About 50,000 US troops are based in Japan, but because of political sensitivities and lack of space, most U.S. and Japanese forces do not routinely train together. Nor have command and control structures been tightly integrated. But that is beginning to change.
Japanese ground troops began training with Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., two years ago and Japanese F-15 pilots began using U.S. training ranges in Guam last summer. A joint US-Japan Air Defense Headquarters opened at Yokota Air Base, near Tokyo, last month and a joint headquarters for the U.S. Army and Japan Ground Self Defense Forces is scheduled to open at Camp Zama, also near Tokyo, later this year.
The realignment plan also represents a significant shift in U.S. strategy. The Marines in Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii and Australia would be organized as largely autonomous “air-ground task forces” that could be dispatched individually or collectively to trouble spots in the region.
Currently, the Marines on Okinawa are organized largely as the vanguard of a U.S.-based force that would reinforce the Korean peninsula in event of a major land war. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which conducts routine, ship-based patrols of the Asia-Pacific region, would continue to be based in Okinawa.
Tinian Island is located about 1,500 miles southeast of Japan. It served as the launching point for U.S. air raids on Japan during World War II, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. About two-thirds of the island is leased by the Department of Defense, but is largely unused.
The first of about 200 Marines from Iwakuni Air Base, Japan, are currently on Tinian for a month-long training exercise – the first there in more than a decade. No Japanese troops are participating, for now.
So far there has been little public discussion of the broadening military posture in Japan, which includes the easing of arms exports last December. The U.S. is committed by treaty to defending Japan, but Japan’s pacifist Constitution bars the use of force outside of Japanese territory.
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba dodged questions about potential conflicts last week, saying only that Japan must keep up with changes in the global security environment.
Whether U.S. and Japanese troops end up fighting side-by-side remains to be seen. Says Yamaguchi, a former lieutenant general in Japan’s ground forces, “You never know.”
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