U.S., Japan Upgrade Defense Alliance

The United States has taken a step forward in integrating its Asia-Pacific defenses with key ally Japan.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has declared the US-Japan security pact a “global alliance” following agreement on an unprecedented level of operational co-operation between American and Japanese forces.

While the headline item for Japan from the weekend agreement is the removal of 7000 US marines from Okinawa, its fundamental thrust is a rapid integration of the military commands and their operational capabilities.

The document also foreshadows a strengthening of tentative security links between Japan and Australia, the key southern partner in the Americans’ Asia-Pacific alliance network.

It calls for US and Japanese forces to regularly exercise with third countries and to strengthen co-operation with them “to improve the international security environment”.

Required exercises with third parties could lead to interesting politics. Obvious number-threes like regional allies Australia and South Korea would certainly be understandable, as would be a naval inclusion of the Brits. Some other matchups may raise more eyebrows and political storms, both regionally, globally and internally to Japan.

“This relationship which was once only about the defence of Japan and stability of the region has come to a global alliance,” Dr Rice said in Washington yesterday after she and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed an interim “force posture realignment” agreement with their Japanese counterparts.

“This relationship which was once only about the defence of Japan and stability of the region has come to a global alliance,” Dr Rice said in Washington yesterday after she and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed an interim “force posture realignment” agreement with their Japanese counterparts.

“We’re now talking about joint activities in various areas between Japan and the US in order to improve the peace security around the world,” said Japan Defence Agency director-general Yoshinori Ono.

Mr Ono said the alliance “opened a new era” but was careful to insist Japan’s expanded role would not contravene the country’s pacifist constitution.

All well and good, until possible global realities add pressure to include nations in future exercises that may have serious ramifications on the Japanese homefront and abroad. Exercises with the U.S., Japan and India would be intriguing for the possible future of the war against radical Islam, but also may really be addressing an issue in direct conflict with Japanese legal constraints. Likewise, the hot potato of exercises with Taiwan would definitely give light to a political powderkeg. Despite that, this Taiwan matchup is a rather likely scenario that must be prepared for and gamed in detail.

However, matters covered by the new US-Japan agreement, including joint missile defence arrangements, push constitutional boundaries, particularly the official interpretation that the war-renouncing Article 9 forbids Japan from engaging in “collective self-defence” with its allies.

While the ruling Liberal Democratic Party proposes amending Article 9 in its new constitutional draft, the suddenly urgent pace of US-Japan alliance “transformation” is racing ahead of the constitutional debate.

It is late 2005. Japan’s constitutional constraints are the results of the nation’s aggressiveness over sixty years past. It is time for a revision — it is time for a great nation and regional and global power to unshackle itself, say it can act responsibly on the global stage, and become the contributor that it should be.

How confident is the U.S. in Japan’s future? Well, it seems they are willing to become even more technologically intertwined with the nation for a shared cause.

The Americans will deploy the powerful X-Band anti-missile radar system and share its information with Japan, which will further bind together Japan’s planned ballistic missile defence system and the US Pacific BMD network.

Common causes. Common potential enemies. This is a good step forward, with a lot of potential for thorns and blessings.