Battle to move marines’ air base in Okinawa shows fragility of long-standing alliance
By William Choong, Senior Writer 26 January 2010
Japanese and American political leaders were quick to congratulate themselves as the two allies celebrated the golden anniversary of their Mutual Security Treaty last week.
Fifty years ago, then President Dwight Eisenhower called the alliance an ‘indestructible partnership’, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted at a press conference in Hawaii. It is not just indestructible, but indispensable, she said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada was quick to add that the alliance was critical to regional security, and said both countries should work together to deepen the alliance over the next 30 to 50 years.
All that glittered at the golden anniversary, however, was not gold. The fragility of the US-Japan alliance can be summed up in one word: Okinawa.
For months, Washington and Tokyo have clashed over the planned move of a US Marine air base from Futenma to an area further north in Okinawa. The move was part of an overall plan to shift up to 8,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam.
Since taking power in September, the coalition allies of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government have urged him to carry out their election campaign pledge to move the base out of Okinawa altogether.
Unsurprisingly, the DPJ’s declarations have made the Americans uneasy. After all, the planned moves took 13 years of negotiations. At a November summit, Mr. Hatoyama and US President Barack Obama failed to reach an agreement. In a bid to reassure Mr. Obama, Mr. Hatoyama told him to ‘trust him’ to get the matter settled. Since then, nothing has been settled.
Speaking to Asean journalists recently, Mr. Shigeru Ishiba - long-serving defence minister under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - said the DPJ’s actions were puzzling. Mr. Hatoyama is sorely lacking in knowledge on security issues, he said.
The planned move made sense, he argued, given that the US military - or any military, for that matter - would want to keep two separate air fields on Okinawa for effectiveness and survivability.
‘We should think about what kind of impression we are giving to the Americans,’ said Mr. Ishiba, now chairman of the LDP’s Policy Research Council.
‘Going against a government-to-government agreement and moving the base outside Okinawa, or even Japan - that is something that will befuddle the Americans.’
However, the Futenma problem is only the tip of the iceberg. For one thing, Japan’s lackadaisical economic growth and the DPJ’s focus on funnelling money into ‘soft’ areas such as health care and education mean that Tokyo - already much derided for being a ‘free rider’ on defence matters - will become even more dependent on the United States. And Washington already has its hands full with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More importantly, some critics point to the lack of alliance institutionalism, such as mechanisms for joint decision-making in times of crises. Such institutions, they argue, are the meat and potatoes of viable alliances such as Nato and the US-Korea pact.
Since 1997, both Tokyo and Washington have pledged to conduct joint planning, but the process is rudimentary at best and stuck at the level of war-gaming, wrote Mr. Michael Finnegan, an analyst with the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research.
‘Despite public statements about (its) strength, the alliance is actually quite brittle precisely at a time when both allies are perhaps depending on it more than ever,’ said Mr. Finnegan, who wrote his findings based on workshops conducted with academics and officials.
In the long-term, workshop participants sketched out several scenarios that could imperil the alliance: Reunification of the two Koreas, leading to calls for US troops to be withdrawn from South Korea as well as Japan; different perspectives emerging between Tokyo and Washington during another crisis in the Taiwan Strait; an emerging desire in Japan for an independent nuclear capability; and differing stances between Japan and the US on the emergence of China.
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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US-Japan security pact not as solid as it seems
Battle to move marines’ air base in Okinawa shows fragility of long-standing alliance
By William Choong, Senior Writer
26 January 2010
Japanese and American political leaders were quick to congratulate themselves as the two allies celebrated the golden anniversary of their Mutual Security Treaty last week.
Fifty years ago, then President Dwight Eisenhower called the alliance an ‘indestructible partnership’, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted at a press conference in Hawaii. It is not just indestructible, but indispensable, she said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada was quick to add that the alliance was critical to regional security, and said both countries should work together to deepen the alliance over the next 30 to 50 years.
All that glittered at the golden anniversary, however, was not gold. The fragility of the US-Japan alliance can be summed up in one word: Okinawa.
For months, Washington and Tokyo have clashed over the planned move of a US Marine air base from Futenma to an area further north in Okinawa. The move was part of an overall plan to shift up to 8,000 marines from Okinawa to Guam.
Since taking power in September, the coalition allies of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government have urged him to carry out their election campaign pledge to move the base out of Okinawa altogether.
Unsurprisingly, the DPJ’s declarations have made the Americans uneasy. After all, the planned moves took 13 years of negotiations. At a November summit, Mr. Hatoyama and US President Barack Obama failed to reach an agreement. In a bid to reassure Mr. Obama, Mr. Hatoyama told him to ‘trust him’ to get the matter settled. Since then, nothing has been settled.
Speaking to Asean journalists recently, Mr. Shigeru Ishiba - long-serving defence minister under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - said the DPJ’s actions were puzzling. Mr. Hatoyama is sorely lacking in knowledge on security issues, he said.
The planned move made sense, he argued, given that the US military - or any military, for that matter - would want to keep two separate air fields on Okinawa for effectiveness and survivability.
‘We should think about what kind of impression we are giving to the Americans,’ said Mr. Ishiba, now chairman of the LDP’s Policy Research Council.
‘Going against a government-to-government agreement and moving the base outside Okinawa, or even Japan - that is something that will befuddle the Americans.’
However, the Futenma problem is only the tip of the iceberg. For one thing, Japan’s lackadaisical economic growth and the DPJ’s focus on funnelling money into ‘soft’ areas such as health care and education mean that Tokyo - already much derided for being a ‘free rider’ on defence matters - will become even more dependent on the United States. And Washington already has its hands full with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More importantly, some critics point to the lack of alliance institutionalism, such as mechanisms for joint decision-making in times of crises. Such institutions, they argue, are the meat and potatoes of viable alliances such as Nato and the US-Korea pact.
Since 1997, both Tokyo and Washington have pledged to conduct joint planning, but the process is rudimentary at best and stuck at the level of war-gaming, wrote Mr. Michael Finnegan, an analyst with the Seattle-based National Bureau of Asian Research.
‘Despite public statements about (its) strength, the alliance is actually quite brittle precisely at a time when both allies are perhaps depending on it more than ever,’ said Mr. Finnegan, who wrote his findings based on workshops conducted with academics and officials.
In the long-term, workshop participants sketched out several scenarios that could imperil the alliance: Reunification of the two Koreas, leading to calls for US troops to be withdrawn from South Korea as well as Japan; different perspectives emerging between Tokyo and Washington during another crisis in the Taiwan Strait; an emerging desire in Japan for an independent nuclear capability; and differing stances between Japan and the US on the emergence of China.
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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