Japan and the United States agreed on Wednesday to decouple the transfer of thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam from the southern Japan island of Okinawa from plans to relocate a base on Okinawa, a step forward in resolving an irritant in relations.
The shift of U.S. Marines to the Pacific island of Guam had been linked to progress in relocating the Futenma airbase on Okinawa. But Tokyo has struggled to win the consent of islanders' to the relocation plan.
Mind you, I don't know what else we could have done. So I'm not complaining about the Obama administration. We need to move some of our power away from China to deprive China of the ability to conduct a surprise strike on our western Pacific forces. Guam is far enough away to defend yet close enough to project power to the Chinese coast.
But by delinking the move, Okinawans get part of what they want (fewer US forces near them) without giving up anything (a new US base away from Fumenma).
We still need our base on Okinawa where we will continue to have 10,000 Marines . Eight thousand will also be on Guam and we will either have 2,500 more Marines in Australia or put some of the Marines scheduled for Guam to Australia. I had assumed the the Australia deployment would be in addition to the Guam move, but apparently not.
I still don't understand why the Japanese let Futenma get to this state in the first place:
The Futenma facility is surrounded by more than 100 schools, hospitals and shops. Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka calls it the world's most dangerous airbase.
We'd rightly condemn a foe that surrounded a military base with civilian facilities like this. I know that Chinese capabilities to attack Okinawa are fairly new, but Futenma is a military facility. Why push schools and hospitals up to the perimeter? Having done that, moving the base should be a no-brainer. And rising Chinese power should make the idea of keeping our aircraft on Okinawa a no-brainer affirmative decision, too.
UPDATE: My Jane's email updates says fewer Marines will leave Okinawa now:
A major shake-up to Japanese and US plans to move US marines out of Okinawa Prefecture will reportedly see only 4,700 personnel move to Guam - significantly less than the original 8,000 projected to leave under a 2006 bilateral agreement on the realignment of US forces in Japan.
So what's remaining on Okinawa and what is moving to Guam? Are the aircraft staying on Okinawa as pressure over a Futenma replacement facility on Guam?
