Yokosuka is different

I have held off from commenting on the murder of Takahashi Masaaki, a taxi driver in Yokosuka by Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a deserter from the US Navy because the details were murky.

But now that Ugbogu is in Japanese custody and US Navy and State Department officials have made their initial apologies, including a visit by Rear Admiral James Kelly, commander, US Naval Forces Japan, to the taxi company that employed Takahashi, where he apologized directly to the company president.

Navy officials have issued a curfew for personnel attached to Yokosuka Naval Base, as well as restrictions on the purchase of alcohol. The Navy has also initiated a period of "training and reflection" for personnel.

Stars & Stripes reports that the situation in Yokosuka is calm: no protests, little hysteria among the local population, and complaints from business owners who fear that business will be hurt by the new restrictions.

This goes to show that it is a mistake to view the US forward presence in Japan uniformly. Okinawa is not Iwakuni is not Yokosuka is not Sasebo: each area has its own dynamics depending on the population size and service origin of service personnel, the size and density of the host community, the scale of the US bases, the presence of JSDF personnel, and the host community's history as a military base.

Yokosuka, a city of more than 400,000 is host to a population of US Navy personnel and dependents of approximately five percent of the city's total population. By comparison, Ginowan, home to MCAS Futenma, has a population of 88,000 hosting more than 4,000 Marines between Futenma, Camp Foster, . Yokosuka is approximately 100 square kilometers; Ginowan is approximately twenty. Add in the presence of Marine aircraft at Futenma and the problem is immediately apparent. (Apologizes for imprecise numbers: it's hard to pin down exact totals of US service personnel and their dependents by facility.)

Yokosuka is also home to a major MSDF base — its facilities intermingled among US facilities — and the relationship between the US Navy and the MSDF is closer than between any other branch of the services. Yokosuka also has a long history as a naval base. Visitors to Yokosuka can see a succession of dry docks built since the Meiji Restoration, with the increasing scale of the dry docks indicative of the growing sophistication of the Imperial Navy and naval warfare in general. Yokosuka is a navy town, and I can attest to the fact that US personnel in Yokosuka are sensitive to their place in the community.

All of which goes to show that if the US presence was limited to the 7th Fleet and a carrier strike group divided mostly between Yokosuka, Sasebo (in Kyushu), and Iwakuni for carrier aircraft, the US position in Japan would be considerably more secure. The danger is of events elsewhere prompting a national movement against the US presence in toto. Having a carrier strike group in Japan is the main reason why the US is the Asia's premier naval power, and is worth preserving, even as other elements of the US forward presence are drawn down. (Yokosuka's importance to the US Navy will only increase, with the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered supercarrier, scheduled to replace the USS Kitty Hawk in August. The George Washington will set sail Monday.)

The relatively calm response to this latest, terrible crime illustrates the sustainability of the US presence in Yokosuka. It is now the responsibility of both governments to keep that way by finding the appropriate composition and distribution of US forces in Japan.

The US forward presence must change

In the span of a weekend, two events have cast doubts on the durability of US deployments in Japan.

The first, obviously, is the alleged rape of a middle-school student by a thirty-eight-year-old Marine committed in Okinawa. The incident has prompted protests to the US consul-general and Marine commander in Okinawa, and promises on the part of US authorities to cooperate with local officials on the investigation and to work to ensure that this won't happen again. The Foreign Ministry has also made demands to Joseph Donovan, US deputy chief of mission, to strengthen safeguards in Okinawa. Kishida Fumio, the minister responsible for Okinawa affairs, responded angrily, and called for stricter countermeasures.

The second was Iwakuni's mayoral election. On the face of it, the election was good news for the US-Japan alliance and the Fukuda government, perhaps giving new life to the troubled 2006 realignment agreement that called for the relocation of US aircraft carrier aircraft from Atsugi in Kanagawa to Iwakuni. Fukuda Yoshihiko, the government-backed, pro-agreement candidate, defeated Ihara Katsusuke, the anti-base candidate, prompting government officials to celebrate Mr. Fukuda's victory as a victory for the alliance. Ishiba Shigeru, defense minister, told reporters that he hopes to talk with the new mayor as soon as possible. "The US realignment," he said, "must by all means be realized to maintain deterrent power and relieve the burden on communities." Yomiuri, in its editorial on the election, echoed both lines of this argument, paying particular attention to the dangers of basing US aircraft at Atsugi in the Kanto plain.

The victory in Iwakuni, however, may be more illusory than the government's celebratory response would suggest. Mr. Fukuda's — or Messrs. Fukuda's — victory was not quite a reversal of the 2006 referendum on realignment in which the citizens of Iwakuni rejected the plan to move the carrier aircraft (triggering the showdown with Tokyo over subsidies). In a Mainichi/TV Yamaguchi exit poll, a plurality (41%) said that they oppose the plan, and another 20% said that they oppose the plan, but believe that "it can't be helped." Only 2% approved the plan unconditionally, while 33% approve with conditions attached.

The campaign came down to economics — a plurality (31%) said that restoration of the city's finances was the most important issue. A factor in the city's finances, of course, is the government's withholding funds to Iwakuni in response to its opposition to the relocation plan (the "stick" side of the government's "carrot and stick" strategy).

Both events illustrate the corrosive impact the US presence has had on Japanese politics — and ultimately suggest that the alliance rests on a fragile political foundation. In order to see the agreement to its conclusion, Tokyo has subverted the will of local communities, a successful strategy thanks to fiscal centralization. The communities, not without reason, fear the consequences of hosting US forces, whether due to crimes committed by US personnel, the risk of plane crashes, and constant noise pollution. Is it appropriate for Tokyo to browbeat those communities into submission?

The Marine presence in Okinawa is particularly disruptive, given the greater impact of ground forces in local communities compared to naval and air enclaves.

The US and Japan need to rethink the feasibility of the basing arrangement. What manner of US presence is sustainable? What composition of forces in Japan will best enable the US to perform its East Asian missions?

As Richard Halloran argues in Air Force Magazine, the US will increasingly reorient its Pacific military assets to Guam, Hawaii, the West Coast of the US, with smaller facilities in Japan, Singapore, and elsewhere. Halloran quotes Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of US Pacific Command, as saying that the US will have fewer boots on the ground in the region by 2017. That makes the US naval base at Yokosuka, soon to be home to the nuclear-powered USS George Washington, the most important US military facility in Japan.

Every rape or assault by a Marine in Okinawa potentially undermines the US presence elsewhere in Japan — and the US should therefore consider unilaterally hastening the process whereby USMC personnel will be relocated to Guam. (This would entail an acceleration of the building process on Guam that has barely begun — but is that an impossible task?) As for the housing of US Navy carrier aircraft, if the planes are to be relocated to Iwakuni, the US Navy has to sell the move itself, much as the homeporting of the USS George Washington was sold to the people of Yokosuka. The US Navy must be a good neighbor, and must be receptive to local concerns, even if Tokyo isn't.

Ultimately, though, the US footprint in Japan must and will shrink for the good of the alliance. Although Japanese hawks argue that US power depends on bases in Japan, US deterrent strength in the Western Pacific will be more durable once it's located back on US territory, immune to the vicissitudes of Japanese public opinion.

Sunday in Yokosuka

I was the guest of a friend -- thank you, again -- to the 18th annual Yokosuka sumo exhibition. Some pictures follow:

Banners outside the Yokosuka taiikukan where the exhibition was held; the banner for the yokozuna Asashoryu is on the left

No explanation necessary

Entrance of the top-grade wrestlers

The exhibition was attended by a number of VIPs, including newly reelected Kanagawa Governor Matsuzawa, US Navy and JSMDF brass, and Yokosuka city officials, as well as a number of US Navy sailors and American civilians. At the close of the exhibition, the winner was presented with prizes from VIPs, include two senior US naval officers. All in all, today's events illustrate the uniquely close relationship between the two navies in Yokosuka, and the US Navy's established presence in the Yokosuka community. The relationship did not emerge overnight, and it has taken considerable work to build and maintain -- but in that sense it's an example of what the US-Japan relationship can be when properly managed.

Speaking of navy-to-navy relations, Yokosuka was crawling with Indian sailors in uniform, who are part of a five-ship Indian flotilla that has been visiting Yokosuka this week, in advance of trilateral US-Japan-India naval exercises. Note that the Indian visit coincides with the visit of Chinese Premier Wen. While Wen's visit may have resulted in the Indian port-of-call being more low key than otherwise, it still went forward, a reminder that Asia's international relations cannot be simplified to either all cooperation or all competition.

After all, two of the Indian destroyers in Yokosuka now are moving on to Qingdao in China, where they will participate in exercises with the PLAN.