WASHINGTON -- The United States and Japan announced on Thursday a revised agreement on streamlining the U.S. military presence on Okinawa that will shift 9,000 Marines from that southern Japanese island to Guam and other Asia-Pacific sites.Read the rest here.
The new plan, unveiled days before Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda visits President Barack Obama, helps the allies work around the still unresolved, core dispute over moving the Futenma air base from a crowded part of Okinawa to a new site that had vexed relations for years.
Under the agreement, 9,000 U.S. Marines will relocate off Okinawa: 5,000 to Guam and the rest to other locations such as Hawaii and Australia, U.S. officials said.
How about the rest? Seriously. Is Japan, a nation that once managed to conquer half the Pacific, unable to defend itself?
Eh, the questions might also be, "How much does the US or Japan want US troops as a trigger in Japan in case of invasion?" and "How much does Japan want to assist the US if a trigger - oh, say in Taiwan or South Korea - is pulled that requires movement and stationing of US resources on Japanese soil?"
ReplyDeletePOst WWII surrender treaties specified limited military in Japan. To my knowledge those have never been lifted to allow Japan to grow their own forces again. The old fear of the 'yellow race' syndrome still prevails.
ReplyDeleteThe up side foe Japan over the years has been with U.S. presence the taxes were lower.
It's a geostrategic thing. The whole idea of keeping US troops in Japan (or Australia or Guam) today is to hem in China. Wouldn't want China to become a threat to the American Empire, would we now?
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