclear-energy infrastructure has produced a large stockpile of plutonium that could be utilized in a rapid nuclear buildup. Through plutonium reprocessing contracts with Great Britain and France, Japan had acquired approximately 24.1 metric tons of separated, reactor-grade plutonium as of 1997. It has been estimated that 7 kilograms of reactor-grade plutonium are necessary to build an explosive device of about 20 kilotons (as a point of reference, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima exploded with the force of about 15 kilotons). An advanced warhead design--well within reach of Japan's technical abilities--could reduce the amount to 4 kilograms or less. Japan's sophisticated space-launch vehicles could quickly be converted into ballistic missiles. Its M-5 rocket compares roughly in thrust and payload capacity with the intercontinental MX Peacekeeper of the U.S. arsenal. Technical failures recently forced Japan to abandon its $4 billion H-2 space-launcher program, but it is now proceeding with the H-2A, which has a more advanced engine and more power than its predecessors.

Japan already has tools for weapons production Brad Roberts, Fellow at the Institute for Defense Analyses, Aug 2001, East Asia’s Nuclear Future: A Long-Term View of Threat Reduction, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2001/final.doc]

The lack of full consensus on Japan’s non-nuclear status may have been reflected in its tardiness in signing the NPT (it was one of the last important states to do so when the treaty originally opened for signature), its delay of six years in ratifying the treaty, and its original reluctance to embrace unconditional and indefinite extension of the NPT in the lead-up to the review and extension conference in 1995. To be sure, Japan’s attitude toward the NPT has a great deal to do with the extensive commercial burdens it carries under IAEA safeguards (nearly one in four IAEA inspection hours is spent in Japan). Moreover, Tokyo became a strong supporter of NPT extension well before the conference itself. But to a certain extent, Japan’s hesitations on the NPT reflected concerns about the treaty’s efficacy in ensuring that the number and identity of nuclear weapon states would remain unchanged—a strong Japanese desire. From a purely technical point of view, Japan is today the preeminent model of a state with a virtual weapons production capability.8 It has a substantial nuclear energy sector generating a growing stockpile of plutonium (under full safeguards).9 It also possesses the requisite engineering and scientific expertise to quickly assemble a nuclear arsenal.10 And it has advanced missile systems and satellites in production for commercial purposes.

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Con- Regional Security

The bases are the best option for bilateral relations between Japan and the U.S. They are key to security in Asia. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Although challenging, the current security challenges facing Japan can—and must—be addressed. The following recommendations will ensure that the issues surrounding the U.S. Marines’ continued presence in Okinawa are resolved in a manner that strengthens Japan, the U.S., and the bilateral relationship between the two nations: Increase public diplomacy. The Obama Administration should increase its public diplomacy efforts to convince the Japanese and Okinawan legislators, media, and public that the U.S. military presence is critical to the security of Japan, as well as to regional stability. Washington should explain that U.S. military capabilities depend on coordinated, integrated strategies, including that of the Marine Air Ground Task Force. As such, the U.S. Marines on Okinawa are an indispensable and irreplaceable component of any U.S. response to an Asian crisis.

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Con- Security Commitments

Withdraw would cause allies to question of security commitments Auslin, Dir Japan Studies @ American Enterprise Institute; 3/23/2015 (Michael; Commentary Magazine; “Abe trip on; Okinawa base off?”; https://www.aei.org/publication/abe-trip-on-okinawa-base-off/)

The broader issue is one of America’s ability to work with allies to restructure its alliances to deal with a rising China and an erratic North Korea. Weakening part of our military posture in Asia may both sow doubt about Washington’s commitment to its allies (even when those problems have been caused by the allies themselves) as well as run the risk of emboldening our competitors and adversaries. Coral reefs and concrete runways may not capture our imagination, but they are one piece of an increasingly complex security puzzle in Asia.

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Con- Taiwan

The US needs to have easy access to Taiwan to prevent Chinese take over – Japan bases are most logical Wang 2005 (Vincent Wei-Cheng Wang The U.S.-Japanese Alliance Redefined: Implications for Security in the Taiwan Strait," Tamkang Journal of International Affairs, vol. 9, no. 2 (October 2005): 1-50, P. 36)

While none of these options would be sufficient to compel Taiwan to surrender, the report argues that U.S. military assistance must be available promptly to counteract the shock of Chinese actions before Taiwan’s will to resist begin to fade.65 This would call for the U.S. to maintain a sufficient and credible deterrent force in the region. Therefore, basing for U.S. air force is a crucial issue. As Figure 1 shows, a 500-nm-radius drawing from the center of the Taiwan Strait encompasses vast areas of ocean but very little land (outside of mainland China). In the near term, there would appear to be only two options: basing on Taiwan itself, which is politically impossible, or basing in Japan. That would leave the air bases on Okinawa the most logical option.

US bases in Japan are key protect US foreign oil imports and all trade. Wang 2005 (Vincent Wei-Cheng Wang The U.S.-Japanese Alliance Redefined: Implications for Security in the Taiwan Strait," Tamkang Journal of International Affairs, vol. 9, no. 2 (October 2005): 1-50, P. 36)

The aircraft carrier and spy plane missions are only the most prominent examples offering a glimpse into the future of Okinawa’s and U.S.-Japanese security alliance’s roles in regional security. There are other numerous daily mundane and uneventful missions involving American troops in Okinawa, such as scheduled ship patrols and logistic supplies. After all, Okinawa are a short distance away from Taiwan and Japan has an enormous stake in the Taiwan Strait – the channel through which most of its oil imported from the Middle East passes through and the market of two of its important trade partners.

The US-Japanese relations are key to Taiwanese independence Osius 2002- [Ted, U.S Foreign Service officer, The U.S- Japan Security Alliance: Why it Matters and How to Strengthen It, 2002, p. 23]

Although far from identical, U.S and Japanese interests regarding Taiwan over the next 10 years overlap in such areas as (1) deterring cross strait conflict, (2) avoiding the unnecessary provocation of China, and (3) preserving Taiwan’s free-market economy. On the question of unification with China versus Taiwanese independence, both countries prefer the status quo in the near term, but recognize that it may not be sustain able in the long run. For longer term strategic reasons (the location of the island near vital sealanes), neither the United States nor Japan wants Taiwan united with a potentially hostile PRC, because access to Taiwan’s ports would enormously boost China’s efforts to establish a deep water Navy. In an interview, President Chen Shui-bian’s deputy chief of staff stressed this point, saying that Taiwan’s geographic position makes it “vital” to Japan.

U.S-Japan alliance key to Taiwanese Stability Osius 2002- [Ted, U.S Foreign Service officer, The U.S- Japan Security Alliance: Why it Matters and How to Strengthen It, 2002, p. 23]

To deter conflict, the United States discourages Taipei form declaring independence and Beijing form forcibly attempting to unite Taiwan with the mainland. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States supplies Taiwan with weapons necessary for defense against the Maitland. Given China’s size and resources, however, Taiwan cannot achieve security based solely on independent military capabilities. Taipei relies on Beijing’s fear that the Unite States would defend it in the event of a cross-straight conflict. Because the U. S forward deployed forces are in Japan, Taiwan also depends on a strong and stable U.S Japan alliance.

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Con- AT: Accelerate Relocation

It’s not possible to accelerate relocation. Marines can’t relocate MV-22 Ospreys and light attack Marine helicopters. Lt. General Wissler, Commanding General III Marine Expeditionary Force & Commander Marine Forces Japan; 4/10/2014 (John; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “Realizing the rebalance: The United States Marine Corps in Asia”; http://carnegieendowment.org/files/2014_04_10_AP_Wissler_Transcript.pdf)

If I understand, your question is do you think we can move before a facility – The new facility is completed, yeah. (Ichiro Cabassa) – is complete. The answer is no. I need a new facility to move the capabilities that are currently resident at Futenma. Now, that being said, the C-130 aircraft that are currently at Futenma will move to Iwakuni this summer. And so they will move because there is a facility at Iwakuni designed to take them. And that’s been part of our long-term plan of how we will redistribute our aviation capability from Okinawa. But to move the remainder, to remove our light attack helicopters, to remove our support aircraft and to move our MV-22s, we will have to have the replacement facility complete.

March: Okinawa Page 256

Con- AT: Asia Pivot

Asia Pivot will fail – No Clear Focus and was just re-shuffling existing troops Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) Recent US military activity in Asia has come under increased attention because of the American pivot to the region. Unfortunately, tracking the “rebalance” can be difficult because the Pentagon is not always explicit about which activities fall under the pivot. Moreover, many of the rebalance-related activities are similar to programs that were already in place as part of the military’s regular regional presence to deter and reassure. Indeed, one criticism of the rebalance is that it is too light on new policies and too heavy on repackaged existing forces and plans.

Asia Pivot is already happening – Commitments mean that this will not change Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) With those caveats, several clearly identifiable rebalancing initiatives are underway. For example, as the Navy seeks to expand its engagement in Southeast Asia, the USS Fort Worth deployed to Singapore in the fall. The Fort Worth, home- ported in San Diego, California, is the second Littoral Combat Ship to rotationally deploy to Singapore.34 The Navy’s eventual plan is to forward-deploy four of these ships on a rotational basis to augment US forces in the region. The Navy is deploying MQ-8B Fire Scout surveillance helicopters on the USS Fort Worth, marking the first time it has used unmanned helicopters in the Pacific.35 More broadly, as part of the Navy’s plan to increase its regional presence in Asia, it announced in August 2014 details of a five-year navigation plan that will increase its forward presence in the region to 120 by the year 2020, an increase of 23 ships from the 2014 average.36 Part of this increased presence will include a fourth attack submarine forward-deployed in Guam. Guam was the center of attention in November 2013 after China declared a controversial Air Defense Identification Zone over the contested waters of the East China Sea, with two B-52s flying out of Guam transiting the zone in protest.37 Another component of the pivot is the administration’s plan to establish four Marine Air-Ground Task Forces (MAGTFs) to operate throughout the Pacific.38 Based out of Japan, Australia, Guam, and Hawaii, these will allow the Pentagon to respond to crises and conduct regular engagements from geographically diverse areas. The four task forces are not an entirely new addition to the region, however. They were enabled in large part by the reduction of about 9,000 Marines from Okinawa, with roughly 7,000 Marines to be spread across Hawaii, Guam, and Australia.39 In many ways, the MAGTFs are emblematic of the potential of the as-of-yet-unmet promises of President Obama’s pivot. Although distributed MAGTFs are an important tool to head off catastrophes and conduct engagement operations, the fact that they were created by reshuffling forces throughout the region—and not by a substantial new influx of forces—suggests budgetary limitations are constraining a larger military buildup.

March: Okinawa Page 257

Pro- AT: Asia Pivot

Asia-Pivot is happening now – Thailand, Malaysia, RIPAC Eaglen 2015 (Mackenzie- resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at AEI, works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness, “US MILITARY FORCE SIZING FOR BOTH WAR AND PEACE”, March 2015 , https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/US-Miltary-Force- Sizing-for-Both-War-and-Peace.pdf, American Enterprise Institute) Also as part of America’s rebalance to Asia, forces based in the United States periodically rotate to South Korea to strengthen the American presence on the peninsula, especially during periods of heightened tensions. Last February, for instance, about 800 soldiers from the Fort Hood–based 1st Cavalry Division deployed to Korea as part of a nine-month rotation.45 As they returned to the US in September, they left their equipment in Korea for use by future units that rotate through.46 Beyond the pivot, yet still crucial to US strategy in the region, about 240 American troops from Pacific Command are deployed in Thailand.47 The Joint US Military Advisory Group in Thailand oversees a bilateral exercise program that averages over 40 military drills per year and helps facilitate military education, humanitarian relief, and demining programs.48 Thailand hosts Cobra Gold, Southeast Asia’s largest multinational and multiservice exercise. The 2014 installment included the 4,000 troops from the US—including many from units forward-deployed in Japan—as well as forces from Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia. The exercise focuses on promoting interoperability and building partner capacity.49 Although this year’s iteration will be scaled down because of concerns surrounding the political situation in Thailand, the importance of the exercise to American strategy in Southeast Asia means that it is likely to continue despite these humanitarian concerns.50 Nearby, in Malaysia, F-22 stealth fighters from Hawaii joined F-15s from the Massachusetts Air National Guard, as well as airlift squadrons from Japan, Hawaii, and Alaska, for Exercise Cope Taufan, conducted over two weeks in June by Pacific Air Forces with the Royal Malaysian Air Force.51 Over the course of the exercise, units practiced combat missions and worked to enhance interoperability between the two air forces. Moreover, the USS Fort Worth, freshly arrived in Singapore for its 16-month deployment, and the USS Sampson, home-ported in San Diego and on deployment in the Pacific, recently assisted the Indonesian government in the search for AirAsia Flight 8501.52 In one of its most important activities last year, the US Navy’s Pacific Fleet hosted the world’s largest multinational naval exercise, Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), from late June through the beginning of August. As the US Pacific Fleet Command describes, RIMPAC 2014 featured 22 nations, “49 surface ships, 6 submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 personnel,” and helped expand military-to-military relationships in the Pacific while forging interoperability with partner fleets.53 For the first time in 2014, China participated in the multinational exercise.

March: Okinawa Page 258

Con- AT: China

China would never initiate a US-Sino conflict – posture of minimal deterrence Zbigniew Brzezinski- national security affairs advisor to the Carter administration - 2/05 (“Make Money, Not War,” Foreign Policy, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2740)

There will be inevitable frictions as China’s regional role increases and as a Chinese “sphere of influence” develops. U.S. power may recede gradually in the coming years, and the unavoidable decline in Japan’s influence will heighten the sense of China’s regional preeminence. But to have a real collision, China needs a military that is capable of going toe-to-toe with the United States. At the strategic level, China maintains a posture of minimum deterrence. Forty years after acquiring nuclear-weapons technology, China has just 24 ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States. Even beyond the realm of strategic warfare, a country must have the capacity to attain its political objectives before it will engage in limited war. It is hard to envisage how China could promote its objectives when it is acutely vulnerable to a blockade and isolation enforced by the United States. In a conflict, Chinese maritime trade would stop entirely. The flow of oil would cease, and the Chinese economy would be paralyzed.

March: Okinawa Page 259

Con- AT: China- Containment Bad

US military forces in the Pacific are focused on deterrence not containment—-prevents Chinese aggression without provoking them Shaohan Lin 15, MA student in War Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, Graduate Research Assistant at Calian, "After the Pivot to the Asia-Pacific: Now what?" Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, VOLUME 16, ISSUE 2, 2015, http://w.jmss.org/jmss/index.php/jmss/article/download/597/577

The last tool of statecraft employed in the pivot is deterrence via alliance building and joint military exercises. While diplomatic exhortations and economic challenges are to transform unwanted behaviour to rule-based conduct, deterrence draws a line at Chinese belligerence. It is by no mean a constructive approach to China’s rise. Rather, it is a latent threat that serves to preserve regional security through reinforced US military presence that can quickly take compellence acts if China goes overboard in its unilateral schemes. Deterrence is the ace in the hole in Sino-US relations; China can, to a certain extent, scoff at multilateral binds and shrug off economic initiatives, but it cannot ignore the stick at the US’ disposal. Unfortunately for the US, the balance of power is not completely tilted in its favour. As commonly stated, the US risks massive economic repercussions and lethal military responses, should China feels threatened. For China, there is nothing more threatening than military projection in the Asia-Pacific. Therefore, the “hedge” is emphatically pronounced in deterrence, as demonstrated by the delicate, low-intensity military deployments in the region. As previously mentioned, the US has garrisoned troops in Darwin, Australia, and their number is projected to increase to 2,500 by 2016.54 Then again, Australia is hardly part of the Asia-Pacific region. Military bases in South Korea and Japan notwithstanding, the US has not put troops on any new soil closer to China. Deterrence has mainly taken the guise of joint military exercises and military aid with allied Asian- Pacific states and those that enjoy a security partnership with the US. Prominent military exercises include Cobra Gold and Balikatan. Traditionally annual bilateral events between the US and a Southeast Asian ally, these exercises have significantly expanded to include multiple states in the region at a time consistent with the pivot. With respect to the South China Sea dispute, the US has offered military aid to the claimants challenging China. Since 2011, the US has continuously supplied hardware and intelligence to the Philippines.55 American ships have also visited Filipino ports on a regular basis. As well, the US signed a memorandum of understanding on defense cooperation in 2011, which was a breakthrough in US-Vietnamese relations since the US had always rejected closer defense ties with this state.56 Joint naval training was conducted as well. In addition to traditional allies in the region, even Cambodia was included in the US-led Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training exercise in 2010.57 The latest expansion of military exercises and military aid, while indicative of a response to China’s truculent rise, does not necessarily threaten it. The balance of power in Asia-Pacific has changed little. US-led military activities certainly display intent – displeasure towards China and readiness to confront it if need be – but not the material resolve to structurally alter Chinese strategic calculus. To be sure, installing new military bases on China’s periphery would create a much greater impact on China’s decision-making than spectacles featuring combat vessels and sailors. In short, the American delicate military measures warned China, but have yet to plunge Asia-Pacific in security crises. Sino-US relations have not deteriorated to an irreversible point and the door is open for both parties to cool off existing tensions between them. A strictly military example of working Sino-US relations is China’s participation in Exercise RIMPAC in summer 2014. Due to low-cost military activities and the inclusion of China in military exercises, the deterrence dimension of the pivot cannot be taken more than “hedging,” and must not be mistaken for containment or balancing.

March: Okinawa Page 260

Con- AT: Cyber War

March: Okinawa Page 261

Con- AT: Environment

Tourism, logging, construction and fishing all collapse the Okinawan environment—-Henoko is not key Mick Corliss 2000, Japan Times, "Fears for Okinawa's unique ecosystem," Jul 20 2000, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2000/07/20/environment/fears-for- okinawas-unique-ecosystem/#.VtM2bMfww9c

Okinawa accounts for a meager 0.6 percent of Japan’s soil but is host to an unusual amount of its flora and fauna, including many endemic species found nowhere else. While its beaches, coral reefs and nature have achieved notoriety, the island is also becoming a popular destination for tourism, especially ecotourism. However, experts are worried about the prefecture’s environmental prospects. Coral experts say they have seen most of Okinawa’s reefs disappear in the past 25 years and are striving to protect those that remain. Naturalists and conservation groups say the Yambaru area, home to many unique species, is also in need of protection. Also nationally unique and at risk for Okinawa is the dugong. This mysterious seaside denizen is a gentle, elongated sea mammal related to the manatee. Dugongs live in shallow waters and feed on sea grass. Okinawa is struggling to achieve economic strength on par with the mainland, but the pressures of increased tourism are taking a toll on the Yambaru forests, coral reefs and the dugongs. Logging and development in Yambaru, construction projects along the coasts and military facilities and fishing nets are all posing various threats.

March: Okinawa Page 262

Con- AT: Environment- Dugongs

Okinawans kill more manatees than the bases do by building their own commercial facilities on coral reefs. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

Tokyo hoped to allay Okinawan concerns by altering the construction method at the planned relocation site to address environmental concerns. Protesters have complained that the replacement facility would harm the habitat of the dugong (manatee) and that building on coral would destroy a pristine bay. These complaints are groundless. Local Okinawans say they have not seen a dugong—which is a migratory animal—in Henoko Bay for three generations. Nor is the bay as unique or irreplaceable as depicted; Okinawan civilian construction firms continue to build extensively on offshore coral locations throughout Okinawa.[29] Unsurprisingly, these proposed alterations have done little to allay Okinawan objections, however, as the purported environmental issues are simply another means of combating the U.S. redeployment plan.

Manatees kill themselves by over-grazing; the impact is not unique --Manatee Observation and Education Center 2102. (“Manatee Ecology” http://www.manateecenter.com/index.php/manatee-ecology 2012)

Manatees may impact habitats that they feed in, especially sea grass beds. Studies done by Lefebvre and Provancha found that manatees normally feed on the edges of sparse seagrass beds, and that they returned to formerly-grazed areas to feed from year to year. It is thought that manatees return to these grazed beds because seagrasses that have been "mowed" have more nutritional value and protein. Repeated cropping of seagrasses by manatees, although not substantiated in any study to date, may cause damage to seagrass meadows if large numbers of manatees converge on a site where seagrass is the primary food source.

March: Okinawa Page 263

Con- AT: Japan Alliance

Senkaku tensions mean Japan will prioritize security over Okinawan backlash H.D.P. Envall 8/26/2015, Research Fellow at the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, and Kerri Ng, PhD Candidate at the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, "Will regional tensions shift the deadlock on Okinawa's military bases?"

Okinawa’s significance lies in its geography. It is an obvious location for a rapid deployment of forces in response to clashes around the disputed islands. This is reflected in recent changes in US and Japanese strategic thinking. Japanese strategic doctrine, for example, now highlights the need to be able to respond rapidly to ‘grey zone’, or low-level, disputes in the area. Okinawa, then, is firmly in the minds of strategic thinkers. The deployment of the MV-22 Osprey vertical take-off and landing aircraft to Okinawa improves response capabilities. Recent reports also suggest that plans are well underway for further, more substantial deployments of Japanese forces to Okinawa. In the newly-released Guidelines for US–Japan Defense Cooperation, the US and Japan ‘reaffirmed’ that the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands are ‘within the scope’ of the security treaty. At the same time, during Abe’s US trip in late April the two governments confirmed their ‘unwavering commitment’ to the Henoko plan. This indicates that although Onaga has warned that Futenma’s relocation will be impossible without Okinawan consent, regional insecurity is actually making Japan and the US more willing to endure local protests: the political costs of creating further discontent in Okinawa are now outweighed by the consequences of failing to stand up to China.

There's zero political will to reduce alliance cooperation—-Hatoyama proves Jennifer Lind 12, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Research Associate at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University, Fellow of the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future, Interviewed by Laura Araki "Okinawa and the Future of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance," May 11 2012, http://www.nbr.org/research/activity.aspx?id=249

The alliance with the United States serves Japan very well. It permits Japan’s low level of defense spending—the lowest such level (below 1% of GDP) of any great power. The alliance defends Japan from North Korea and serves as an insurance policy against a potentially dangerous China. The alliance dampens regional arms racing that might occur if Japan increased its military expenditure and participation. Furthermore, in Operation Tomodachi, the alliance came to Japan’s aid when disaster struck. A potential cost of the alliance might be entrapment (which the Japanese have understandably worried about since the 1950s). Yet the alliance has not entrapped Japan—in America’s many military adventures, Washington has accepted either little or no Japanese participation. Of course, Japan bears other costs associated with the alliance. I earlier mentioned the very real ones borne by Okinawans and others. But if I were a Japanese policymaker I’d think, let’s not mess this up. Indeed, not even the momentous changes we’ve seen in the past few years in Japanese domestic politics have led to a meaningful strategic debate. As we can see from the Democratic Party of Japan’s (DPJ) emphatic ouster of Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ isn’t offering the Japanese an alternative grand strategic vision, nor is any other mainstream leader or group. Why? Because—relative to the alternatives—Japan’s got a good thing going, and the Japanese know it. Similarly in the United States, there are no mainstream leaders questioning America’s prevailing grand strategy of “primacy” or “global leadership”; Washington is showing more, not less, interest in East Asia. Given the strategic debate in both countries, both sides are likely to value each other more, not less.

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Con- AT: Japan Alliance

U.S.-Japan Alliance is set in stone, 50 years of experience and multilateral organizations prove IIPS, Institute for International Policy Studies, is a policy research organization founded on June 28, 1988 for the purpose of closely studying important topics facing the international community from an independent perspective, and issuing creative and constructive recommendations, in both domestic and international spheres, 2009 “A New Phase in the Japan-U.S. Alliance,” September, accessed on 7-6-10)

In comparison with the twentieth century, present-day Japan and the USA enjoy a number of advantages. On the other hand, however, they are facing challenges of a greater magnitude. One advantage is that Japan and the USA are able to tackle this crisis from the firm foundation of an alliance with a history of over fifty years that dates back to the end of World War Two. This represents an enormous asset. Over the course of half a century’s historical experience with their alliance, Japan and the USA have cultivated bilateral systems and conventions for smoothing over differences in views and interests, and reconciling policy in various fields, including economics, finance, politics, diplomacy, and military affairs. Moreover, this bilateral Japan–US relationship is also embedded in various larger-scale multilateral organizations. Naturally, the United Nations and its associated organizations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), are flawed in many respects and in need of reform, but compared to how they were in the last century, they are making progress. The role of the G8 (based on Japan, the USA, and Europe) can no longer be ignored—notwithstanding the rise of the emerging nations. In the security domain, NATO and the Japan–US alliance, which were established during the Cold War period, still continue to function in solid fashion. It could be said that these alliance relationships are in need of reform to bring them into line with the conditions of the post-Cold War era. However, we are in a far better position than our ancestors were in the period between the two world wars (the 1920s and 1930s), which was wracked by tremendous upheaval—and which was devoid of any comparable stable and sustainable institutional framework.

Alliance sustainable and resilient – Futenma doesn’t break it Youngshik 2013 (Bong Youngshik, Ph.D. in International Relations and Comparative Politics in East Asia @ University of Pennsylvania, Assistant Professor @ the American University, School of International Studies & T.J. Pempel, Ph.D. in International Relations and Comparative Politics in East Asia @ Columbia University, Professor of Political Science @ Berkeley, “Japan in Crisis: What Will It Take for Japan to Rise Again?” 19 September 2013)

Focusing specifically on the alliance and the broader US-Japan relationship, the state of the relationship does not look particularly weak, even if there is a lack of commitment and energy by both political leaders. For all of the problems related to Futenma, if the alliance is analyzed from its narrow definition as a specific set of security obligations, there appears to have been steady movement over the past decade or more. If one compares where the alliance is today to where it was in 1995 or even 2000, one immediately notices some dramatic developments and improvements. Perhaps most important is the burgeoning relationship in ballistic missile defense (BMD), in which Japan and the United States have conducted numerous tests together while actively fielding an increasingly capable BMD capability through Aegis ships and groundbased interceptors. Beyond this, the movement to co-locate air defense headquarters is moving forward, and during the Bush years there was regular discussion between the US Navy and the Maritime Self-Defense Forces about the Proliferation Security Initiative and rebuilding both countries’ anti-submarine warfare capability. Given that, it is legitimate to ask why the Futenma issue has taken as long as it has to be resolved, why it became such a touchstone in the way that it did, why there was such political mishandling of the issue on the part of Hatoyama, along with mixed signals from the Americans, and the like. All these questions go to the core of high-level political management of the alliance, and the answers to them may help indicate the degree to which the alliance will be able to function smoothly in the future. Most analysts believe it is fair to say that the Futenma issue has damaged the working relationship between Tokyo and Washington. At the same time, the two countries seemed to recognize the seriousness of the situation, even if they could not solve it, and both decided ultimately to act responsibly and soberly in trying to keep Futenma from poisoning the broader relationship. There was no threat to cut off relations, and senior American and Japanese officials continued to go back and forth across the Pacific regularly. The April 2012 agreement to “delink” Futenma from the move of 9,000 US Marines off Okinawa showed that the two allies could successfully move beyond such obstacles, even if it took several years to do so. While doubt still remains over whether Futenma will ever be moved to Henoko, the rest of the 2006 realignment agreement is poised to move forward.

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Con- AT: Japan Alliance

The media systematically exaggerates the chance of alliance collapse David Leheny 13, Henry Wendt III '55 Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton, "Sibling Rivalry? Domestic Politics and the US-Japan Alliance," Ch 6 in The Troubled Triangle, available at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:- vFbMpAmOcwJ:www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/view/10.1057/9781137316851.0010+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

For an institution as storied as the US-Japan alliance—one that emanated from the wreckage of World War II, became the defining feature of the Cold War in East Asia, and has in some views grown to maturity since the 1990s—it is interesting to note how often it seems to be in crisis. At its real inception in 1960, protests in Tokyo surrounded the Diet Building and provoked a massive backlash by Tokyo’s riot police and the subsequent collapse of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi’s government. Left-wing activists continued to decry it loudly, particularly through the years of the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, the burgeoning confidence of the Japanese Right, especially embodied in the novelist and politician Shintaro Ishihara, added prominent conservative voices to the mix. By the 1990s, Shunya Ito’s highly popular film Pride: Unmei no Toki (Pride: The Moment of Fate) could aim to restore the obviously tarnished reputation of wartime prime minister Hideki Tojo largely by painting the US occupation as a nearly criminal conspiracy bent on distorting history to secure his conviction at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. 27 Combined with reports of crimes by American servicemen and highly publicized trade disputes, the United States could appear as something of a bogeyman in a variety of mostly independent Japanese circles. Whether with the publication of the Japan That Can Say No (by Ishihara and Sony chairman Akio Morita), the 1995 rape, or the 2009 Futenma dispute, the US-Japan alliance seems to be in a state of continual crisis, at least in myriad media reports./ These reports of crisis are almost invariably overblown; the key diplomatic and military actors in each government are committed to maintaining the alliance, and a sudden departure of American troops from Japan seems as unlikely as a Japanese request for them to leave. Positioning oneself as an opponent of the alliance guarantees virtually that one will be able to publish an article from time to time mostly in leftist outlets like Sekai in Japan or the Nation in the United States. In more polite company, the gripes about the alliance have to be kept to the level of the mundane: Japanese claims (frequent in major journals like Bungei Shunju and Chuo Koron) that the United States never listens to Japan and American judgments (less frequent, but still predictable in Foreign Affairs and the Washington Post) that Japanese leaders should understand that US preferences are in their best interest as well. The US-Japan alliance may not be as American as apple pie (or Japanese as onigiri), but it is virtually impossible to shake to its core— voluble protests or violated children notwithstanding./ These crises, then, are never really threats to the alliance, but may still be instructive, both in their rhetorics and resolutions. In the alliance’s early days, with the United States facing a Soviet Union armed not only with nuclear weapons but also alarming rocket technology, it is perhaps understandable that Americans would have seen protests against the security treaty as, in essence, the work of a communist conspiracy. Without noting Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi’s partici pation in the wartime regime, for which he served as an industrial policymaker in occupied Manchuria, the New York Times repeated his insistence that the 1960 riots that forced the cancellation of President Eisenhower’s Tokyo trip were the result of overly restrictive regulations on the police as well as their reluctance to use force against student participants. 28 And famed New York Times columnist Arthur Krock, 29 while considering the possibility that Japan’s relatively recent experience of atomic bombings might have shaped participation in the protests, placed their organizers squarely alongside a worldwide communist conspiracy. That is, Kishi—a highly controversial figure in Japan, and one who had been jailed but not tried as a Class A war criminal by the US occupation—could be largely presented as having relatively straightforward, pro-American motives, while opposition was subsumed within a larger anti- American, procommunist conspiracy. And the relevant context for the protests is understood as the Cold War, with which American journalists and policymakers would be primarily concerned, rather than either the continuity Kishi represented to many of the Left with the wartime regime, or to the betrayal that many felt when the US occupation purged communists and deeply constrained organizing by the Socialists. It is interesting that even Krock describes the police as having been unfortunately powerless to stop the riots because of Japan’s “new ‘democratic’ law.” 30

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Con- AT: Japan Politics- Global Movements/Environment

Western environmental activism against bases in Okinawa cripple economic development. Anti-base movements must move from the global to the local. Rabson, Prof East Asia Studies @ Brown; 2/20/2012 (Steve; Asia-Pacific Journal; Vol. 10, Iss. 4, No. 2; “Henoko and the US Military: A history of dependence and resistance”; http://fpif.org/henoko_and_the_us_military_a_history_of_dependence_and_resistance/)

Thirty-two- year-old Kushi resident Tawada Shin’ya commented, “Camp Schwab gives hiring preferences to local people. Groups opposing the base come here from outside the prefecture and raise a ruckus about protecting the bay where they’ve never gone swimming or fishing.”46 The focus of outsiders on environmental issues has particularly angered base supporters. In response to an environmental group’s slogan “Save the Dugong,” (a rare ocean mammal),” one Henoko resident asked, “Are the lives of dugongs more important than ours? Without jobs we can’t live.”47 Seeking to minimize criticism from pro-base residents that outsiders with their own agendas had hijacked the movement, the Society for the Protection of Life began requiring visitors from outside Okinawa to receive permission before entering the “struggle hut.” Society leaders even told their members not to speak publicly about such issues as the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty they deemed “too political” in an attempt to refocus the Henoko anti-base movement from the global to the local.48 They hardly needed to speak themselves to these issues, however, since widening international opposition, including a successful environmental lawsuit against construction of the base filed in U.S. federal court, was bringing added pressure on the Japanese government.

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Con- AT: Japan Politics- Japanese Opposition

Japanese support for US troops in Okinawa increasing because of threats in East and South China Seas. Seiji, Prof Law Seiki Univ; 6/19/2015 (Endo; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A Historical Perspective on the US Military Presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

Should the international and security environment in which Japan finds itself improve, there may emerge some room for calm discussion on the importance of the bases in Okinawa, leading to greater options about reducing the prefecture’s burden. But given the rising tensions in the South China Sea and, to a now somewhat lesser degree, in the East China Sea around the Senkakus, the importance of the bases in Okinawa viewed not only from the mainland but also from the United States is bound to grow. In such a context, Okinawans are going to find it very difficult to win sympathizers for a reduced US presence in Northeast Asia and, specifically, in their prefecture. Mainland policy debate, in particular, is increasingly focused on the need to step up Japan’s security, which is invariably premised on the continued presence of US forces in Okinawa. Purely from a military perspective, though, there’s room for debate on whether those bases have to be in Okinawa in order to deter Chinese aggressions. But most government officials and others on the mainland mechanically link the need for deterrence with a continued strong US military presence in Okinawa, without making any attempt to examine other alternatives.

Okinawan media is biased against the U.S. The rest of Japan appreciates the bases in Okinawa because of their disaster relief capabilities. The bases are more politically popular than the media portrays them to be. Kligner 2011. (Bruce. specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center. “Top 10 Reasons Why the U.S. Marines on Okinawa Are Essential to Peace and Security in the Pacific.” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/06/top-10-reasons-why-the-us-marines-on-okinawa-are-essential-to-peace- and-security-in-the-pacific. June 14, 2011)

U.S. disaster relief operations generated considerable goodwill in Japan, including on Okinawa. Okinawans now realize what the Marines were training for when conducting HADR operations elsewhere in Asia. Yet Okinawan media refused to publish articles or photos of U.S. Marines from Okinawa conducting humanitarian assistance operations in Japan. In fact, some Japanese media outlets went so far as to criticize the Marines’ relief work. For example, the Ryukyu Shinpo criticized the U.S. Marine humanitarian assistance as a “tool for political manipulation [and an attempt] to gain the support of the Japanese people to keep the FRF within Okinawa.” The Shinpo editorialized that the U.S. statements highlighting the benefits of having the Marines available to assist Japan was “very discomforting” and “tricks.” The Okinawan Times chimed in as well, posturing that the U.S. was using the disaster as a “political tool [to] manipulate our political decision-making…. [I]t is something we cannot allow.”[27]

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Con- AT: Japan Politics- Okinawan Opposition

Recent re-election win for Ginowan Mayor is a significant victory for Tokyo- proves Okinawans support Henoko relocation. Pollmann, The Diplomat; 1/26/2016 (Mina; “Supporters of Okinawa base relocation plan claim for a win in local elections”; http://thediplomat.com/2016/01/supporters-of-okinawa-base-relocation-plan-claim-a-win-in-local-elections/)

Sunday’s mayoral election in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture will reverberate far beyond the local level, impacting national politics and even the U.S.-Japan alliance. The incumbent, Atsushi Sakima, defeated rookie challenger, Keiichiro Shimura, for a second four-year term – and clinched Tokyo’s victory in what Kyodo News called a “proxy battle between the central and prefectural governments.” At stake is the Futenma relocation plan, which would move the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station from crowded Ginowan to the Henoko area of Nago. The relocation is important for the maintenance of the U.S.- Japan alliance, but fiercely opposed by Okinawans because of the unfair burden that the U.S. bases place on the prefecture, especially relative to the rest of Japan. Starting with Susumu Inamine’s victory in the January 2014 Nago mayoral election and Takeshi Onaga’s victory in the November 2014 Okinawa gubernatorial election, candidates backed by the ruling bloc and central government have suffered a series of defeats at the local level at the hands of politicians running in opposition to the Henoko relocation plan. Okinawans are not opposed to the idea of moving the Futenma air base from Ginowan per se – after all, the base’s close proximity to a residential center is a dangerous nuisance for the locals – but they want the base to be relocated outside of Okinawa all together. Tokyo welcomed Sakima’s win, of course, and central government officials hope that this will reverse some of the recent political setbacks in the prefecture. This victory is also considered key to building momentum for the Futenma base relocation. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe characterized Sakima’s victory as “significant.”

Compensation politics make anti-base opposition inevitable Stacie L. Pettyjohn 2012, Ph.D. and M.A. in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, political scientist at the RAND Corporation, and Alan J. Vick, senior political scientist at RAND, Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Irvine, "Okinawa Remains an Intractable Thorn for US and Japan," May 25 2012, http://www.rand.org/blog/2012/05/okinawa-remains-an-intractable-thorn-for-us-and-japan.html

Because Okinawa hosts nearly three-fourths of the American military forces stationed in Japan, Tokyo provides significant financial compensation to Okinawans, including hardship subsidies, federally funded public works projects, and vastly inflated rents to individuals who own the land where US bases are located. While these payments have tempered Okinawan opposition, they have paradoxically ensured that any efforts to realign the US basing posture on the island will be extremely difficult. Any major adjustment to American bases on Okinawa will encounter significant resistance on the part of entrenched local interests that will suffer financial losses if facilities are relocated. For example, landowners at Futenma strongly oppose any move because they will lose the artificially high rents. Despite this "pro base" constituency, general opposition to the American military presence is likely to persist because the local government has an incentive to emphasize the negative impact of American bases to obtain larger payoffs from Tokyo. Given these considerations, the withdrawal of 9,000 Marines will not overcome the difficulties associated with Futenma, nor will it solve the enduring problem of anti-base sentiment on the island. Those who believe the presence of Marines is the primary source of Okinawan discontent overlook both earlier protests against other US military activities and the fact that Okinawan opposition is fueled in part by financial calculations. As long as there is a US military presence on Okinawa, and as long as Tokyo buys the acquiescence of the local population, Naha is likely to continue to object to American bases. The relocation of the Marines is a first step toward a more sustainable US military presence in the Asia-Pacific. Yet policymakers in Washington and Tokyo should not expect this move to eliminate or even significantly reduce an enduring source of tension in US-Japanese relations.

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Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable

Transfer now, not withdrawal. Hara, Dir East Asian Studies @ Renison Univ College; 7/13/2015 (Kimie; Asia-Pacific Journal; Volume 13, Issue 28, Number 2; “Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in United States–Japan–China Relations”; http://apjjf.org/2015/13/28/Kimie- Hara/4341.html#sthash.J3TRYzsu.dpuf)

The issue of US bases after the Okinawa reversion experienced a major turning point in the 1990s and in late 2000s. With the collapse of the Yalta System and the demise of the USSR and the advent of the so-called “post–Cold War” era, the necessity of keeping US bases in Okinawa began to be questioned by many in the US media and politics (Johnson and Keen 1995, pp. 103–14). The “Okinawa problem” developed into a hot issue in Japan in 1995, after a schoolgirl was raped by three US military personnel. However, due to cooperative efforts between the US and Japanese governments, the issue of “withdrawal” (tettai) was somehow replaced by “transfer” (iten).

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Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Turn

Withdraw emboldens the anti-base movement—-forces a total withdrawal from Okinawa Jonathan M. Volkle 2012, Lieutenant, United States Navy, MA Thesis in Security Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School, citing interviews with Dr. Robert Eldridge, Public Affairs Official USMC Okinawa, former Associate Professor at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, and Major Christopher Anderson, USAF, "COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BASE COMMUNITY RELATIONS IN JAPAN," Dec 2012, http://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/27916/12Dec_Volkle_Jonathan.pdf?sequence=1

As for what to do about Futenma, some have asserted that the best course of action is simply to acquiesce to activists’ demands for closure or out of prefecture location. However, the history of the Okinawan anti-base movement indicates that this would be a poor choice. Far from being satisfied by such an outcome, a victory over MCAS Futenma would only serve to embolden the anti-base movement and urge them forward to push for removal of one base after another. The re- ignition of popular protesting the wake of the DPJ victory in 2009 proves this correct. Once Futenma is gone, the rest of the Marine Corps camps in Okinawa would be next, and then Kadena, all of which are important, but collectively represent a vital U.S. security interest in the region. Compromise is clearly called for. However, the political climate within Okinawa makes dialogue difficult and the prospect for resolution unlikely. Perhaps policy makers in the United States and Japan can take some comfort in the realization that as intractable as the issues that surround MCAS Futenma seem, they are largely limited to that facility and the other bases in Japan and the alliance itself are not nearly so troubled.

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Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out

Elite consensus solves kickout The Economist 15, "Base issues," Apr 25 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21649538-bilateral-alliance-has-served-well-decades-needs-makeover- base-issues

Okinawan concerns about Henoko are heartfelt. But Mr Abe and his colleagues will countenance neither discussion nor a change of course. When the prime minister travels to Washington, DC, at the end of this month, both the Americans and the Japanese will try to sweep the long-running irritant in their relationship out of view. Okinawa, with nearly one-fifth of its land taken up by American bases, is a powerful symbol of that relationship. Neither side wishes any weakening of their close military ties. In fact, both want the alliance to adapt to long-running challenges, such as North Korea, and to new ones, above all the rise of China. In Washington Mr Abe will find an eager audience for his vision of a Japan less shackled by its war-renouncing (and American-imposed) constitution. America’s military presence in Okinawa is central to that vision. The island, says Gavan McCormack of the Australian National University, is the “war state” to complement Japan’s “peace state”. Okinawans have reason to grumble about that. Their main island has borne a disproportionate share of America’s security presence in Japan ever since the second world war. Perhaps 120,000 Okinawans, or over a quarter of the population, were killed in the “typhoon of steel”, as the Battle of Okinawa was called, many forced by Japanese commanders to commit suicide. But having liberated Okinawa, the Americans stayed. Three-fifths of America’s 49,000 forces in Japan are stationed on the island, even though it accounts for just 0.6% of Japan’s land mass. There are accidents and crimes, including rapes. Some 80% of Okinawans surveyed say that the bases, and much else about their lives, are not understood by other Japanese, for many of whom the American presence is invisible. Mr Abe would leave them to grumble: massing the bases on Okinawa leaves the rest of the country untroubled by a debate about burden-sharing. The deferential national press ignores the growing acrimony on the island. Officials in Tokyo are contemptuous of Okinawans: the islanders are grasping, because for decades they have pocketed government money in return for American forces being based on their island; and short-sighted, even downright treasonous, because opposition to America’s military presence in Okinawa endangers Japan’s security and its alliance with America at a time when North Korea is developing nuclear-tipped missiles and China is rapidly expanding its military capability.

Mainland apathy prevents kickout Okamoto Yukio 15, Foreign policy commentator and president of Okamoto Associates Inc., Research fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies, former diplomat in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aug 4 2015, "The Okinawa Issue and East Asian Security," http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a04502/

The people of mainland Japan do not fully understand the troubles that the Okinawans have experienced or the sense of discrimination that they feel. When reminded that a whopping 74% of the area occupied by US military bases in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa, one of the smallest of the country’s 47 prefectures, people think, “That’s not fair,” but they do not do anything about it. And the reason the figure for Okinawa has risen so high is that since its reversion to Japanese administration in 1972, the reductions in the US military presence in Japan have been largely on the mainland. Over the decades since then, the area of the bases on the mainland has been slashed by 65% with the closure of a number of major facilities in places like Tokyo and neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture, while the area they occupy in Okinawa has been trimmed by only 20%.

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Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out

Response to protestors isn’t kickout, it’s reform – empirics prove Kawato 2015 (Yuko Kawato, PhD in Political Science @ the University of Washington, research fellow at Asia Centre, a think-tank in Paris, “Protests Against U.S. Military Base Policy in Asia: Persuasion and Its Limits,” 8 April 2015, Google Books)

Some American policy-makers claimed that "anti-American" and "antimil-itary" groups were behind the protests, insisting that these groups were only using the rape to manipulate public opinion to serve their policy preference of eliminating military bases. According to Ezra Vogel and Paul Giarra, who served respectively as a senior analyst in the National Intelligence Council and the Pentagon's senior country director for Japan, "Okinawa's antimilitary and anti-American groups sought to capitalize on the prolonged press atten-tion given to the [rape] case and to the future of the overall security relation-ship."' Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph Nye said in his prepared statement for a subcommittee hearing in the House of Representatives, "The [rape] incident has ... brought some long standing bilateral issues to the attention of the Japanese media. Certain elements within the Japanese polity are taking advantage of the situation to protest our pres-ence, and in particular our bases in Okinawa."' In fact, when Perry ordered the stand-down of the III MEF in Okinawa for a day of reflection, some sec-tions resisted cooperating because of" a fear that they would be manipulated by political forces that were hostile to the alliance." These accounts suggest that some American policy-makers did not think leading protest organizations were credible, a perception that is likely to have contributed to their rejection of the protesters' arguments against base policy. Although normative persuasion proved ineffective, widespread protest mobilization in Okinawa and the deterioration of public support for the alliance in the mainland generated significant incentives for policy change among policy-makers in Japan and the United States. Policy-makers became highly concerned about the declining public support for the security alliance just when they needed it to strengthen the alliance. The following sections describe the efforts to strengthen the alliance, and how Japanese and Ameri-can policy-makers responded to protests in this context. Their response—a limited policy change—was a compromise solution in which policy-makers aimed to address protesters' demands while maintaining military effectiveness.

Military presence resilient – no kickout Beal 15 [Dr. Tim Beal, an Asia specialist, researcher and author, August 10, 2015, ‘US, Tokyo sing same song on Okinawa base’, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/312079-us-base-okinawa-japan]

RT: Japan said last week it would suspend for a month the construction of US air base on the island of Okinawa in order to give time for talks between the Japanese central government and island authorities opposed to the facility. What do you think is behind the move? Tim Beal: It’s obviously been a response to huge amount of pressure in Okinawa: we’ve had Okinawa governor [Takeshi Onaga] going to Washington, and so forth. There’s been a lot of political protest, but what is that going to achieve is not a matter. I think, the base is so important for the US that whatever protests the Okinawans make, will eventually be overruled. I will be very surprised if anything else happens apart from that. So that is probably a cosmetic public relations exercise. READ MORE: Japan halts construction of US base in Okinawa for ‘concentrated discussions’ with local authorities RT: Do you think Okinawans are able to achieve their goal, and get rid of US bases on their territory? If yes, when is it going to happen? TB: Sometime in the future - that will be my presumption. I don’t think that the local people have enough power and authority. It depends partly on whether they can raise protest on the Japanese mainland, obviously there is a lot of feeling about that. We’ve just had Hiroshima Day, so we’ve had the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki making their speeches about nuclear weapons. And that has brought into focus the plans of [Prime Minister] Shinzo Abe for the remilitarization of Japan. So these things are in the air at the moment; the Japanese are very conscious of them. It rather depends on how much the protests convey interaction within Japan, and also within the US. It’s the Americans of course - American military - that wants these bases to contain China. The American public should be very much concerned with this as well. So the politics are very complex and global: they involve the Okinawans, the mainland Japanese, and of course the Americans as well as other people around the world. Protesters raise placards during a rally to oppose the transfer of a key U.S. military base within the prefecture, at a baseball stadium in the prefectural capital Naha on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, in this photo taken by Kyodo May 17, 2015. © Kyodo Protesters raise placards during a rally to oppose the transfer of a key U.S. military base within the prefecture, at a baseball stadium in the prefectural capital Naha on Japan's southern island of Okinawa, in this photo taken by Kyodo May 17, 2015. © Kyodo / Reuters RT: Does Shinzo Abe’s government support the idea of the construction of the base? TB: The Japanese government, the Shinzo Abe’s administration and the American government are together on this. They are singing the same song. What the people in Okinawa can do about that is another matter - they can protest, they can raise awareness within Japan, within the US, within the global community. […But] I think the bases are far too important for the Americans to give up. That is a main base to contain China. Apart from this they have the bases in the Pacific, in Guam, and they have the bases in South Korea. But Japan is a main forward base in East Asia.

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Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Kadena

Withdraw destroys Kadena effectiveness and doesn’t resolve kick out concerns Klingner 2009 (Bruce, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, “U.S. Should Stay Firm on Implementation of Okinawa Force Realignment,” 12-16, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/12/us-should-stay-firm-on-implementation-of-okinawa-force- realignment)

Insufficient Capacity at Kadena Air Base for Futenma Unit Despite its immense size, the Kadena Air Base does not have sufficient capacity to incorporate Futenma air operations. Integrating Marine helicopter operations into Kadena would double daily flight operations, significantly increasing safety and noise concerns and degrading an already difficult operational and training environment. Kadena is in a densely populated area, which already encroaches on the facility perimeter, precluding expansion to accept additional air units. Kadena has three possible locations that could house the redeployed Marine air unit: the north ramps of the existing runway, the south ramps, and the golf course. The north ramp's storage capacity is already maxed out, providing no expansion capability without moving existing forces. The north ramp currently houses P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, MC-130 special operations transport aircraft, KC- 135 aerial refueling tankers, E-3 AWACS, RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft, and HH-60 search and rescue helicopters. These planes provide intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR); aerial refueling; transport; Special Forces capabilities; search and rescue; and airborne control and command capabilities--all deemed to be critical requirements. Putting the Futenma helicopters on the north ramp would necessitate displacing the existing fixed-wing aircraft to another location. Moving the fixed-wing aircraft would require either constructing a replacement facility on Okinawa even larger than the one envisioned at Camp Schwab or redeploying to Guam with a resultant critical degradation of core capabilities, such as airborne ISR, which provides both warning prior to crisis and situation awareness during operations. Some of the planes currently on the north ramp do not have aerial refueling capability, reducing their availability and effectiveness if redeployed to Guam. The south ramp houses numerous fighter planes without sufficient ramp storage space for the Futenma helicopters. U.S. military officials commented that helicopter and fighter plane operations are incompatible due to the high pace of activity of both aircraft types and foreign object damage concerns. The golf course would provide open space, but there are no existing facilities. Flight operations from that area would need either to cross the flight path of aircraft using the runways, creating significant air traffic control and safety problems, or to fly through declared noise abatement residential areas, worsening noise problems. Integrating at Kadena Reduces Contingency Capacity Capacity above typical daily peacetime usage levels also plays a critical and strategic role in meeting contingency requirements. --U.S.-Japan Joint Statement[20] Since Japan cannot guarantee enduring contingency access to a Futenma runway after reversion to civilian control, the loss of this strategic national asset would degrade alliance crisis response. In the absence of a Schwab airfield, consolidated Futenma and Kadena flight operations would exceed existing Kadena runway and ramp maximum-on- ground storage capabilities for surge operations during a military crisis or humanitarian emergency. Relying on Guam for ramp storage space would exponentially increase air-to-air refueling requirements for both essential land-based and carrier combat aircraft operations. This would significantly reduce U.S. ability to conduct combat sorties as well as strain, if not exceed, logistic capabilities. Deploying additional aircraft carriers would not be sufficient. Aircraft carriers cannot support transport or air-to-air refueling aircraft, nor can they generate the necessary combat aircraft sorties planned for both Kadena and Futenma during contingency and combat operations. Expanding Kadena Flight Operations Is Politically Unfeasible The local populace is already upset by existing noise and activity levels at Kadena. Integrating Futenma flight operations would cause increased flight hours, noise, and safety concerns. The governor of Okinawa and the mayors of three adjacent towns have strongly resisted incorporating Futenma into Kadena. Proceeding with integration would magnify operational and political problems rather than reduce them, placing a politically sustainable U.S. military presence on Okinawa at risk.

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One factor that is notan issue preventing integration of Futenma and Kadena is assertions that the Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force "can't or won't talk to each other." Marine Corps F/A-18 and AV-8B aircraft home-based at Iwakuni Air Station frequently deploy to Kadena. The Marines share an F/A-18 operations location at Kadena because Futenma lacks ammunition-loading facilities.

Con- AT: Withdraw Inevitable- Kick Out- Kadena

Okinawans agree on the strategic value of Kadena- no kick out. Seiji, Prof Law @ Seiki Univ; 6/19/2015 (Endo; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A Historical Perspective on the US Military Presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

ENDŌ That said, Kadena Air Base of the US Air Force is another story, and not even Okinawans are calling for its scale- down or withdrawal. Kadena has a very important place in America’s global strategy, and there should be a way of moving the Marines out of Okinawa so that the US commitment to the security of Japan and Okinawa is firmly maintained and so that Beijing won’t misconstrue it as indicating Washington’s loss of interest in maintaining the status quo in East Asia. This is the sort of idea that Japan can propose, but our officials haven’t been doing so.

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China- Goldilocks

China being too-strong or too-weak invites danger. Seiji, Prof Law @ Seiki Univ; 6/19/2015 (Endo; Nippon; “Thinking about Okinawa (1): A Historical Perspective on the US Military Presence”; http://www.nippon.com/en/simpleview/?post_id=25749)

Here in Japan we see a stronger tendency than in the United States to view China as seeking to destroy the status quo, partly because we get more coverage of remarks from Chinese voicing that sort of sentiment. My own view is that, while China’s growing power is a source of problems, there are also problems that might arise from internal governance issues. Both a China that’s too strong and one that’s too weak present serious problems for the countries around it. Instead of looking exclusively at the “China as an international superpower” aspect, we need also to note the country’s weaknesses. Otherwise we can’t get a proper view of China’s future prospects.

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China Navy- Not a Threat

China’s navy is weak- not a threat- multiple reasons. Sakamoto, Lecturer Asian Studies @ Univ Auckland; 9/21/2015 (Rumi; Asia-Pacific Journal; Volume 13, Issue 38, Number 5; “‘China threat theory’ drives Japanese war legislation”; http://apjjf.org/-dm_admin-Test/4380)

China’s Navy Is Weak Of the12 islands that comprise the Spratlys, The Philippines and Vietnam control five islands each, while Taiwan and Malaysia each control one; each country has built an airfield. China arrived late so it could only secure reefs, and has been reclaiming surrounding areas to build airfields. It is true that the “scale of China’s reclamation is larger than that of any other country,” though other countries have secured islands that required only partial reclamation.s China has deployed three nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles in the Hainan islands. Conflict has arisen when the US Navy gathers information in preparation for anti-submarine activity in the South China Sea, and China attempts to interfere. China’s reclamation and construction of airfields can be seen as a means to defend a submarine base. However, since economic relations between the US and China are enormously important, it is highly likely that they will compromise to avoid dangerous contingencies. For Japan, the South China Sea is an important route for importing oil. But even if conflict were to erupt in the area, all Japan has to do is move to the east of Bali, Indonesia, pass through the Lombok Strait, and pass east of the Philippines. The core of the China Threat Theory is Chinese naval buildup. Examined in detail, however, the Chinese Navy is weak. The aircraft carrier Liaoning does not have a catapult to propel carrier-based aircraft to high speeds during launch. The takeoff of J15 fighter jets relies solely on engine thrust so the fuel and equipment capacities are limited, making it dangerous to take off if there are high waves. Besides, the Liaoning can only carry about twenty fighter jets and has no early-warning aircraft (indispensable for the defence of an aircraft carrier). A US nuclear aircraft carrier normally carries 44 aircraft but in times of emergency it can carry 55 aircraft. Currently there are ten of these carriers, and next year the number will be back to 11. China’s single aircraft carrier with around 20 planes is no match for the US’s ten aircraft carriers with a total of 550 aircraft. China’s submarines, excluding extremely old models, consist of three nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, two nuclear-powered anti-ship attack submarines and 30 plus conventional diesel-electric submarines. The noise level of China’s new model submarines is comparable to that of the Victor submarines made by the Soviet Union in the 70s, and are easily detected. Battery-powered submarines are of course quieter, but with limited underwater capacity they are likely to be overwhelmed by the advanced anti-submarine capacities of Japan and the US. China’s anti-submarine capability is, moreover, extremely poor. In reality, the area in which the Chinese navy is likely to be able to compete with the navies of the US and other countries, is limited to the coastal area covered by the operational radius of ground-based fighter aircraft (about 1000km). In the future, too, it will be impossible for the Chinese navy to protect the long routes for importing resources from all over the world, including the Middle East, against the US navy. As China – the largest beneficiary of today’s world order – increases its reliance on overseas resources and overseas markets, it will deepen its cooperation with the US, which maintains naval supremacy throughout the world.

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No Asia War

No Asian war – tensions are low Bitzinger 2009 (Richard A. Bitzinger, Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Barry Desker, Dean of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Director of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2009. Survival vol. 50 no. 6, “Why East Asian War is Unlikely,” p. Proquest)

Yet despite all these potential crucibles of conflict, the Asia-Pacific, if not an area of serenity and calm, is certainly more stable than one might expect. To be sure, there are separatist movements and internal struggles, particularly with insurgencies, as in Thailand, the Philippines and Tibet. Since the resolution of the East Timor crisis, however, the region has been relatively free of open armed warfare. Separatism remains a challenge, but the break- up of states is unlikely. Terrorism is a nuisance, but its impact is contained. The North Korean nuclear issue, while not fully resolved, is at least moving toward a conclusion with the likely denuclearisation of the peninsula. Tensions between China and Taiwan, while always just beneath the surface, seem unlikely to erupt in open conflict any time soon, especially given recent Kuomintang Party victories in Taiwan and efforts by Taiwan and China to re-open informal channels of consultation as well as institutional relationships between organisations responsible for cross-strait relations. And while in Asia there is no strong supranational political entity like the European Union, there are many multilateral organisations and international initiatives dedicated to enhancing peace and stability, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. In Southeast Asia, countries are united in a common geopolitical and economic organisation – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – which is dedicated to peaceful economic, social and cultural development, and to the promotion of regional peace and stability. ASEAN has played a key role in conceiving and establishing broader regional institutions such as the East Asian Summit, ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) and the ASEAN Regional Forum. All this suggests that war in Asia – while not inconceivable – is unlikely.

No escalation – structural factors check conflict Alagappa 8 (Muthia Alagappa, Distinguished Senior Fellow, East-West Center PhD, International Affairs, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2008. “The Long Shadow,” p. 512)

International political interaction among Asian states is for the most part rule governed, predictable, and stable. The security order that has developed in Asia is largely of the instrumental type, with certain normative contractual features (Alagappa 2003b). It rests on several pillars. These include the consolidation of Asian countries as modern nation-states with rule-governed interactions, wide- spread acceptance of the territorial and political status quo (with the exception of certain boundary disputes and a few survival concerns that still linger), a regional normative structure that ensures survival of even weak states and supports inter- national coordination and cooperation, the high priority in Asian countries given to economic growth and development, the pursuit of that goal through partici- pation in regional and global capitalist economies, the declining salience of force in Asian international politics, the largely status quo orientation of Asia's major powers, and the key role of the United States and of regional institutions in pre- serving and enhancing security and stability in Asia.