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Two factors have driven the debate over the planned U.S. military realignment in Japan: campaign pledges made by the Democratic Party of Japan and complaints from Okinawans about the presence of the U.S. military. These factors have had a particularly strong impact on efforts to preserve the Marine Corps Air Station on Okinawa. However, other critical factors national interests, regional threats, and the U.S.–Japan alliance’s military requirements are absent from the discussion over the station’s scheduled relocation from Futenma to a more remote locale. The Obama Administration should continue to press Japan for implementation of the military realignment agreement. It is past time for Tokyo to jettison its passive consensus-building approach and take more assertive steps.
February 15, 2021 09:40
A former chief of the U.S. Forces Korea has warned of a great risk of the South Korean people falling under the North Korean regime if Seoul makes a premature decision to take over control of wartime troop operation on the peninsula.
Burwell Bell, who was USFK commander from 2006 to 2008, made the remarks in a statement to Voice of America on Feb. 10.
Burwell Bell
The transfer of operational control to South Korea in a nuclear environment would be an historic mistake by the proud and heroic people of [South] Korea, he said. No transfer of OPCON of wartime forces should be pursued by South Korea or the United States as long as North Korea is armed with nuclear weapons, he added.