U.S. risks backlash by trying to keep bases in Japan, says Brookings scholar
By David Allen, Okinawa
bureau chief
CAMP FOSTER — Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine found at least one
sympathetic listener during his recent two-week lobbying trip to Washington.
He met for an hour with Michael O’Hanlon, a Washington
think-tank scholar who’s been calling for a reduction of the number of Marines on
Okinawa for years.
O’Hanlon, a foreign policy expert with the Washington-based
Brookings Institute, says the 15,000 Marines on Okinawa are being “squandered”
and could be used better elsewhere.
O’Hanlon’s argument is that by trying to keep all of its
bases in Japan, the United States risks causing a backlash and may ultimately lose
everything, including the facilities with the greatest military benefit for a crisis in
the theater — notably the U.S. Navy and Air Force bases on mainland Japan.
He thinks the Marines should keep about 5,000 troops on Okinawa and
move the rest “elsewhere in the region or return home.”
That was the gist of what he told Inamine, O’Hanlon said
Wednesday in a telephone interview. But, he said, Inamine didn’t like everything he
heard.
O’Hanlon said he told the governor that for the reduction in the
Marine presence, Japan should increase the storage of weapons on Okinawa or on
pre-positioned ships in Japanese ports that would be immediately available for deployment.
He said Inamine did not warm to the idea of making such a trade-off,
or in accepting the U.S. Air Force’s use of airports on the prefecture’s
southernmost islands, closer to Taiwan. That recommendation was made in a recent Rand
defense policy study.
“But I think the governor understood why I think the Marine
presence is less imperative than the other military presences on Okinawa,”
O’Hanlon said.
A spokesman for the military affairs office of Inamine’s staff
said the governor was traveling and would not be available for comment until early next
week.
Keeping so many Marines on Okinawa only strains U.S.-Japan relations,
O’Hanlon said.
“Actually, having so many Marines on Okinawa is
counterproductive,” he said. “Look at the strain the U.S. military is under now
with so many deployments to so many places in the world. It’s simple to see they
could better be used elsewhere.”
O’Hanlon wrote in the spring edition of “Foreign
Affairs” magazine that the Marines are not so much forward deployed as they are
“marooned,” on Okinawa.
The three amphibious ships based in Japan, he wrote, can transport
only the 2,000 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to areas of actual threat
elsewhere in the Pacific. The other 13,000 Marines on Okinawa could not quickly deploy
elsewhere with their equipment, he wrote.
O’Hanlon said he’s been following the various U.S. military
reviews being done for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
“Take the Marshall review, the Rand report and add the Armitage
report from last fall and you can see there’s a lot of debate about all this and the
consensus, I think, is that there will be an eventual withdrawal of some of the U.S.
presence,” he said. “Where I am different, however, is my insistence that our
presence at Kadena and the bases on the main islands is essential and should not be
reduced. We need a strong military presence in Asia. We just don’t need so many
Marines on Okinawa.”
Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, has said
that the 100,000 troops forward deployed in Japan and Korea — including the Marines
on Okinawa — are necessary for the stability of Asia.
Some of the studies being considered by Rumsfeld suggest the focus
should be more southward, to Southeast Asia.
They also recommend less emphasis on permanent bases that could be
easily targeted by missiles.
“I think our need for a forward presence is something that will
be a factor for a long time,” O’Hanlon said. “I am much more on the side of
Admiral Dennis Blair on this — except for the specific case of the Marine Corps
presence on Okinawa.”
Blair recently announced Navy plans to homeport three submarines in
Guam, where the Air Force has already been storing cruise missiles. He also is proposing
that American aircraft carriers deploying to the Persian Gulf spend an extra couple of
weeks in the Western Pacific.
On Okinawa, Tetsumi Takara, a professor at the University of the
Ryukyus, said the arguments for reducing the presence of Marines here are “getting
more realistic.”
“The voices demanding a cut in the number of Marines on Okinawa
are growing louder and will spread to mainland Japan,” he said. “I believe that
the United States government will eventually consider that reducing the number of Marines
on Okinawa would benefit diplomatic ties between the two countries.
“If the Marines are reduced, the other military bases on Okinawa
would be more accepted,” Takara said. “Also, it would make it easier for the
United States to obtain access to other commercial airports, such as the ones on the
southern islands of Shimoji and Hateruma.”
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