For the U.S. the bottom line under the Surrender Treaty of WWII which last 99 years from the day it was signed, is we can go where we want Militarily without opposition from the Japanese Government/Population regardless of the vote. The vote endorses their Nationalism, a great face saver for the Japenese. Oh yeah the leaft wing radicals will be out there stirring the pot if other units relocate to Iwakuni but eventually the citizens of Iwakuni will accept them. Remember and I hate to say it but we are an occupational force in Japan ever since the end of WWII. They are a close ally in that part of the world. Iawkuni is a great place to live and be assigned.
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Japanese City Rejects U.S. Navy Relocation
- Thread starter zippy
- Start date
While that may be technically correct according to treaty, that's certainly not the way we're operating in Japan. The US bends over backwards to accommodate the various cultural and security sensitivities of the Japanese, so to suggest that we're an occupying force that can just go wherever and do whatever we want is a little (actually substantially) off the mark.JMO said:
Brett
Brett-I base a lot of this on ship visits to Kobe, Osaka, Sasebo and Kure. They all have a no Nuke vote. The U.S. intentionaly ignores it to reinforce the treaty. It is a political mechanism vice anything else. The U.S. Embassy and U.S. Consulate in the respective cities play a rols also as to where U.S. ship will visits what ports. And again we are an occupational force no matter what anyone thinks.
JMO said:
I think you meant SOFA not Peace Treaty The SOFA governs our presence in Japan. On policy matters we deal with the National GOJ. On technical and logistic issues we deal with the local Governments. The last time I had access to the SOFA, it required a 48 hour advance notice prior to a port visit by nuclear powered ships.
While visits to Japanese ports by Nuclear powered vessels is governed by the SOFA, visits to Japan by vessels (ships or aircraft) that have Nuclear Weapons is a different issue. The Japanese Constitution forbids nuclear weapons, not nuclear power.
Remember the Philippines? We had a SOFA with GOP, it expired, we were then asked to leave the Philippines, we had no choice, we left. So goes Japan.
Almost related: Several posts have the liberals in Japan protesting U.S. presence. To the contrary, it is the ultra-right wing nationalists that demand we leave.
The Chief makes a good point, the nationalist want us out, they want to be big boys now and flex a little international or at least regional muscle.
Dont kid yourself we didnt spend all this time "occupying" Japan to protect Japan, we did it to ease the fears of all the other nations who got a taste of Japanese brutality to prevent an arms race in the pacific. One that is probably coming at some point, as Japan re-arms and spreads her wings expect the Koreans (both) and Chinese to use this as an excuse to justify a military buld up cant really blame any of them based on what the Japanese did to them.
Dont kid yourself we didnt spend all this time "occupying" Japan to protect Japan, we did it to ease the fears of all the other nations who got a taste of Japanese brutality to prevent an arms race in the pacific. One that is probably coming at some point, as Japan re-arms and spreads her wings expect the Koreans (both) and Chinese to use this as an excuse to justify a military buld up cant really blame any of them based on what the Japanese did to them.
gaijin6423
Ask me about ninjas!
The gold star sticker goes to skidkid. Probably the best way I've heard the manner how other East Asian countries view Japan is as a recovering alcoholic. There is a huge amount of resentment towards both what the Japanese did during WWII, and the manner in which they've left any mention of those attrocities out of their educational system. More than that, though, the Japanese have rarely, if ever, officially acknowledged that their country committed any sort of wrongdoing. Our presence in Japan is far more for the overall stability of the region than anything else, but you cannot deny that there would certainly be someone gunning for the Japanse if we weren't. Which isn't to say that Japan couldn't protect itself if it decided to relight the furnace on the war machine, but the regional and global consequences would eventually be staggering, both politically and economically.
Is it fair to say that the Japanese understand this? That it would not be worth it to exert influence on their own?gaijin6423 said:
Of course, that also begs the question considering the specific pont of, "on their own."
Is there any chance that Japan would re-militarize with the blessing of and ultimately for the strategic purposes of the US? Considering present cultural trends, would such a thing even be feasible?
Just thinking aloud...
Chief-Your right. SOFA does require a 48 hour notice. Over the last few years we have pushed that issue a number of times for political reasons to flex the muscle. The bottom line is we go where we want in Japan. Okinawa is a little different. In the end once the treaty expires we will be out of Japan as we were in the P.I. Both great places for a U.S. Military presence. But we will always have Guam as a fall back.
eddie said:
I think there is a good chance that Japan will continue to get militarily stronger. After all, despite internal pressure to leave Iraq the govt decided to extend their stay. I think the Japanese Govt sees the need to beef up their military and will do so as long as we allow/request. Just me talking though, definitely not an expert.
eddie said:
The foreigner speaketh the truth!
IMHO the Japanese are our most loyal ally. In most if not all foreign policy stances we have taken, Japan has always been there along side the us. The ultra-right wing in Japan views GOJ a puppet of the US.
The average Japanese, I believe, has pondered the question, "Absent the U.S., who would be their ally?"
China? Nope
Taiwan? Nope
Korea (either) Not in your lifetime.
Russia? Hey, I do not think Japan - Russia have even signed a WWII peace
treaty, technically they are still at war. Of course Russia declared war on
Japan two days after we dropped 20kt of A bomb on Hiroshima.
The list goes on.
As the wise foreigner has opined, the Japanese are hated in all of Asia, primarily because of WWII and secondly intense envey of their economic power rise - thanks Uncle Sam - since the end of the war. A part of the envy is the knowledge that Japan made huge economic gains during the Korean War and the Viet Nam fiasco by supplying the US Military with goods and services. :icon_smil
As long as we are on the subject...
Japan has always fascinted me, and I would like to educate myself and generate perspective on current Japanese affairs and policies, economic, foreign, or otherwise (all the same???). Can anyone reccomend a good book or two on the subject?
Japan has always fascinted me, and I would like to educate myself and generate perspective on current Japanese affairs and policies, economic, foreign, or otherwise (all the same???). Can anyone reccomend a good book or two on the subject?
eddie said:
There are many books out there, lot of nonsense has been written as well. The one I am currently reading is:
Lost Japan by Alex Kerr.
Alex is the son a Naval JAG Officer stationed in Japan in the early 1960's, he studied in Japan, lives in Japan. Lost Japan was originally written in Japanese and was winner of Japan's 1994 Sincho Gakugei Literature Prize. It was later translated into English.
It is interesting reading.:icon_smil
Another is:
Japanese Nnational Character by Nyozekan Hasegawa It was published during WWII by Hasegawa, a Japanese Scholar.
And my vote for "How could someone so smart get it so wrong:
The Next Century by David Halberstam, circa 1991.
What evidence do you have of that? There is no way to predict what the situation will be in ~40 years from now. You make it sound as though the Japanese merely tolerate our presence because we "occupy" them. To the contrary, the Japanese government has actively sought to strengthen our presence and relationship since North Korea has augmented its nuclear and ICBM capabilities since the late 90s. In fact, they are down with both technical and financial support of our TMD development programs. Furthermore, the multi-billion dollar new runway at Iwakuni is being funded largely by the Japanese - an improvement not warranted by JSDF operations. This all may just be a semantic issue, but I don't think you quite understand the true nature of our relationship with Japan.JMO said:
Brett
The treaty can be abrogated anytime. The surrent SOFA is an addition/change to the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security as a change/revision to the 1952 Treaty of Peace With Japan (Treaty of San Francisco). As it stands now, the US is not an occupation force, Japan has sovereign rights over its territory, and both sides have the option of leaving at any time with the withdrawal being effective one year from the decision. The SanFran treaty put the Ryukyu chain (including Okinawa) under US control, but they were given back in 1972.
The Japanese aren't going to ask us to go anywhere. In the end they'd rather have our technology defending them than a. spend their own economy's money on it, and b. face some neighboring countries with looooong memories alone.
The Japanese aren't going to ask us to go anywhere. In the end they'd rather have our technology defending them than a. spend their own economy's money on it, and b. face some neighboring countries with looooong memories alone.