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Japan at a Crossroads Japan at a Crossroads W Japan at a Crossroads By Richard Halloran A USMC CH-53 helicopter lands at Okinawa, Japan. Military bases on Okinawa have been a sore spot in US- Japanese relations. USMC photo by Cpl. Patricia D. Lockhart Mil-to-mil relations are strong, but the US needs Japan’s politicians to deliver what they’ve promised. hen Secretary of with platitudes and promised little in ship with the US, saying: “I think that Defense Robert M. support for US forces in Japan. Kan by now there is little need to speak on Gates was in Tokyo brushed off the turmoil in the relation- this at length.” He did acknowledge US this past January, he Wadmonished the Japanese to do more for their common defense and insisted they render greater support for US forces in Japan. He persisted in urging Japan’s lead- ers to resolve the issue of relocating a US Marine air station in Futenma on Okinawa. It has become an open sore in the US-Japan alliance. USMC photo by SSgt. Andrew Pendracki D. Given the scope, complexity, and lethality of the challenges to regional security in Asia, Gates asserted in an address at Keio University, “I would argue that our alliance is more neces- sary, more relevant, and more impor- tant than ever.” To modernize the force posture of the US and Japan, he said, “we need a committed and capable security partner in Japan.” In response, Prime Minister Naoto Kan a week later delivered an address Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Terry Robling (r) and Maj. Gen. Peter Talleri head to a meeting billed as a major foreign policy state- with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan (c) at MCAS Futenma, Okinawa. Kan has ment but that turned out to be laced downplayed the increasingly bumpy relationship between the US and Japan. 60 AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2011 marines might be called on “to shed their own blood should a contingency arise.” On Futenma, Kan gave no spe- cifics about healing the wound which has steadily weakened the US-Japan partnership. Kan said the situation was “deeply regrettable for the people of Okinawa, and I feel a deep sense of shame at this situation.” USAF photo by SSgt. DarnellCannady T. The Futenma dispute has arisen from a realignment of US forces in the Pacific and Asia, beginning in the 1990s, to revise command lines and force structure left over from the war in Vietnam, the Korean War, and World Japan at a War II. Reducing the presence of US troops and relocating their bases was intended to ease the friction that arises when American troopsare stationed on someone else’s sovereign soil. Crossroads The recent emergence of China as A Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15J flies off the wing of a USAF aircraft during re- a potential adversary has lent urgency fueling training between the two countries. Kadena Air Base, USAF’s airpower hub to the realignment. US forces in Korea in the western Pacific, is a prime target for those who want US forces out of Japan. are being consolidated and assigned an expeditionary mission and air and naval coordination center established, with and his government have done little bases on Guam are being expanded. But each nation funding its equipment. to persuade the Americans that Japan efforts to get Japan to contribute more A US Navy carrier wing would be intends to be a reliable ally. “Kan hasn’t have stalled. The devastating earthquake moved from Atsugi, a crowded town done anything to stop the bleeding,” and tsunami on March 11 has set them southwest of Tokyo, to a Marine air said one American official. back even further. station in Iwakuni, on the southern tip In particular, there is no discern- In 2006, Defense Secretary Donald of Honshu island (with some Marine ible progress on settling the Futenma H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State helicopters moving to Guam). The issue. Kan plans to visit Washington Condoleezza Rice joined Foreign Min- agreement also stipulated Japan and sometime this year but needs to have ister Taro Aso and Defense Minister the US would continue to develop what the Japanese call an o-miyage, or Fukushiro Nukaga of Prime Minister anti-missile defensive capabilities. present, to take with him. It remains Junichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet in sign- After the roadmap agreement, the to be seen whether the Prime Minister ing an agreed roadmap to realign US Army command post at Zama was can arrange for one on Futenma. forces in Japan. refurbished and the air defense center Looking beyond Futenma, Ameri- Among the roadmap’s initiatives, constructed at Yokota. Work on most of can officials say privately the long- much of the cost of which was to be the initiatives came to a halt, however, range objective of Okinawa’s anti-base borne by Japan, was the movement of a when Yukio Hatoyama of the Demo- movement is to drive out the US air Marine helicopter base from Futenma cratic Party of Japan (DPJ) became base at Kadena on Okinawa, home to the rural town of Henoko on Oki- Prime Minister in September 2009. of the 18th Wing, USAF’s largest nawa, and shifting 8,000 marines and By saying he wanted to revisit the combat wing and the hub of American 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to roadmap agreement, particularly the airpower in the western Pacific. Nearly Guam (with Japan paying $6 billion relocation of the Futenma helicopter 18,000 Americans and 4,000 Japanese of the $10 billion cost). base, Hatoyama in effect reneged on employees serve there. “There is no After the new helicopter base was the agreement. substitute for Kadena,” said an Ameri- constructed and the marines moved can defense official. “But it will be a to Guam, the remaining US forces on Okinawa’s Anti-base Movement target if the US and Japanese govern- Okinawa would be consolidated and Hatoyama’s stance on the Futenma ments cave in on Futenma.” significant parcels of land would be question gave anti-US activists on Consequently, some Japanese dip- returned to the Okinawans. Okinawa a wide opening, and they lomats have begun to wonder aloud Elsewhere in the country, a US demanded that the Marine air station whether Japan can continue to be a Army command post at Camp Zama, be removed from Okinawa altogether. trusted partner in securing US strategic south of Tokyo, would be modernized, Confronted with the Futenma debacle, interests in Asia. and a Japanese Central Readiness a financial scandal, and other domestic American military officers and civil- Force would be posted alongside. A opposition, Hatoyama lasted only nine ian officials have become so exasper- US battle command training center months in office and was forced to ated they will not discuss Japanese would also be constructed with US resign in June 2010. Kan, also of the politicians in public and will speak in funds. At Yokota Air Base, west of DPJ, replaced him. private only with assurance they will Tokyo, a Japanese Air Defense Com- Even though the Japanese were not be named. “The Japanese have got mand unit would be set up next to a jolted by Chinese and North Korean to pull their socks up,” said one senior USAF facility, with a joint operations belligerence in recent months, Kan officer. “They’ve got to spend more on AIR FORCE Magazine / April 2011 61 American occupation in 1952, Japan was governed by a stable “establishment” of politicians led by Shigeru Yoshida, the towering figure of the postwar period, business executives, and government officials. This consensus lasted until 1993, USAF photo by SrA. Daniel McKittrick when Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, the last of the Yoshida deshi, or fol- lowers, left office. He was followed by a string of leaders who, with one exception, were in office for only about a year. Japan drifted, as successive governments had no strong foreign policies and spent less than one percent of gross national product on defense, by far the least of any industrial nation. The exception was Koizumi, who served from April 2001 to September 2006. During his tenure, the roadmap was negotiated with the US, the JASDF sent airlift to Kuwait during the war in Iraq, A JASDF C-1 takes on cargo at Yokota AB, Japan. Despite the political tensions, the ground self-defense force deployed officers describe US-Japanese military relations as strong. a peacekeeping battalion to Iraq, and the Maritime Self-Defense Force deployed defense, and they’ve got to take more Some officers and defense strategists ships to the Indian Ocean and Persian responsibility for their own security.” have even rallied around Gen. Toshio Gulf on anti-piracy and refueling duty. A small but telling point came in Tamogami, who was forced to retire as After Koizumi left office, however, the January State of the Union ad- Chief of Staff of the Air Self-Defense those missions were gradually discon- dress by President Barack Obama. Force in 2008 after he published a tinued. Gates, in his January address, He mentioned China, India, Russia, controversial essay contending the US sought to revive Japan’s contributions, South Korea, and 10 other nations—but war against Japan in 1941 was insti- however modest, to operations outside made no mention of Japan. “Japan is, gated by President Franklin Roosevelt of Japan. He called on Japan “to take at best, an afterthought and, at worst, after he was secretly influenced by on even greater regional and global has become a laughingstock following Soviet agents. leadership roles that reflect its politi- a sequence of hapless prime ministers,” In the ensuing two years, however, cal, economic, and military capacity.” one American officer noted.
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