Dispatch Japan

White House to tap Obama friend as Pentagon’s Asia chief

The White House will soon nominate Mark Lippert, a close friend and trusted advisor to President Barack Obama, to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, according to sources close to the situation. Lippert will replace General Wallace “Chip” Gregson, who will depart April 1. Barring any unexpected glitches in the laborious background check that is now standard for high-level appointments, the Lippert nomination should be made public shortly. With his Capitol Hill experience as an aide to Senator Patrick Leahy and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, and his presidential ties, Lippert should have little trouble winning Senate confirmation.

The tapping of Lippert, who was then-Senator Barack Obama’s first foreign policy advisor starting in 2005 and became an overall friend and confidante, comes at a critical time in Obama’s effort to craft his own doctrine for America’s role in the world. It’s a clear sign of the importance the president places on US ties with East Asia.

    STRATEGIC REBALANCING: Even before taking office, Obama was influenced by a gnawing sense in much of the US foreign policy community that the US global posture was dangerously out of balance: a debilitating commitment of national power and prestige to two questionable land wars in Southwest Asia, alongside a mysterious lack of strategic investment of time, energy, and resources to an Asia-Pacific region that is anxiously witnessing the truly historic economic and military rise of China.

The first order of business was to extricate the huge US national security apparatus (planning, intelligence, troops, equipment, money, diplomacy) from Iraq and Afghanistan, which the Administration has been doggedly trying to do, but in both cases is proving easier said than done. (The White House really did not want to lose focus by getting sucked into Libya…)

Simultaneously, the Administration has been trying to reassert, and reconfigure, America’s role in East Asia. Some initial fanciful notions of a ‘strategic partnership’ with China have given way to the reality that Beijing is still somewhat clumsily seeking to define its role as an emerging regional and global power. Tensions have run high with China since the leadership in Beijing has resisted reining in its errant North Korean ally, and has haughtily asserted claims on territories controlled by Japan and some Southeast Asian nations.

Instead, the Administration is trying to foment a system of open and transparent economic and security cooperation in the region, defining the terms of engagement to which China has to respond. The economic component is the Trans-Pacific Partnership regional trade initiative. And the security component involves building on America’s traditional bilateral security alliances in the region to include a network of overlapping bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral security relationships from India, through Vietnam and Indonesia, to Australia, and up to Korea and Japan.

    THE LIPPERT ROLE: One way or another, the President wanted Mark Lippert to play a role in this emerging strategic plan to rebalance America’s global position. Several months ago the White House was looking at Lippert to go to the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary for special operations and low intensity conflict (SOLIC). These are the counter-terrorism operations that will become increasingly important as the US steadily withdraws ground forces from Afghanistan.

But the White House eventually settled on Lippert for the more senior post of assistant secretary for East Asia, which will require both a bold strategic vision and a deft ability to challenge some entrenched elements of the US military-security bureaucracy.

Lippert has no background in Asia. But there is no question that he will be speaking for the President.

A graduate of Stanford, with a degree in International Relations, Lippert quickly found work on the Hill with Senator Leahy, the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. He joined up with Obama in 2005.

Along the way, Lippert decided to pursue his lifelong interest in the military, and utilized a little-known but important Navy program that allows skilled foreign policy specialists to commission as Naval officers and work part time in Naval Intelligence or as a staff aide to senior officers. (Interestingly, Lippert’s soon-to-be counterpart at the State Department, Assistant Secretary for East Asia Kurt Campbell, served as an aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff through the same program.)

Before the Obama presidential campaign entered full swing, Lippert served a tour in Iraq as an intelligence officer assigned to a Navy SEAL special operations unit. Upon his return, he resumed his position right next to Obama, alongside Obama’s other foreign policy alter ego, Denis McDonough, now the President’s Deputy National Security advisor. Even as the Obama campaign’s team of foreign policy advisors grew to over 300, including some establishment heavyweights, it was Lippert and McDonough who were rarely out of eye contact with Obama.

After the election, Lippert served as chief of staff for the NSC, nominally led by retired Marine General Jim Jones. The relationship was uneasy however because Lippert had much closer ties to the President. Lippert eventually left the NSC to serve another Navy tour, and returned to Washington a few months ago to once again work for Obama. General Jones has left the NSC, replaced by Tom Donilon, who shares the “rebalance toward Asia” perspective.

    THE POLICY VISION: Once he takes office, Lippert won’t have to define policy as much as implement policy. With the strong backing of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Administration’s emerging policy toward Asia has mostly been shaped by Kurt Campbell. The policy starts with the principle that the US-Japan alliance is the foundation of the US strategic position in the region. The US Kadena air force base on Okinawa, and the US naval base at Yokosuka are the keys to the ability of the US to project power and maintain stability. And, partly in response to the rise of China, Japan and other nations in the region are becoming increasingly comfortable with military-to-military cooperation. The beginnings of a broad security architecture are taking shape, not to contain China, but as a framework for the peaceful integration of China, and as a hedge in the event Beijing settles, even temporarily, on a more troubling posture in the region.

    THE FUTENMA PROBLEM: Lippert’s most difficult, and important, task may turn out to be resolving the vexing problem of the US Marine Corps presence on Okinawa. Technically, the US and Japan have an agreement for roughly half of the 17,000 Marines now stationed on Okinawa with the III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) to relocate to Guam by 2014. As part of the deal, the US Marine Station Futenma, on Okinawa, would close, and its key operations (mostly involving helicopters) would relocate to a new facility to be built in the Henoko Bay area of Okinawa, close the Marine Camp Schwab. The key component would be a new runway built to accommodate the controversial V-22 Osprey, a tilt rotator vehicle that can land and takeoff either as a chopper or fix-wing aircraft.

Public opinion on Okinawa is firmly against the new facility. Tokyo signed the deal with Washington, but has been unable for 15 years to bring Okinawans on board. Washington insists the deal should proceed, and expects Tokyo to deliver its side of the bargain.

The issue is deadlocked. The Henoko project is essentially dead, though no official death notice has been issued.

Instead, the issue has continued to be a dangerous irritant that can easily be inflamed (as occurred recently when word emerged that then-State Department Japan desk chief Kevin Maher had made inappropriate comments about Okinawans; an otherwise unimportant incident took on outsized importance because of the backdrop of tension over Futenma.)

For a while, the Futenma issue threatened to disrupt the whole US-Japan alliance, overshadowing the critical roles of Kadena and Yokosuka, and the growing willingness of Japan to take on more regional and even global security responsibilities.

    WISHING IT AWAY: Today, Washington and Tokyo have seen the wisdom of temporarily posting a resolution, confining Futenma discussions to working level meetings. The issue is in a state of unsteady equilibrium. Tokyo continues to voice unequivocal support for the project, so as to not rile American opinion in a way that would bring the issue back to the top of the bilateral agenda. In reality, virtually no political leader in Tokyo wants to touch the issue. In the wake of the recent tragic earthquake, that will be the case even more. And Washington continues to insist the plan must go forward, but does so in a more low-key style so as to not have it return to the top of the agenda.

This approach has two problems: Futenma remains open, and just one US aircraft accident among the heavily concentrated population surrounding the base could provoke such a backlash as to threaten all US bases in Japan, including the vital Kadena and Yokosuka installations. And as long as the two sides pretend the existing Henoko plan can still move ahead, there is no possibility to discuss alternative basing arrangements.

The Marines want to stay on Okinawa. It is convenient. Japan picks up much of the bill. And it is not clear where the money would come from to fund a transfer and permanent basing somewhere else, such as Guam or Hawaii.

With the White House focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, including continued heavy deployments by US Marines in Afghanistan, the President’s advisors have fiercely resisted having the Futenma issue reach his desk. The White House does not want to have any tension with the Marines over Okinawa, and does not want to have to go to Congress for the funds to finance an alternative basing plan.

Secretary of Defense Bob Gates has shared that reluctance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, careful to maintain her successful alliance with Gates on broader issues, has gone along.

But the stalemate can’t last forever, especially because it will continue to prove disruptive to the broader strategic vision of rebalancing the US global posture toward Asia, in cooperation with Japan.

    NEW MARINE BASING ARRANGEMENT: The best solution would be for the US to scrap the 2006 “roadmap” with Japan that seemed to finalize the Marine realignment on Okinawa and Guam.

There is no compelling strategic reason for the Marines to be on Okinawa. They are a global force that can be based anywhere. They certainly are not critical to the US deterrent capability in Asia. During the tense moments with China last summer, it was the USS George Washington aircraft carrier out of Yokosuka, together with fleet air units and larger air capabilities out of Kadena that provided the US show of force in the region.

It makes no sense for the heavy Marine presence on Okinawa to cause the kinds of irritants that could ultimately threaten the vital continued US presence at Kadena and Yokosuka.

A workable solution could involve a phasing out of the III MEF from Okinawa, to be replaced by Japanese Marine units, trained by the United States, who would be responsible for the defense of Japan’s southern islands. To dispel any notions of a slip in US commitment to Japan or the region, the US could permanently base an Ohio-class submarine out of Yokosuka, and permanently base a unit of F-22 aircraft at Misawa or some other facility in Japan.

The Marines could be permanently based elsewhere, with preparations in place for the use of Japanese facilities in the event of a crisis, and visiting basing rights to be negotiated throughout the region.

A solution to the Okinawa problem becomes feasible in the context of the broader repositioning of the United States strategically in the region.

Lippert has just the kind of political clout that would be required to bring the Marines along. Nothing short of intervention by a strong defense secretary, or a person with clear White House backing, can break the current deadlock over Futenma.

Will Lippert adopt that role? If he does, he and Campbell could make a formidable team capable of reshaping the US presence in East Asia for years to come.

The danger is that he will choose to stick with the existing framework, hoping to avoid confronting the bureaucratic inertia in the military and on Capitol Hill. That would amount to presidential endorsement of the existing deadlocked plan, which would greatly inhibit the US-Japan alliance from evolving into a much more vibrant force for stability in the region anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

Japan’s nuclear crisis: An end in sight?

The world might soon be able to breathe a giant sigh of relief.

At Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, modest success in delivering desperately-needed water by helicopters and water-cannon trucks, and the impending restoration of limited electrical power to at least two of the facility’s six units, could be the framework for resolving the greatest industrial catastrophe involving nuclear technology since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986.

Water is critical to cooling the nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage ponds at the Fukushima facility, which otherwise could overheat and lead to troubling amounts of radioactive emissions.

Four of the six units require emergency attention, with units 3 and 4 particularly critical.

The use of helicopters and water trucks is a stop gap measure until restored electrical power can activate water pumping systems that normally do the job. That may not be as simple as it sounds. Wiring inside the units may be burned and need replacing. The water pumps themselves may be damaged. And with radiation levels within the plant boundary quite high, workers are hampered in performing their jobs.

But even if restoration of electrical power and water pumping is delayed, many nuclear engineers argue that, however cumbersome, the delivery of water by helicopter and truck should stabilize the reactors and cooling ponds sufficiently to stave off worrisome increases in radiation levels in Japan. Thus far, radiology specialists widely agree, the increased radiation levels experienced since the problems developed last week at Fukushima Daiichi pose no health risk to the general population in Japan. “The total exposure of the Japanese public to increased radiation has been insignificant,” says Professor Kim Kearfott, a nuclear engineering and radiology specialist at the University of Michigan.

Indeed, these same experts say, even a much-feared (and exceedingly unlikely) nuclear fuel “meltdown” would produce nothing even close to a health crisis in Japan.

That is not a license for complacency of course. While not a health catastrophe, the breakdown at Fukushima Daiichi is an industrial catastrophe of enormous proportions and global implications, necessitating as quick a resolution as possible.

In that context, reports of rifts between US and Japanese officials over information sharing and threat assessments seem highly-exaggerated. The ‘fog of war’ under such stressful and complex conditions understandably causes tension and disagreements, but that is a far cry from a dysfunctional breach of baseline trust.

     AT THE PLANT: Helicopters and water trucks have concentrated on Unit 3 in recent days, and to a lesser extent Unit 4. Unit 3 has both a reactor vessel loaded with fuel rods that need cooling, and a storage pond with spent fuel rods that also need cooling. Government officials believe efforts to add water to the storage pond at Unit 3 were successful in the last day. The reputable World Nuclear News reported March 17 that Self Defense Force fire engines delivered 30 tons of water towards or into the spent fuel storage pond. The National Police Agency had plans to use a riot police force high-pressure water cannon truck to try to cool down the storage ponds at Unit 4. The truck can deliver water at high speeds from up to 100 meters. There is evidence the watering efforts have reduced radiation levels.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), owner of the distressed facility, launched power restoration efforts on March 17, involving some 320 workers. The company planned to run a cable from a high-voltage line owned by Tohoku Electric, connecting first to Unit 2, and later to Unit 1. Others will follow. The new cable will run a half-mile from a main high-voltage power grid. Electrical machinery giants Toshiba and Hitachi have dispatched teams of engineers to assist.

The reactor vessels and storage ponds pose different challenges, with the latter the more immediate.

The fuel rods in Units 1, 2, and 3 have almost surely suffered damage as a result of being left partially uncovered within reactor vessels. Rather than melting, Dr. John Lee, author of the forthcoming “Risk and Safety Analysis of Nuclear Systems,” says it is more likely the fuel rods partially liquefied, with zirconium from the fuel rods interacting with water to produce hydrogen. That’s what produced explosions at several units earlier this week.

Nevertheless, the reactor vessels have remained intact, limiting the release of radioactive particles. Even in the highly-improbable event that fuel rods melted, penetrated the steel of the reactor vessel, and then penetrated the thick concrete pad of the primary containment shell, the molten fuel would settle in the soil, releasing only limited amounts of radioactive particles. That’s not a pretty scenario, but it’s far from a disaster.

Some news accounts have claimed that Unit 3 is particularly dangerous because the fuel used is a uranium-plutonium mixture, and plutonium is extraordinarily toxic. But the fuel mixture in question actually uses plutonium dioxide, which is not readily absorbed by the body.

The cooling ponds for spent fuel pose a more serious problem. Lack of water removes a shield against radiation. It also allows for a heating up of the fuel rods, production of hydrogen, and the danger of an explosion that could more readily disperse radioactive particles than did the explosions caused by hydrogen from the reactors. For this reason, Japanese officials have placed priority on getting water to the storage ponds.

     RADIATION EXPOSURE: In no case, says Dr. Lee, is it possible to have a Chernobyl-style explosion. Instead, he recommends that the Three Mile Island case of 1979 be seen as a reference point for the unfolding events in Japan. Fukushima is already worse than TMI by simple virtue of the fact that there are several troubled units, whereas as TMI had only one reactor.  The comparison is still useful.

“In the areas surrounding Three Mile Island,” Lee says, “the worst radiation exposure among the general public was the equivalent of two chest x-rays. In the Fukushima case, the worst would be somewhat higher, but well below levels we should worry about.

“Within the current evacuation zone of up to 19 miles or so, the very worst case scenario would be an increased exposure equal to 1 CT scan, which is equivalent to 100 chest x-rays.”

Lee insists: “There cannot be a massive release of radioactivity, especially if there is some amount of water maintained in the reactor vessel, and the storage pools. And I don’t see why that is not possible at this point.”

     CONCERN FOR ON-SITE WORKERS: For workers engaged in emergency operations at the Fukushima facility, the Japanese government is adhering to strict safety standards roughly in line with those followed in the US. Under normal circumstances, Japan’s occupational guidelines for nuclear-related jobs is actually tougher than that of the US, with each worker limited to exposure to 2 Rem (a unit of measurement for uranium dosage) per year, compared with 5 Rem in the US. Under emergency circumstances, the US raises the limit to 25 Rem, while Japan goes up to only 10 Rem. However, during the Fukushima crisis, Japanese authorities raised the limit inside Japan to 25 Rem.

To put that in some perspective, it takes about 100 Rem to induce symptoms of radiation sickness. About 500 Rem is a lethal dose.

     A US-JAPAN SPLIT: Meanwhile, frustrations in Washington and throughout Japan notwithstanding, there is little evidence to support accusations that the Japanese government is somehow withholding information, anymore than there was evidence last year that the Obama administration withheld information about the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. The earthquake and tsunami, followed by the nuclear power crisis, add up to the biggest crisis in post-war Japan. The response of the Japanese government, while perhaps not a model of management efficiency and  communication skill, hardly matches the cartoonish combination of obfuscation and incompetence often portrayed in parts of the US and Japanese media. How would any US government have dealt simultaneously with Three Mile Island, the BP oil leak, and Hurricane Katrina, which is about what the triple whammy of the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear crisis amount to in Japan?

As evidence of a US split with Tokyo, some analysts have cited the Congressional testimony on Wednesday by Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko, in which he seemed to question the validity of some Japanese government assessments of the unfolding nuclear problem in Japan.

In particular, Jaczko said the US had concluded that the spent fuel storage pool in Unit 4 was empty of water, with the implication that the Unit’s dysfunction posed a bigger radiation threat than Japanese officials had yet to acknowledge.

Based on that assessment, the NRC recommended that US citizens in Japan living in the vicinity of the Fukushima plant evacuate to a distance of 50 miles – far further than the 20 miles the Kan government in Tokyo recommended for Japanese citizens.

Japanese officials, backed by French counterparts, insisted there was at least some water in Unit 4’s storage pond, and the NRC later backed off by saying “the evidence is so far inconclusive.”

The NRC evacuation radius recommendation was based on guidelines in place for US emergencies: to move people to an area where they would be subject to radiation levels no higher than one Rem. Subsequent tests conducted by US officials with American instrumentation found that to achieve the goal of one Rem exposure limitation, the 12-19 mile evacuation zone established by the Japanese government was sufficient. (No evidence of faulty information from Tokyo in that regard…)

In hindsight, it seems fair to say that Jaczko’s Congressional testimony, and subsequent evacuation zone recommendation for US nationals in Japan, stemmed in large part from a desire to maintain his own, and the NRC’s, credibility with a Congress and US public that are already beginning to ask questions about the safety of US nuclear power facilities.

A better sense of US thinking about cooperation with Japan came on Thursday, when Jaczko joined Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Poneman at the White House for a press briefing on the nuclear crisis in Japan and its implications for the US. Both Jaczko and Poneman repeatedly referred to the complexity of the situation in Japan, and showed what seemed to be genuine sympathy for the extraordinary management difficulties involved.

Japan’s nuclear plants far from catastrophic

There’s been too much ill-considered media usage of such loaded terms as “meltdown,” “disaster,” and “radiation threat,” with respect to Japan’s troubled nuclear power reactors, including excess coverage of a US opponent of nuclear energy mischaracterizing the seawater cooling effort at Fukushima Unit 1 as a “Hail Mary pass.” The cooling efforts are actually working.

Cavalier comparisons to Chernobyl are completely inaccurate, as the reactor there was fully operating when an explosion occurred in 1986, with no containment mechanisms in place.

The WHO says the public health risk from Japan’s nuclear plants remains “quite low.” The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation says increased radiation levels in plant vicinities “is not a serious public health issue at the moment.”

The troubles with Japan’s nuclear plants are still rated a “4”, on the 1-7 international scale of severity. The 1979 Three Mile Island partial meltdown was rated a more serious “5”, and caused the release of only very low levels of radiation, which subsequent studies showed had no serious health or environmental consequences.

There remains no confirming evidence of even a partial meltdown in any of Japan’s nuclear reactors. Fears of a complete failure of cooling and containment efforts are just that, fears, without backing from facts on the ground.

To be sure, there are continuing problems at several of Japan’s plants, which will require skillful management by engineers on the scene. And the nuclear industry worldwide has to carefully consider the failure of backup cooling systems there.

But doomsday alarmism about many people possibly facing exposure to life-threatening levels of radiation seems more than farfetched.

To the contrary, ironically, Japan faces hugely-problematic shortages of electrical power, as the partial loss of nuclear generation will lead to scheduled rolling blackouts that will effect industry and major urban areas. There is also limited access to distressed regions.

Shortages of clean water and other necessities likely pose far greater potential health dangers than do increased levels of radiation.

The roots of the Kevin Maher-Okinawa commotion

The controversy surrounding Kevin Maher’s crude comments about Okinawa will dissipate pretty quickly. The State Department’s Japan desk chief found himself in virtual total isolation on Monday and Tuesday, as it began to dawn on US officials in Washington Maher had caused a diplomatic furor in Japan. By Wednesday he had been relieved of his post. (There is no need, by the way, to qualify Maher’s comments as “alleged.” His ‘non-denial denial’ made clear he said some very offensive things.)

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell was not just issuing canned diplomatic jargon when he fervently disavowed the content of Maher’s insults of Okinawans, giving an unusual, personal tone to his renunciation. A good number of Japan Hands in Washington found themselves just scratching their respective heads at the lack of professionalism the incident revealed, and how distant the comments actually are from mainstream US thought.

Having said that, the Maher incident can’t simply be dismissed, as it exposes a continuing huge policy problem – the US Marine presence on Okinawa – in the US-Japan alliance; it revealed a structural problem at the State Department: a major shortage of senior Japan specialists; and, it exposed, also at the State Department, poor personnel management that allowed a predictable and preventable ‘human factor’ to exert adverse influence on a US-Japan alliance that is vital to peace and stability in East Asia.

All three problems were on display on Monday afternoon, when Campbell invited a group of outside Japan specialists to join him at the State Department for a policy brain-storming session prior to his departure for Tokyo for a meeting of senior US and Japanese diplomatic and defense officials.

Campbell began the meeting by saying the previous few days had amounted to a “bad news weekend,” referring to the resignation of Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, and the then-emerging controversy of Maher’s Okinawa comments. With Maher sitting close by, Campbell referred to the Okinawa furor in only vague terms, but all present knew full-well to whom he was referring, and the meeting proceeded somewhat awkwardly.

The meeting included discussion of Maehara’s resignation, the outlook for domestic politics in Japan, and plans for a 2+2 meeting of defense and foreign ministers from the US and Japan, and a subsequent visit to Washington by Japan’s prime minister.

And for a tragic-comedic few minutes, the participants discussed how to proceed with the issue of building a replacement for the US Marine Air Station Futenma, on Okinawa. Almost 15 years after the issue first arose, the two countries remains hopelessly deadlocked, with barely-suppressed frustration and acrimony – a situation that allowed Maher’s otherwise inane comments to carry any significance at all.

During the meeting, not one person raised a voice of support for Maher. No comments to the effect: “Kevin, I can’t believe they distorted your comments so much,” or “Don’t worry, everyone knows you didn’t say those things.” The subsequent US government apologies offered no reference to Maher by name, no attempt to argue that his years of service in Japan were sufficient proof that he harbored no such thoughts. Not one Japanese official – and Maher knows many – came to his defense. None argued that they knew him so well as to know he would say no such things.

Why? As Patrick Cronin of the Center for a New American Security put it, “I am not the only one who saw this as a problem waiting to happen.” A senior Japanese reporter in Washington said: “We had heard Kevin say things like this in the past.”

So why was Maher in such a sensitive position? One factor is the paucity of senior Japan specialists at the State Department. In recent years, top-notch Japan specialists David Straub and Jim Foster retired early from the Foreign Service. Maher would not even have been Japan Desk chief had the White House not taken his predecessor, Danny Russel, for the National Security Council staff after he had been on the job as Japan Desk chief for just a few months.

By all accounts, Maher is knowledgeable about Japan, and speaks Japanese well. But he made few friends and raised many eyebrows, in the US and Japan, with the shrill tone he adopted in promoting the plan for a Futenma replacement facility on Okinawa. Before taking over as Japan Desk chief in 2009, Maher had been US Consul General in Naha, Okinawa.

Reflecting his somewhat isolated status, Maher had recently been passed over for the coveted job of deputy chief of mission for the US Embassy in Tokyo.

Too a large extent, Campbell had chosen to work around Maher; he was far from the inner circle, despite his post. Instead, Campbell has relied on Joe Donovan, the principal deputy assistant secretary, and Japan specialist Rust Deming, a retired US ambassador and former DCM in Tokyo, whom Campbell brought back to State out of retirement to help smooth over troubles in the US-Japan alliance after the Democratic Party of Japan took power in September 2009.

From a personnel management perspective, it backfired on Campbell and other State officials to ignore the signs of trouble that surrounded Maher.

But the real problem, the fertile diplomatic terrain in which the “Maher problem” festered, remains Futenma and the broader issue of the US Marine presence on Okinawa. US policy remains myopically fixated on construction of a replacement for Futenma in the Henoko area of Okinawa, even though it has been abundantly clear for years that the project will never be able to overcome local opposition. In the process, the US is putting at danger its truly critical basing arrangements in Japan – the Kadena air base on Okinawa, and the Yokosuka naval base on the main island of Honshu, just to defend a Marine presence that exists more for reasons of bureaucratic inertia and convenience than for any compelling strategic rationale.

Unless and until Washington shifts to a “Plan B” for US Forces in Japan – strengthening air and naval deterrence, a carefully-phased dispersal of most Marine forces now in Okinawa to other parts of the region, and building up Japan’s own forces on Okinawa – the entire US-Japan alliance will be remain extraordinarily vulnerable to a political shock stemming from Okinawa.

The Maher controversy should serve as yet another wake-up call for the US: shift policy on Okinawa, or face potentially dire consequences.

 

Understanding the Maehara resignation

Questions are swirling around the decision of Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara to resign in the wake of revelations that he received campaign contributions from a foreign national – a long-time friend who is of Korean descent but not a Japanese citizen. Here are some of the key issues to consider.

            Are the charges serious? It is illegal in Japan for a politician to knowingly take campaign contributions from a foreign national. Maehara says he was unaware of the donor’s citizenship status. The donor, a 72 year-old woman, was a mentor of sorts to Maehara since his childhood. The amount involved, roughly $2,400 contributed over several years, seems miniscule, and there is no suggestion whatsoever that Maehara gave any favors in return. Resignation seems hardly proportional to the misdeed.

            So why resign? Inside the Kan camp, there were strong calls for Maehara to stay in office, with the argument that the DPJ could beat back the cat calls from the opposition for him to resign. The big fear was that a quick Maehara departure would fan the opposition hopes that Prime Minister Naoto Kan himself can be driven from office. But Maehara concluded that he would be a huge political distraction. The opposition parties, led by the Liberal Democrats (LDP) and New Komeito, are determined to stop at nothing to embarrass the Kan administration, and would likely have pushed a censure motion against Maehara through the Upper House. Maehara would effectively have been barred from attending Upper House proceedings related to foreign affairs, further adding to the mono-toned opposition calls for Kan to resign.

            Did Maehara abandon a sinking ship? It may seem quaint, but Maehara is actually more principled than that. Maehara of course wants to be prime minister some day, but he does not believe he benefits from a severe weakening of the DPJ. Before the financial contribution controversy arose, no one blamed Maehara for Kan’s political travails. Even though he had told subordinates to prepare for the possibility of an early Lower House election, Maehara gave no hint looking for a way out from the Kan cabinet. On the contrary, Maehara was reluctant to depart because of his deep involvement in critical diplomatic issues, including improving strategic ties with the United States, planning for Kan’s trip to Washington in June, territorial disputes with Russia, and efforts to get Japan to join the regional Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks.

            Does the resignation benefit Maehara at all? In a very narrow sense, Maehara probably benefits, as his resignation will cut off a heated debate about his finances before it gets off the ground. Maehara is widely-seen as an impeccably clean politician, and he certainly did not want to have that reputation unfairly dragged through the dirt. On the other hand, Maehara’s resignation has effectively taken him out of consideration as a possible replacement for Kan, should the prime minister resign any time soon. The financial misstep is not a career-ender for the talented Maehara, who has been unofficially tagged – perhaps to his detriment – as “most likely to succeed” among younger politicians for almost a decade. But he’ll need a ‘decent interval’ before he can return to a prominent role.

            How did the controversy arise? The issue came up in Diet questioning of Maehara by Shoji Nishida, an LDP Upper House member. Nishida has made something of a name for himself, especially among younger voters, for his aggressive questioning style during Diet sessions. Media analysts have found that his performances are the most widely-watched on webcasts of Diet meetings that have grown popular with younger people. Less-known is that Nishida is an enthusiastic member of the Japan Conference, an ultra-nationalist organization that promotes political visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and denies Japanese aggression in World War II.

            Was Ichiro Ozawa involved? Maehara has been a painful thorn in the side of Ozawa for quite some time, relentlessly criticizing the former DPJ leader for engaging in ‘money politics.’ There is no evidence that Ozawa is in contact with Nishida, or was involved in promoting the accusations against Maehara.

However, the latest issue of the weekly AERA magazine reports that Nishida is in broad agreement with alleged ongoing efforts by Ozawa to form a new “conservative” party from elements of both the LDP and the DPJ. Nishida argues that the new party should be based fundamentally on opposition to the “neoliberal” economic and reform policies of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Nishida strongly opposes Japan’s participation in the TPP trade talks, related proposals to reform Japan’s agricultural sector, and a raise in the national consumption tax. Ozawa also opposes those ideas.

            How will the resignation impact Japanese diplomacy? Along with every other “crisis” and “disaster” happily-trumpeted by Japan’s media these days, Maehara’s departure has been interpreted by major newspapers as a huge “blow” to, and “setback” for Japanese diplomacy. The situation is a good deal more subtle. Maehara has put an important personal stamp on Japanese foreign policy, but the overall direction of policy will not significantly change. The Kan government is committed to upgraded strategic ties with the United States; hard-headed engagement with China; reasonable discussions with Russia about the ‘northern islands’; deepened ties with South Korea; resolution of the “abductee” issue with North Korea; and, modest expansion of Japan’s regional and global security role.

            What about the Futenma issue? Maehara’s role in the Futenma issue has long been misunderstood. Moreover, resolution of the issue remains more elusive than ever, which Japanese and American officials know, but for different reasons won’t publicly acknowledge. Maehara’s continued presence would not have changed that deadlock.

It is often forgotten that in the cabinet of Yukio Hatoyama, Maehara was not only transportation minister, but also state minister for Okinawa, which put the issue of construction of a replacement facility for the US Marine Air Station Futenma in the center of his portfolio. Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and then-Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada were relatively early converts to the view that a new facility would have to be built in Okinawa Prefecture. By contrast (and little known), Maehara stubbornly stuck to the view of then-Prime Minister Hatoyama that any new facility should be built outside of Okinawa. Kitazawa and Okada would regularly speak by phone, and meet together, while trying to keep Maehara at bay. In the process, Maehara came to know Okinawan public opinion, and is fully aware of just how unlikely the prospects are of a new facility being constructed, as now planned, in the Henoko region of Okinawa.

            But isn’t Maehara pro-American? More than most Japanese leaders, Maehara has a very sophisticated strategic vision for Japan, which includes an upgraded, but carefully recalibrated alliance relationship with the United States. Focus on this vision could be less-intense without Maehara’s consistent presence.

Maehara sees the United States beginning a major rebalancing of its global posture, away from heavy concentration in Southwest Asia (Iraq, Afghanistan), and more toward the Asia-Pacific region. The United States wants to balance the rise of China, but lacks the resources to do this alone, so must increasingly rely on a network of expanding bilateral and multilateral security ties to exercise direct and indirect influence in the region.

Maehara sees the evolving US policy as consistent with, and providing an opportunity for, an expanded strategic role for Japan in the region, one that allows for greater Japanese and regional self-determination, but also one that remains anchored around American nuclear deterrence.

In this context, Maehara sees the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks as not simply an economic policy, but rather as the economic component of a broader strategic policy that loosely integrates Asia, from India, through Vietnam and Indonesia, to Australia, and up to Korea and Japan.

Forthrightly confronting the “history” issue (notice Japan’s recent apology to Australian WWII POWs), reorienting Japan’s military force structure toward the southern portion of the country, modestly expanding Japan’s military ties with India, Australia, and South Korea, and opening up Japan’s agricultural markets as part of the TPP process, are all components of what Maehara sees as the opportunity and necessity to position Japan (and the region) to peacefully but realistically deal with the rise of China.

Japan’s foreign/strategic policy is likely to continue to evolve in this direction. But Maehara’s departure could slow and blurry the process.