アメリカ兵と日本兵が組んで戦闘する日も夢ではないという記事
U.S. and Japanese Troops Draw Closer
By Kirk Spitzer | April 30, 2012 | Reuters
Soldiers from Japan’s Western Army Infantry Regiment train at Camp Pendleton, Calif., earlier this month.=写真
TOKYO – The prospect of U.S. and Japanese troops fighting side-by-side in the next land war in Asia – and Heaven forbid the need for either — comes a step closer with a little-noted provision in U.S. realignment plans announced last week. The agreement to shift 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to other locations in the Pacific also includes plans to build joint U.S.-Japan training bases on American territory in the Northern Mariana Islands and perhaps elsewhere.
This would mark the first time that U.S. and Japanese troops routinely train together for combat operations and would dramatically deepen the connection between those forces. “This is a historic shift in the relationship,” says Noboru Yamaguchi, a retired lieutenant general in Japan’s Ground Self Defense Force and now a professor at the National Defense Academy of Japan. “The fact that these will be joint facilities on U.S. soil makes the relationship much more of a two-way street. This is not just renting land to the Marines.”
The plan also calls for joint U.S.-Japan surveillance and reconnaissance operations in Japan’s southern islands – which include territory claimed by China and Taiwan – as well as transfer of patrol boats and other military equipment from Japan to “coastal” nations like the Philippines.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and President Barack Obama are expected to endorse closer cooperation and coordination between US and Japanese forces following their meeting in Washington on Monday.
Although plans have not been finalized, a joint Japan-U.S. inspection team last week visited potential training sites on Tinian, Pagan and other islands in the Northern Mariana chain. It was the latest in a series of inspection trips to the islands in recent months. Negotiators have already agreed that some of the $3.1 billion that Japan has pledged to help pay for relocation of the Okinawa Marines can be used to build the joint facilities. Specific sites in the Marianas, which could include Guam, are to be identified by the end of the year.
The joint facilities would allow U.S. and Japanese forces to train together for combat operations on a regular basis and coordinate key battlefield issues like communications, logistics and artillery and air support.
“This really creates an opportunity for significant deepening in our operational relationship together,” a senior U.S. defense official said at a Pentagon background briefing. The plan must be approved by Congress, which has commissioned an independent study of U.S. basing requirements in the Pacific; that study is expected to be completed in June.
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