Posted on: Sunday, November 21, 2004
THE RISING EAST
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By Richard Halloran
The United States and Japan are engaged in the most far-reaching deliberations about their alliance since they revised their mutual security treaty in 1960 — discussions that envision a greatly enhanced role for Japan in the common defense.
A revitalized U.S.-Japan alliance is certain to draw objections from China, with which both countries have prickly relations, and from North Korea, which may have acquired nuclear arms and once threatened Japan and U.S. forces in Asia with a "nuclear sea of fire."
The prospect of a stronger U.S.-Japan alliance has alarmed South Korea, where the United States plans to withdraw one-third of its 37,000 troops. South Koreans complain that the United States is reducing its commitment in favor of expanded relations with Japan, which most South Koreans still dislike even though Japan's harsh occupation ended 60 years ago.
Gustavo Ferrari • Associated Press • Under President Bush, the United States has begun a worldwide realignment of military forces to make them more effective in responding to contingencies. In Japan and South Korea, that means eliminating outdated headquarters and consolidating operational controls into a new command arrangement in Japan. • Under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan is in the midst of a searching debate on security that has been illuminated by a commission headed by a prominent business executive, Hiroshi Araki of Tokyo Electric Power. The commission has called on Japan to forge an "integrated security strategy" through "strategic consultations" with Washington. American officials said that once they started talking with the Japanese about U.S. deployments in Asia, it became apparent that both governments needed to agree on a "strategic context" before deciding on headquarters, troop dispositions and base issues.
The architect of the realignment, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, calls the prospective changes a "combined transformation." In Tokyo to continue the negotiations, he told reporters, "we are going to have increased capability to work with Japan on security concerns that directly relate to Japan," whether in Asia or elsewhere.
Among our military leaders, an advocate of closer U.S.-Japan security coordination is Lt. Gen. Wallace Gregson, former commander of U.S. Marines in Japan and now commander of all Marine forces in the Pacific. He has spent more time posted in Japan than many top U.S. officers.
Gregson noted that "I have advocated in the past greater combined training for our forces, combined operations where appropriate and even combined basing." At his headquarters in Hawai'i, he said, "I think we're on the first step of a period of unprecedented cooperation and collaboration between our two nations."
Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official, said a U.S. objective in repositioning forces was to make contingency plans more timely. Moving the Army's I Corps headquarters from Washington state to Camp Zama, southwest of Tokyo, would put it in the region in which it would operate.
The United States already has the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters on Okinawa; will consolidate an aviation command at the Fifth Air Force in Yokota, west of Tokyo; and has the 7th Fleet headquarters in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. Having those commands relatively close together is intended to improve joint war planning and operations.
Asked about South Korean anxieties, Feith said: "They are not being neglected." U.S. forces remaining in South Korea not only will help to defend that nation but will be available for contingencies elsewhere. Feith asserted that having American troops locked into any country in which they are based "just doesn't make any sense."
"The American people cannot afford separate armies, separate armed forces for Korea, for Japan and for every other country where we might be located," he contended. Other officials said, however, that dismantling the command structure in Seoul, set up during the Korean War of 1950-53, would be delayed to assuage South Korean fears.
Whether the U.S-Japan discussions would result in a new document was not clear, even though the Araki commission recommended that Japan and the United States devise a fresh "Joint Declaration on Security" and revise defense guidelines drawn up in 1997.
Feith said that had not been decided. He said the U.S.-Japan security treaty "provides a reasonable degree of flexibility the way well-written treaties tend to do." Even so, he left open the possibility that it could be reinterpreted or revised.
Richard Halloran is a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times correspondent in Asia. He wrote this article for The Advertiser.
These U.S.-Japan negotiations didn't start with a fundamental revision of security relations in mind. Rather, they have evolved as the consequence of two separate but converging movements, one in the United States, the other in Japan.
While the U.S. military is repositioning its command structure in Japan, 600 members of Japan's Self-Defense Forces are in Iraq, handing out aid and supporting reconstruction efforts. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has promised the Japanese that the troops will serve only in areas where fighting has ended.
