The Obama Administration and supporters of its Japan policy have come in for some pretty tough criticism in recent days, and it was only a matter of time before they struck back.
The most pointed critiques came from Steve Clemons, publisher of The Washington Note, on June1, and Dan Sneider of Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center, who penned a commentary for Slate on June 3. The gist of both pieces was that the Obama administration unwisely aided and abetted the recent demise of Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama.
The responses, undoubtedly by coincidence, came almost simultaneously on Monday, one from Jeff Bader, the National Security Council's point man for East Asia (and the Obama presidential campaign's chief Asia advisor), and another from Mike Green, who had Bader's spot in the George W. Bush administration, and now is the Japan Chair at CSIS. Bader's comments came in an appearance at the Stimson Center in Washington for a seminar on US-Japan relations. Green's comments, sent out by CSIS, came after a recent trip to Tokyo.
There is thus far no text or transcript of Bader's comments; he spoke from notes. The best account of his remarks comes from Chris Nelson in his super-authoritative Nelson Report. Nelson had access to Bader's notes. With permission, Clemons last night reprinted most of Nelson's account of Bader's remarks. In that same note, Clemons issued a stinging rebuke to Bader's defense of the Obama administration's Japan policy, particularly the controversy regarding the US Marine Air Station Futenma, on Okinawa.
The exchanges of the last week can’t be dismissed as unwarranted airing of diplomatic dirty laundry. By all accounts, the dispute between Washington and Tokyo surrounding the Marine Futenma base on Okinawa exposed some deep weaknesses in the common understanding, structure, and management of the alliance. Bader and Green are deeply committed to the notion that the US-Japan alliance is the key to stability in East Asia. They believe the Obama administration handled the Futenma dispute quite well. Clemons and Sneider are also dedicated to the alliance, but fear the Obama administration’s approach to Futenma has done much more harm than good.
Understanding this disagreement is critical to ensuring the US-Japan alliance regains and remains on solid footing.
ROOT OF DISPUTE: Though the arguments of Bader and Green are persuasive at points, I believe the critiques leveled by Clemons and Sneider are on the mark. The core of the problem is that much of Washington’s “Japan Hand” community, and the broader community of foreign policy “generalists,” did not appreciate or want to engage the scope and depth of change in Japan represented by the coming to power of the Democratic Party (DPJ).
One of America’s preeminent experts on Japanese history and security policy, Kenneth Pyle of the University of Washington, recently wrote that the Futenma dispute reflected an inevitable yearning in Japan for “a new equilibrium for the alliance.” For decades, he wrote, the alliance had essentially made Japan “a military satellite, some would even say a client state,” of the United States. This unnatural arrangement was finally giving way to pent up desires for greater “autonomy and self mastery.” The “degree of US domination in the relationship has been so extreme,” Pyle wrote, that “a recalibration of the alliance was bound to happen.”
Rather than accepting the inevitable, and seeking to shape the changes in Japan to be consistent with alliance goals, the halls of power in Washington became filled with the disturbing sentiment that DPJ leaders were basically unwanted and unworthy interlopers in an otherwise cozy and fruitful bilateral arrangement. The “word” spread that the DPJ was somehow anti-Alliance, was tilting toward China, and was questioning the very cornerstone of the alliance – access to bases, in exchange for American defense of Japan. Diplomatic snubs -- big and small -- hit DPJ leaders from all sides, exacerbating an impression that Hatoyama and his party were unwilling or unable to manage the all-important American alliance.
This may not have caused Hatoyama’s demise, but it certainly contributed.
BEFORE THE BEGINNING: The problem was evident even before Hatoyama and the DPJ came to power, in September 2009. Toward the end of 2007, after the DPJ had won a huge victory in Upper House elections, legislation was about to expire authorizing the refueling of US and allied naval vessels in the Indian Ocean by Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces. The Diet initially adopted the legislation in the wake of 9-11 to aid anti-Taliban and anti-Al Qaeda operations in Afghanistan.
In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq, which many leaders in the then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the DPJ privately opposed, support for the refueling operations waned. It was common knowledge that the refueling was almost entirely symbolic, with no real operational value. Moreover, even ardently pro-US DPJ legislators were upset by signs that some oil provided to American naval vessels had been utilized for operations around Iraq.
Much like in Europe, the Japanese public deeply opposed the US invasion of Iraq, and even then-Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda from the traditional US ally, the LDP, barely kept quiet his lack of enthusiasm for continuing the refueling operations.
But the Bush administration, backed by a surprisingly diverse group of American specialists on Japan, barely contained its contempt for the DPJ opposition, and put enormous pressure on Fukuda to force through the refueling authorization.
One of the strongest critics of the DPJ at that time was Mike Green, who co-wrote an op-ed for Asahi Shimbun pressing for reauthorization. The co-writer was Kurt Campbell, who was then advising Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and who is now the State Department’s chief Asia specialist. Support for the Indian Ocean refueling operations became a litmus test for support of the alliance, even though the DPJ’s and other opposition to reauthorization was deeply rooted in the same kind of anger over the Iraq war that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had repeatedly expressed.
FUTENMA, ANOTHER LITMUS TEST: By the time the Obama administration took office in early 2009, the Futenma issue was brewing as another supposed litmus test of Japan’s loyalty and commitment to the alliance.
Mr. Bader cites Hillary Clinton’s visit to Japan in February 2009, her first step on foreign soil as secretary of state, as a sign of the importance Obama attached to the alliance with Japan. He doesn’t mention that Secretary Clinton’s top agenda item was to sign papers giving the go-ahead for construction of a replacement facility on Okinawa for the Marine Futenma air station. At the time, it was a virtual certainty that the DPJ would oust the LDP in elections several months later, and the DPJ had made clear its desire to have a Futenma replacement facility built outside of Okinawa, perhaps even outside of Japan. Nevertheless, without even so much as a perfunctory review of Japan policy of the sort that is common when a new administration takes office, the Obama team pushed ahead for implementation of the Futenma replacement plan, paying no discernable heed to DPJ views. Prior to her departure, Bader brought Green in to brief Secretary Clinton on Japan. Green, who was a top foreign policy advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008, strongly supported the 2006 plan to build the Futenma replacement on Okinawa.
Bader says that US Ambassador John Roos became the point man for US policy in Tokyo. But US policy on Futenma under Obama was set long before Roos was even nominated to be ambassador, much less took up his post in Japan.
Bader argued that the Hatoyama government’s questioning of the 2006 Futenma agreement “came against a backdrop of questioning of all US bases in Japan.” But there is not one statement by a Hatoyama government official that proves this assertion. Hatoyama questioned Futenma, not any other US base in Japan. But Bader’s assertion is unfortunately all-too-typical of what became common place in Washington while Hatoyama was in office.
Bader asserted that Defense Secretary Bob Gates was unfairly accused of adopting a "confrontational approach to Japan during his October 2009 trip to Tokyo, citing a "leak to Japanese reporters of his comments to Foreign Minister Okada. But Gates had stated in no uncertain terms that efforts to alter the 2006 Futenma agreement would, in Bader’s words, “damage the alliance.” The “leak” Bader cites was a common-place “read out” of the meeting to the Japanese press. Gates left no doubt in his public statements and other gestures about the inflexible nature of his message. American journalists reported Gates’s demeanor as unmistakable.
More than any other event, Gates's uncharacteristically gruff and haughty performance during his October visit to Tokyo set the tone for the entire way the Obama administration dealt with the Hatoyama government.
Bader claims the Administration did not reject Hatoyama’s proposal to talk about Futenma. Leaving aside some minor gestures of willingness to discuss burden reduction on Okinawa, the administration never budged from its fundamental, highly dubious insistence that the 2006 Futenma replacement plan was an absolutely critical, irreplaceable part of the overall US strategic posture in East Asia.
He asserts that “the President always believed that US-Japan relations are much larger than a single base issue.” That simply doesn’t square with the Administration’s unrelenting stance that, in effect, any questioning of the need for a Futenma replacement facility on Okinawa amounted to disloyalty to the alliance.
Administration spokesmen repeatedly grouped Futenma in with all other US facilities in Japan, including the giant Kadena US Air Force Base – home to the largest US air wing in the world, and the vital Yokosuka naval facility, home to the US 7th Fleet – the only US aircraft carrier group the US Navy home ports abroad.
These two facilities are the absolute key to the US forward-deployed ability to project power in East Asia, along with the 8th Army and related air and sea units in South Korea, and the huge air, Marine, and naval buildup underway on Guam.
Given this vast array of indispensable US power projection capabilities in the region, it was perfectly reasonable to ask just why the Futenma replacement facility is so vital. The US is already redeploying 8,000 ground troops out of South Korea, has moved many units further south to make them into a more flexible regional force, and has turned over to South Korea operational control of its own armed forces.
Yet the current structure of the Marine presence on Okinawa remained curiously beyond the realm of acceptable discussion, at the insistence of Obama administration officials.
Throughout the entire discussion, the Administration has painfully been unable to answer a simple question: Just what indispensable contribution to deterrence in East Asia do the Marines on Okinawa make that they could not make if based elsewhere?
The Marines are not indispensable quelling any potential North Korean assault on the South. ROK ground forces alone number more than the combined personnel of the US Army and US Marine Corps, worldwide. The main US role in a Korean Peninsula contingency would be air and naval, largely based out of Kadena and Yokosuka. The job of seizing North Korean ports to facilitate humanitarian relief operations in a crisis, or the job of locating and securing North Korean nuclear materials, could all be conducted by Marines brought into Japan for those purposes, utilizing prepositioned supplies and equipment located on bases agreed to by Tokyo.
As it is, a good number of the US Marines nominally based on Okinawa for deterrence in East Asia are often deployed elsewhere, including Afghanistan.
Nor are the Marines on Okinawa to somehow deter China, a job done most effectively, once again, by the US air and naval forces based at Kadena and Yokosuka respectively.
Are the US Marines vital to stability in East Asia? Absolutely. But nowhere is it written in strategic stone that they have to be based on Okinawa.
The need for the Henoko project to replace Futenma largely boils down to one factor: The Marines want to introduce to Okinawa in the coming years the V-22 Osprey, a tiltrotor aircraft capable of both vertical and conventional takeoffs and landings. Why is a new runway needed at Henoko, designated site for the Futenma replacement facility, if the Osprey has vertical capability? Because the aircraft is notoriously unreliable, and the Marines say they need a runway in the event the shift from turboprop to helicopter capability fails.
Ironically, the State Department’s Kurt Campbell, who fought so hard for the Futenma project in recent months, was strongly opposed to further development of the Osprey while he worked at the Pentagon over a decade ago.
Beyond the Osprey requirements, the Marines also defend their status on Okinawa because of the heavy funding provided by Japan as base support.
All things being equal, Okinawa is a highly advantageous location for the US Marines to be based. But all things are not equal, given that 20% of the entirety of Okinawa island’s land mass is taken up by US military facilities.
The heavy concentration on Okinawa of US Forces in Japan is a political disaster just waiting to happen. Anyone truly interested in the political sustainability of vital US air and naval bases in Japan should be worried about the pent-up animosity all-too-evident on Okinawa.
Indeed, while American officials rightly point to high levels of public support in Japan for the Japan-US alliance, they are less apt to point to the large majority of Japanese – and not just Okinawa residents – who oppose construction of a Futenma replacement facility on the island.
Mike Green in his CSIS memorandum argues that Hatoyama gratuitously raised expectations among Okinawans that the Futenma replacement facility might not be built, immensely complicating potential implementation of the bilateral accord announced on May 28. Actually, all Hatoyama did was give voice to resentments that have long been simmering on Okinawa.
Bader and others have argued that the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and recent incidents of Chinese helicopter harassment of Japanese naval vessels, served to push the Hatoyama government to finally agree to construction of a Futenma replacement facility at Henoko. But Japanese officials close to Hatoyama deny this, and US officials do not provide any evidence to support their assertion.
Indeed, Hatoyama from his first days in office made sure to align his government with that of South Korea. Prior to a trilateral summit of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, and China in Beijing last October, Hatoyama first visited Seoul. His intention was to balance a visit to Pyongyang just days before by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
The DPJ did not need to be “educated” on the dangers posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, nor by China’s territorial designs on natural gas reserves in the East China Sea.
MOVING FORWARD: So where do things stand now? Bader insists that the DPJ has matured in its understanding of security issues, thereby placing the Alliance of a stronger footing. In reality, the danger is very real that US officials will badly misread the national sentiments in Japan.
As it is, many top DPJ leaders feel they had their collective arms twisted to accept the 2006 Futenma plan, and the experience has left a bitter taste.
There is anger in Japan, of course, over the haphazard, slipshod fashion with which Hatoyama managed the Futenma issue. But there is intense awareness of the rumors, innuendo, faulty accusations, and dodgy mistreatment from Washington that further sullied Hatoyama’s stature.
For now, Prime Minister Naoto Kan is saying he will back the Futenma replacement plan, but that is largely to keep the Obama administration at bay. There is little support inside the DPJ for spending any political capital on forcing the Futenma plan on to Okinawans. The Kan government, if anything, is somewhat more liberal on security issues than was Hatoyama.
Given the political calendar in Tokyo, it will be very difficult to meet the August deadline for finalizing technical details for the planned Henoko facility. Upper House elections will take place in late July, followed by a DPJ presidential contest in September, and later by a critical vote for governor of Okinawa. Without the governor’s support, Kan could be forced to push the plan through with a “special measures law.” Mike Green acknowledges that such high stakes political drama could cause the DPJ to split. That raises the question of whether the US would use its weight to push aside yet another prime minister for the sake of the Henoko project. That’s not a pretty picture.
It’s not too late for the US and Japan to turn the Futenma controversy into a win-win situation, but that would require US willingness to discuss significant restructuring of the Marine presence on Okinawa, beyond what is already planned. The first, interim step would be a sincere effort by the US to significantly relocate Marine and Air Force training exercises to different parts of Japan.
Rather than spending political capital on promoting the wildly unpopular Henoko plan, Kan would be better off pressing governors in other prefectures to accept more US military personnel for basing and training purposes.
Beyond that, the US and Japan should lock in a firm bilateral understanding on the vital need for a continued, long-term US air and naval presence at Kadena and Yokosuka respectively.
Japan should be fully part of US regional force structure planning for East Asia, looking at opportunities for joint basing of US and SDF forces, and for ways in which expanded Japanese operational capabilities could best complement those of US forces and alliance goals.
Seen in that context, the Futenma issue becomes more of a manageable irritant than a perilous fault line that threatens to shake the alliance to its core.
The Obama administration shows no signs of seeing the issue this way, however, which unfortunately sets the stage down the road for renewed tensions between Washington and Tokyo.
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