THE DAILY YOMIURI - October 1, 1998

Asia Crisis Shows Need to Consider Withdrawing U.S. Forces from Japan

by Steven C. Clemons

Wars have been history's most obvious form of punctuation, marking eruptions between rival nations as well as the ebb and flow of power within the global system. The last great war--if, after seeing Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," one can still stomach such a term--was World War II, but certainly the hot conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, as well as proxy struggles in the Middle East, Angola and Afghanistan, reflected the deadly tension between U.S. and Soviet interests.

Japan played an important role in this rivalry. During the Cold War, Japan was, in America's East Asia strategic plan, a critically valuable U.S. satellite, or as then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone once proclaimed, an "unsinkable aircraft carrier of peace and stability." The reward for Japanese compliance with U.S. strategic objectives in East Asia was wealth through trade and commerce; the price, the loss of full sovereignty and the burden of hosting American troops and weapons on its soil.

History has now consumed the Soviet order, and, so far, the world has sidestepped the tragic loss of life that might have accompanied the collapse of such an important empire. But even though war has not punctuated this historical transition, other crises and adjustments are under way. Economies that have for years lured international investment, despite evident signs of corruption and government-guided industrial policy, are now collapsing. Currency and financial market upheaval, the collapse of regional consumption, and the impoverishment of a significant portion of the Asia-Pacific population are, in part, evidence of significant adjustment in America's priorities and slippage in the social contract between the United States and these affected nations. Asian allies mean less to an American public that no longer needs to worry about the Soviet threat.

Markets are now disciplining behaviors in Asia that just over a year ago were embraced by investors. More important, these economic trends foreshadow coming adjustments in other areas of America's Cold War architecture, particularly in the defense-security arena. It is time that Japan began to think more clearly about its own national interests and about a transition away from servitude to U.S. defense planners and toward strategies and structures that will engender real, rather than the pretense of, regional security.

Since the demise of the Soviet "evil empire," the Pentagon has diligently manufactured new, alternative threats to justify its enormous budget and powerful arsenal. The recent failed launch of a satellite by North Korea has Pentagon defense planners and weapons contractors strutting with glee. This failing Stalinist nation--which has watched its former patrons, Russia and China, slide into international irrelevance and bankruptcy in the former case and, in the latter, into cozy relationships with Pyongyang's mortal enemies in Seoul and Washington--has learned that nuclear programs and rocket launches, even if crudely assembled and unsuccessful, buy international prestige, respect and negotiating leverage. This leverage comes despite the fact that South Korea has 20 times the economic power of the North and twice the population. Nonetheless, Japanese leaders did what the Pentagon wanted them to do all along and agreed to fund a study of the controversial Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system.

Threat escalation in the United States can reach absurd levels, particularly when pork barrel politics are involved. For example, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska., the powerful chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, are now pounding their desks on the floor of the U.S. Congress calling for full funding of ballistic missile defense and its deployment in Alaska. Why Alaska--a state larger than Texas with only 600,000 residents? These politicians absurdly argue that North Korea's recent rocket launch proves that they can now hit U.S. soil in the Aleutian Islands, and all Americans should be quaking in fear. Despite the fact North Korea may indeed pose certain kinds of threats, one must assume that this communist throwback nation would most likely target Seoul, or even the cluster of 41 U.S. installations on the small island of Okinawa before trying to hit something on the Aleutian Islands if it in fact targets any of these areas, since a real missile attack would certainly lead to North Korea's virtual annihilation.

I am not minimizing real threats in the world, particularly given recent terrorist atrocities in Africa, but the Cold War defense and security architecture on which the United States and its allies have relied and spent trillions of dollars is increasingly less relevant and effective in providing security in a post-Cold War environment.

However, strategists in the Pentagon will not stand down easily. Even U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, who came to the Pentagon promising a top-to-bottom review of the Defense Department's structure and strategy, has proven immovable on the subject of forward basing of U.S. ground troops in Asia. He stated in a speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, "When I first took over, I said everything is on the table for review, except we are going to keep 100,000 people in the Asia-Pacific region--that is off the table." Cohen has also recently stated that even after a theoretical reunification of the two Koreas, he would be inclined to keep U.S. ground troops stationed in Korea to deal with new threats that might emerge from other directions.

The fundamental point is that the Pentagon does not want to adjust its forces in Asia; but clearly the strategic rationale for maintaining such Cold War military capacity may be undermined by the forces that are undoing America's Cold War economic arrangements in the region. The logic of the United States defending Japan, a nation to which it has been going into debt on average of 50 billion dollars a year, was always difficult to understand. However, in an era devoid of superpower rivalry and when presidents can hold unscripted public debates with their Chinese counterparts, as Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin recently did, one may question the sense of maintaining such huge defense deployments at high cost around the world.

America's military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region also represent higher costs for Americans, costs that cannot easily be justified by current returns. And while the Pentagon may struggle vigorously to maintain its bases, beaches and golf courses in Asia, it is investing its resources ineffectively and failing to prepare for next-generation sources of instability.

Most of the U.S. military presence in Japan and South Korea is made up of army and marine divisions of 18- to 20-year-old men who are just entering their most crime-prone years. The rape of a 12-year-old girl in Okinawa Prefecture by three marine and navy personnel only highlighted the many other crimes, including rapes, murder and petty theft that the U.S. presence in Japan and South Korea have generated. But beyond this, U.S. military flight exercises, munition tests and appetite for land use have generated extremely crowded living conditions for local citizens, together with disruptive noise problems and the frustration of rational economic development schemes that Okinawan citizens need if they are ever to improve their standard of living. Okinawa is Japan's poorest prefecture, even though it bears most of the burden for hosting U.S. troops and bases.

The negative local impact of the U.S. troop presence is high, but the defense returns are low. If North Korean problems are eventually resolved, there are few other high-level targets that would justify U.S. use of ground troops, particularly in an era of technological military development that relies on smart weapons and remote, technologically-based intelligence management. Would the United States consider using ground troops against China? One can only hope that defense planners are too smart for this.

Many will debate in the years to come whether U.S. bases in Asia are merely relics of our Cold War past. But it is clear that the U.S. public is already sending a signal, as evidenced in the regional economic crisis, that Asian allies are less important than before. And the time may be approaching when the Pentagon and those in Japan's political elite who are defending America's Cold War setup find that there is no public support for ground troop deployment and diminishing support for U.S. air and naval bases as well.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for Japan to assess its own future interests and help create a new structure in the Asia-Pacific region that would involve the United States and other nations as well. This is the time for Japanese political leaders to stop snubbing Okinawa Gov. Masahide Ota for trying to sort out the future of U.S. bases on his island. Ota is a nationalist, just as much as those who think that blind faith in the current U.S. base scheme are nationalists. But given the convulsions that have hit the Asia-Pacific region, it is wise for Japan to take stock of its national interests and ask the right questions about its future. If the bases are gone tomorrow, Japanese security may be at risk; but if base reduction is inevitable, then perhaps new arrangements need to be considered proactively. Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, heir to an aristocratic line that has helped rule Japan for 600 years, has called for no less in recent speeches and articles. Hosokawa believes that it is time for Japan and the United States to begin considering a military alliance in Asia that does not include U.S. forces in Japan. Others have called for removal of ground troops and a new emphasis on U.S. air and naval capabilities in the region.

No matter what arrangements eventually evolve between the United States and Japan, those who ignore the lessons that the East Asia crisis holds about this historical transition in Cold War architecture do so at their peril.