Moving US Marines Out Of Okinawa Would Be A Grave Mistake

Latest stories Reality behind Trump's tariffs, AI job losses and Japan's debt China's SDV sub exporting gray-zone warfare to the Gulf Beijing upset as Dutch court blocks Wingtech bid to recontrol Nexperia

Indeed, almost nobody was thinking about fighting a war along Japan's southern islands, the Nansei Shoto or the First Island Chain. That's even though they run from Japan to Taiwan through the Philippines and on to Malaysia.

DPRI was a chaotic and largely unnecessary attempt to placate supposed widespread Japanese opposition to the presence of US forces.

The idea was that moving US troops, mostly Marines on Okinawa, away from where Japanese people lived would dissolve the opposition. And, in turn, that would save the overall US-Japan alliance.

A flawed deal

But that misread the reality of the situation and far overstated actual opposition.

Moreover, Japan's central government refused to take on vocal opponents of US forces. Many of the latter understood that the louder they complained, the more money they got from Tokyo.

The US side, including the US Marine leadership in Washington, appeared incapable of presenting a coherent and forceful defense of the US Marine“laydown” in Japan.

In the end, the US negotiators followed instructions from DC and rolled over and agreed to a bad deal, but declared success.

Strategic oversight at Henoko

The Atlantic Council piece also calls for retaining Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in central Okinawa, which is scheduled to close once a replacement facility is built farther north along the east coast at Camp Schwab, the US Marine base near Henoko.

Eames' suggestion will cause heads to explode in Tokyo and Washington. But it's the right thing to do. Agreeing to close Futenma was an act of self-harm.

The plan calls for closing down a full-service air station that can handle just about every aircraft in the inventory and replacing it with a pygmy-sized air facility that's really a very large heliport.

That demonstrates the scant thought DPRI negotiators on both sides gave to actual warfighting capabilities as opposed to just“making the problem go away.”

Even worse, there was a better, feasible alternative that involved constructing a full-sized, joint US-Japan airbase in the shallow waters off Okinawa's Katsuren Peninsula.

But the US side had already made up its mind that Henoko was the only option. And when bureaucrats make up their minds, contractors and politicians smell money. It's game over.

Bureaucracy vs reform

So Eames and the Commandant are just asking to correct missteps and lack of foresight by US and Japanese negotiators and their bosses, some twenty-plus years ago.

But, how hard will it be to re-look at DPRI? Answer: very hard. Bureaucratic laziness is a powerful force, and reopening negotiations is always difficult. There's also strong vested interests, not the least financial, in keeping DPRI intact.

And one expects anti-base politicians in Okinawa to complain. They always complain, no matter what the Americans and the Japanese governments do.

But these days, there's also a general understanding among the broader Okinawan population of the bases and their importance. They are also aware that Okinawa is handsomely compensated for hosting the bases.