Two longtime allies strengthen their relationship amid changing realities in northern Asia

By AMY KLAMPER, Seapower Correspondent

In May, Tokyo and Washington agreed to a major realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, a road map that will move thousands of U.S. troops in the region, shift and modernize military assets, and give Japan a larger role in its own defense and regional security. Galvanized by China’s growing strength and the looming threat from North Korea, the U.S.-Japanese strategic alliance is deepening as the allies recalibrate their militaries for the post-9/11 world.

Last October, the United States and Japan agreed on a set of proposals to increase military cooperation. In April, Japan agreed to pay roughly 60 percent of the $10.3 billion cost of relocating 8,000 U.S. Marines stationed in Japan to Guam.

In addition, the two nations plan to improve their joint ballistic-missile defense capabilities. In June, Japanese and U.S. officials said they will deploy Patriot interceptor missiles at American bases in Japan amid signs that North Korea was preparing to launch a long-range missile.

The deepening relationship between Japan and the United States is a centerpiece of the Bush administration’s efforts to strengthen the U.S. military presence in the Pacific region. A few submarines are being shifted to the Pacific, and the Defense Department is assessing the need to shift surface forces there. An array of U.S. military units are being moved to the U.S. territory of Guam — closer to potential trouble spots — and U.S. Pacific Command plans a series of exercises in the region this year.

The changing relationship also dovetails with Japan’s own efforts to revamp its 1947 pacifist constitution and assume a higher security profile in the region. Concerned about North Korea, Japan is moving forward on a missile defense agreement with the Pentagon that stems from a research program begun in 1998.

The two countries are establishing a joint operations center in Japan. And in a move unprecedented since World War II, Japan deployed ground troops to the war zone in Iraq and support ships and aircraft to Afghanistan.

“Under the new security environment, in order to respond effectively to new threats and various contingencies, we need to build the multifunctional, flexible and effective defense capability, and operate such defense capability efficiently,” a Japanese defense official said.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce A. Wright, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, agrees.

“It’s really important that we have an alliance that gives us stability in the region to engage effectively with China and continue to watch North Korea very closely,” Wright said. “China is modernizing, our senior leaders want to engage them, and we can engage very effectively based on the strong U.S.-Japan security alliance.”

During the May meeting, Japan’s Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Defense Agency Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga finalized the details in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

During a press conference afterward, Rumsfeld said much work is needed in order to implement the U.S. realignment of its forces in Japan, which, among other things, will shift 8,000 Marines and their families from Okinawa to Guam by 2014.

“Today’s meeting marks an important milestone, but we do have a good deal of work yet ahead of us before our desired destination in this security partnership,” Rumsfeld said. “For our part, we will certainly continue to move our alliance forward on this journey.”

But analysts say it is unclear whether Tokyo will move forward with the same conviction. Many obstacles loom large in the mind of the Japanese public, including the roughly 3 trillion yen needed to finance the realignment.

“It’s not a done deal,” said Brad Glosserman, executive director for the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “Implementation is always the killer,” he said, noting that a 1996 agreement to relocate Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Japan to an offshore location had languished for a decade because of local opposition.

Only a short distance from Taiwan, Okinawa is home to roughly 15,000 U.S. Marines and the Air Force’s largest combat wing. Some 5,000 troops are deployed to Misawa Air Base, where F-16 fighters are less than two hours from North Korea. In addition, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, the largest in the Navy, has 18 ships permanently forward deployed in Japan.

Japan’s Self Defense Force (SDF) boasts nearly 240,000 military personnel, and the country’s annual defense budget is close to $50 billion, ranking Japan among the top six military spenders worldwide. But while its naval and air capabilities match western European standards, it lacks the kind of operational experience that comes from regular engagement in defense alliances and peacekeeping efforts.

“The Japanese, as a democratic country and an ally, continue to build a more capable sovereign military, and we should not, on the U.S. side, attempt to be a leader in that, but a partner,” Wright said. “We have taken U.S. Forces Japan to a much more operational level to ensure we have timely, rapid coordination.”

For example, the U.S. plan to move its 1st Corps headquarters from Fort Lewis, Wash., to Camp Zama in Japan by 2013 will help serve as an example for Japanese forces there. The reorganization would leave 1st Corps to bolster U.S.-Japanese military ties, with Japan possibly forming a similar unit that would train for, and conduct operations with, U.S. soldiers.

In addition, the Japanese recently augmented their command structure to include a senior joint uniformed leader with a greater operational role similar to that of the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

According to a Japanese defense official, the new Joint Staff Office (JSO), headed by a new chief of staff, was established March 27 to enhance Japan’s joint operational structure.

“In this process, the operational function was transferred to JSO from Ground, Maritime and Air Staff Office,” the Japanese defense official said. “Under the new system, chief of staff, JSO, develops the unified operational concept and gives advice on the operation of SDF to the defense minister from a military standpoint in an integrated fashion, which contributes to the more prompt and effective implementation of SDF’s mission.”

Wright said the change means that while Japan’s defense force will not grow much larger, it will become more capable.

“And this recent change in the [SDF] structure means they will continue to be a more modernized and capable military,” he said.

But Wright emphasized that the United States has no operational control over Japanese forces.

“It’s coordination vs. command and control,” he said. “We would not control their forces, they will control their own forces and coordinate closely with us.”

This is particularly true for U.S.-Japanese cooperation on ballistic-missile defense, Wright said, a key issue in the May 1 road map. Under the plan, Japan’s Air Defense Command will move in fiscal 2010 to Yokota Air Base, where the U.S. Fifth Air Force is based. There, a new bilateral joint operations and coordination center will coordinate air-defense and missile-defense activities.

“We both bring strengths to this,” Wright said. “The Japanese are forward deployed, they live here and they have an understanding of this part of the world, so it has to be a partnership.”

Joint technical research on missile defense was prompted by North Korea’s 1998 firing of the Taepodong 1 missile. Japan’s buy-in to the U.S. missile defense program is helping Tokyo establish a new role for itself in the region while maximizing both countries’ assets, Glosserman said.

“Working with the United States allows the Japanese to lessen the concerns of its overall posture and gives an umbrella for them to engage the region,” he said.

What will be important about missile defense is the integration of U.S. and Japanese forces, Glosserman said.

“If a missile is launched at Japan, we can use missile defense to shoot it down,” he said. “But if a missile is aimed at the United States, the Japanese couldn’t shoot a missile at it.”

Wright acknowledged that Japan is currently in the early stages of addressing missile-defense command and control.

“There’s going to have to be recognition that some of those missiles can reach the United States,” Wright said. “Both countries are working very hard on [command and control] and the challenges associated with the short times of flight.”

Another challenge for the alliance involves technology sharing between the United States and Japan. Glosserman noted that the United States will not defer protection of its assets to the Japanese unless they open their so-called “black boxes” to the United States.

But Wright said there are multiple efforts to share technological advances on both sides.

“Both countries have specific strengths on sharing technology,” he said. “But both countries will always develop and emerge new technologies that will be sensitive commercially and from a military and security point that we will have to think hard about sharing.”

Japan is spending millions of U.S. dollars to develop a special nose cone for the American Standard Missile Three (SM-3) missile.

In March, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said the Japanese nose cone successfully separated from an SM-3 missile during a test in the Pacific off Kauai. It was the first such flight test to use Japanese parts.

Much of the change in Japan’s current defense stance rests on its revised National Defense Program Outline, implemented in December 2004. Still controversial among Japanese, it authorizes the nation’s military to combat terrorists inside and outside the country and loosens its longtime prohibitions on the export of weapons and defense technology.

The guiding force behind many of the changes is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who began calling for more forceful national security policies and a closer relationship with the United States soon after his election in April 2001. Known for his repeated visits to the Yasukuni shrine, an icon of Japan’s militaristic past, he views the U.S. relationship as fundamental to his nation’s relations with other countries, including China and North Korea.

However, Koizumi’s term as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party ends in September, and many see Shinzo Abe, 51, Koizumi’s cabinet secretary as a probable successor.

Japan Today reports that Abe has called for amending the constitution to enable the government to mobilize the SDF in certain scenarios, including hostage situations in Iraq and elsewhere. But given the controversy that still swirls around the broader defense guidelines approved 19 months ago, it remains uncertain if Japan’s people are prepared to accept a further expansion of the operational framework for their military forces.