Japanese Debate Defense Role, U.S. Bases

TOKYO — It came as something of a surprise here when Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev announced this spring that Moscow will no longer aim nuclear weapons at Japan.

Not that the news wasn’t welcome. It was just that most Japanese had no idea their country had been targeted.

Kozyrev took pains to emphasize that Japanese cities had never been in the cross hairs. The actual targets, he said, had been the nearly 140 U.S. military installations scattered throughout the country.

With the end of the Cold War, many Japanese are beginning to wonder if the U.S. bases haven’t outlived their usefulness. In a new era of multilateral, U.N.-backed security efforts, some are asking why Japan must still play host to about 55,000 American military personnel, the largest U.S. contingent in Asia.

“Japan needs no defensive capability,” says Hiro Umebayashi of the Pacific Campaign to Disarm the Seas, an umbrella organization for Japanese peace groups. “We have no enemies. Who is going to attack us? If there is a problem, it should be settled diplomatically.”

Activists like Umebayashi unsuccessfully pushed their message as debate raged in the Japanese Parliament over legislation to permit troops to join U.N. peacekeeping missions. Parliament approved the law June 15, allowing the first dispatch of Japanese soldiers overseas since World War II.

Some Japanese feel that the country’s economic standing necessitates a more active role in world affairs. They criticize Japan’s postwar constitutional restriction on contributing anything except money to conflicts such as the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Others support Japan’s constitution, which forbids use of force in settling international conflicts. They say that Tokyo’s support of Japanese-based American troops is a clear violation of the document’s spirit.

“Japan was the base for the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War,” observes Yoshito Ikeda of the Tokyo Peace Committee. “So even though Japan wasn’t involved in those wars, we ended up playing a role. This is wrong. The Cold War is over. It’s time for the American bases to go.”

This is not likely to happen soon. Although economic disagreements are producing unprecedented public acrimony between the two nations, security ties between Japan and the United States remain close.

“I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where host-nation support is growing,” Navy Capt. Anthony Mitchell, deputy chief of staff for all U.S. forces in Japan, says. “I don’t see a major push by the government of Japan to change the existing defense relationship in the near future.”

The bases in Japan routinely draw complaints from nearby towns because of aircraft noise and weapons-firing exercises. On the southern island of Okinawa, where the U.S. military occupies 20% of available land, farmers have been demanding for years that the facilities be reduced in size.

From a strategic standpoint, though, U.S. bases in Japan, especially those on Okinawa, are considered vital to regional security. This is even truer because of the shutdown of two U.S. facilities in the Philippines.

The 24,000-member Marine unit on Okinawa serves as the landing force for the U.S. 7th Fleet throughout the Western Pacific.

U.S. vessels from Yokosuka Naval Base south of Tokyo were among the first dispatched to the Persian Gulf after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

To the north, two squadrons of U.S. F-16 fighter jets are stationed at Misawa Air Base at the tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu, only minutes flying time from North Korea, China and Russia.

It was the Gulf War that prompted some Japanese to reassess the bilateral security arrangement with the United States.

“Because of the Gulf War, Japanese people have become suspicious about the U.S. acting unilaterally,” says Hiroharu Seki, professor emeritus of international relations at Tokyo University. “Japanese people prefer U.N. activities.”