The 50th anniversary of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was not met with much fanfare and celebration. In fact, many dissidents believe that after over 50 years it is time the United States decrease or eliminate the military bases it is maintaining in Japan. Our presence may have made sense in immediate postwar Japan and could possibly be justified in Cold War Japan, but there is no place for a military base in modern Japan. The bases are costing us money we don’t have and costing Japan precious land and resources they don’t have. The Japanese are paying most of the operating expenses of maintaining our bases: including the cost of renting the land: and indicated in a 1995 survey that they believe that the U.S. military is not in Japan for Japan’s benefit, despite American rhetoric of protecting the nation against potential invaders.
Japanese dissidents also complain of the disruptive noise and crime committed around military bases. They complain that the noises of helicopters disrupt schools and keep people awake at night. Furthermore, a series of rapes and other violent crimes by U.S. Marines have inspired numerous protests against American military presence, with protestors numbering over 80,000.
While Americans have been encountering pressure from the Japanese to leave the military bases practically from their inception, escalating protests are now louder than ever. Recently, six Japanese officials have been elected to office with the promise that they will oppose American military presence and relocate or remove the air base Futemma from Japan. Prime Minister Hatoyama and local Okinawan politicians have staked their campaigns on promises to oppose the bases, which has led to tense relations between Japan and the United States.
The Japanese who oppose American military presence in Okinawa have it right: We don’t really have a good excuse to stay there anymore. Following World War II, the United States’ occupation of Japan focused on two main goals: demilitarizing Japan, and modeling Japan’s government to imitate that of the United States and other Western countries. These reasons cannot justify staying in Japan today, and in fact did not justify our presence for very long once they were originally stated. The United States only had a stake in demilitarizing Japan immediately after WWII, and the constitution which had previously banned any standing army in Japan was quickly altered during the Cold War to allow for minor exceptions of maintaining a defensive army.
Interestingly, Japan’s military is still hampered by that same clause in its constitution. Though many protestors have tried to completely alter the law limiting military build-up, they have met pressure from the United States and other Western nations to keep the clause in their constitution. One of the biggest justifications the United States has given to back it’s presence in Japan is the argument that the Japanese would not be able to defend themselves in the event of an attack.
However, the Japanese now spend only one percent of their GNP on keeping an army, but have the sixth largest army in the world, according to some sources. In comparison, the United States has the largest army in the world, but six or seven percent of our GNP goes towards maintaining the it. If Japan were allowed to expand its military spending, it is likely that they would have one of the top three largest armies in the world and have no difficulty defending themselves.
So if not to protect the Japanese people from advancing enemies in all directions, why exactly is the United States in Japan? With relatively close access to China, North and South Korea, Russia, India and mainland Japan, Okinawa is a strategic dream come true for the American military.
Furthermore, with Japan shouldering many of the costs of operating the bases, the United States has no financial incentive to consider moving troops to bases on American soil. On the contrary, Japanese officials have historically paid a huge percentage of the costs of transporting American military out of Okinawa and will likely continue to do so in the future.
The Japanese people will not stand for continued American military presence for much longer. Now that it is a part of mainstream rhetoric, with major officials winning elections largely due to promises of eliminating or decreasing the number of U.S. military bases in Japan, the United States had better start looking for new places to station its Marines.
