At a glance
The US and Japan should set up new military headquarters for missions to defend Okinawa and other islands as part of a broad revamp of their alliance, according to a group of top foreign policy experts from both countries
The US and Japan should set up new military headquarters for missions to defend Okinawa and other islands as part of a broad revamp of their alliance, according to a group of top foreign policy experts from both countries
Japanese officers should be embedded with a US task force headquarters for “First Island Chain missions” — the name strategists give to the string of islands running south-west from Japan’s mainland — with Japan setting up a similar command on the same base
Such a headquarters could further embroil the US with the disputed Senkaku Islands, a chain in the East China Sea controlled by Japan but claimed by China as the Diaoyu, where there are regular stand-offs between ships and aircraft from the two Asian countries
The report by a group including Richard Armitage, the former US deputy secretary of state, and Ryozo Kato, the former Japanese ambassador to Washington, indicates how China’s rise is pulling foreign policy establishments in Tokyo and Washington closer together
It comes as Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, has railed against the alliance as an unfair burden on the US
“The implication that somehow Japan got a better deal in the US-Japan alliance is crazy,” said John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and an author of the report, calling it a “foundational relationship” for both countries
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has put particular weight on improving relations with the US and, with its “pivot to Asia”, the Obama administration has generally reciprocated
The report, written for CSIS and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation in Japan, says the next 15 years will be “one of the most testing times in the entire history of the alliance”. It says China’s rise will be the “primary geopolitical test” and the alliance should be strengthened to deal with “grey zone” coercion by China, such as its building of artificial islands in the South China Sea
“The baseline of this report is China will be more powerful and a bit more aggressive,” said Noboru Yamaguchi, a retired lieutenant-general in the Ground Self-Defence Force, and another author of the report
It calls for more co-ordination on everything from cyber security to relations with Russia; updated command and control mechanisms; and greater interoperability between Japanese and US forces
The group also says the countries should speed up the relocation of US forces on the island of Okinawa and return some land occupied by US bases to Japan as early as possible
“It is a simple military fact that the combined economic, military and technical capability of Japan and the US together is greater than that of China,” said Dennis Blair, chairman of Sasakawa USA and a former commander of the US Pacific fleet. With action to maintain that advantage, “conflict in this part of the world will not happen”, he said
