Gates Calls for Strengthening U.S.-Japan Defense Alliance

TOKYO, Jan. 13, 2011 — The U.S.-Japan alliance, nego­ti­at­ed and signed dur­ing the height of the Cold War, may be even more impor­tant today, Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates said to the stu­dents of Keio Uni­ver­si­ty here.
Gates deliv­ered the speech the morn­ing of Jan. 14 in Japan, which was ear­ly this evening on the U.S. East Coast.

The U.S.-Japan defense pact, signed in 1960, is based “not just on eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary neces­si­ty, but on shared val­ues,” Gates said in pre­pared remarks. The alliance has suc­cess­ful­ly deterred aggres­sion and has pro­vid­ed a secu­ri­ty umbrel­la for the region, he added, and must con­tin­ue to grow and deep­en to con­tin­ue to be suc­cess­ful. The alliance faces many secu­ri­ty chal­lenges, Gates acknowledged. 

“Some, like North Korea, pira­cy or nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, have been around for decades, cen­turies or the begin­ning of time,” he said. “Oth­ers — such as glob­al ter­ror­ist net­works, cyber attacks and nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion — are of a more recent vin­tage. What these issues have in com­mon is that they all require mul­ti­ple nations work­ing togeth­er – and they also almost always require lead­er­ship and involve­ment by key region­al play­ers such as the U.S. and Japan.” 

Japan’s role in the world has grown, and the coun­try is act­ing on its val­ues, the sec­re­tary not­ed, help­ing coun­tries and peo­ple struck by dis­as­ter and by pro­mot­ing peace­keep­ing oper­a­tions on land and sea. 

“Par­tic­i­pat­ing in these activ­i­ties thrusts Japan’s mil­i­tary into a rel­a­tive­ly new — and, at times sen­si­tive — role as an exporter of secu­ri­ty,” Gates said. “By show­ing more will­ing­ness to send self-defense forces abroad under inter­na­tion­al aus­pices – con­sis­tent with your con­sti­tu­tion – Japan is tak­ing its right­ful place along­side the world’s oth­er great democ­ra­cies. That is part of the ratio­nale for Japan’s becom­ing a per­ma­nent mem­ber of a reformed Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Council.” 

Japan has worked with the Unit­ed States in many of these oper­a­tions, but Japan needs to use the base of the alliance to strength­en mul­ti­lat­er­al insti­tu­tions, Gates told the group. “Work­ing through region­al and inter­na­tion­al forums puts our alliance in the best posi­tion to con­front some of Asia’s tough­est secu­ri­ty chal­lenges,” the sec­re­tary explained. “As we have been remind­ed once again in recent weeks, none has proved to be more vex­ing and endur­ing than North Korea. Despite the hopes and best efforts of the South Kore­an gov­ern­ment, the U.S. and our allies, and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, the char­ac­ter and pri­or­i­ties of the North Kore­an regime have, sad­ly, not changed.” 

North Korea’s pur­suit of nuclear weapons and pro­lif­er­a­tion of nuclear know-how and bal­lis­tic mis­sile equip­ment are devel­op­ments that threat­en not just the penin­su­la, but the nations of the Pacif­ic Rim and inter­na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty as well, Gates said. 

Through all recent North Kore­an provo­ca­tions, the Unit­ed States, Japan and South Korea have stood firm, Gates told the stu­dents. “Our three coun­tries con­tin­ue to deep­en our ties through the Defense Tri­lat­er­al Talks – the kind of mul­ti­lat­er­al engage­ment among America’s long-stand­ing allies that the U.S. would like to see strength­ened and expand­ed over time,” he said. 

Nations must coop­er­ate, and any solu­tion in Korea needs Chi­nese help, the sec­re­tary said. Though Chi­na is a world pow­er with a fast-grow­ing econ­o­my, he added, ques­tions have arisen about the nation’s inten­tions and the opaque nature of its mil­i­tary buildup. “I dis­agree with those who por­tray Chi­na as an inevitable strate­gic adver­sary of the Unit­ed States,” Gates said. “We wel­come a Chi­na that plays a con­struc­tive role on the world stage.” 

The sec­re­tary said his vis­it to Bei­jing was intend­ed to re-start the mil­i­tary-to-mil­i­tary rela­tion­ship between the two nations, and that he wants to ensure con­nec­tions between the Unit­ed States and Chi­na remain open at all times. Deal­ing with the Sovi­et Union, he said, con­vinced him of the impor­tance of open lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tions. “Even if spe­cif­ic agree­ments did not result – on nuclear weapons or any­thing else – this dia­logue helped us under­stand each oth­er bet­ter and lessen the odds of mis­un­der­stand­ings and mis­cal­cu­la­tion,” he said. “The Cold War is, mer­ci­ful­ly, long over and the cir­cum­stances with Chi­na today are vast­ly dif­fer­ent. But the impor­tance of main­tain­ing that dia­logue is as impor­tant today.” 

The scope, com­plex­i­ty and lethal­i­ty of these chal­lenges and more mean “that our alliance is more nec­es­sary, more rel­e­vant and more impor­tant than ever,” the sec­re­tary said. “And main­tain­ing the vital­i­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty of the alliance requires mod­ern­iz­ing our force pos­ture and oth­er defense arrange­ments to bet­ter reflect the threats and mil­i­tary require­ments of this century.” 

Bal­lis­tic mis­sile defense is one impor­tant area, and the Unit­ed States and Japan have worked togeth­er to devel­op the best anti-mis­sile sys­tem in the world, Gates said. “This part­ner­ship — which relies on mutu­al sup­port, cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and infor­ma­tion shar­ing — in many ways reflects our alliance at its best,” he added. 

The Chi­nese mil­i­tary has made strides in cyber and anti-satel­lite war­fare, pos­ing a poten­tial chal­lenge to the abil­i­ty of U.S. and Japan­ese forces to oper­ate and com­mu­ni­cate, Gates said. Mean­while, the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment is weigh­ing its defense needs in the Nation­al Defense Pro­gram Guide­lines – a doc­u­ment that lays out a vision for Japan’s defense pos­ture. The guide­lines call for a more mobile and deploy­able force struc­ture; more intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance capa­bil­i­ties; and a shift in focus to Japan’s south­west islands. 

“These new guide­lines pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for even deep­er coop­er­a­tion between our two coun­tries, and the empha­sis on your south­west­ern islands under­scores the impor­tance of our alliance’s force pos­ture,” Gates said. 

And that coop­er­a­tion needs U.S. forces for­ward-based, the sec­re­tary said. With­out it, “North Korea’s mil­i­tary provo­ca­tions could be even more out­ra­geous — or worse,” he said. “Chi­na might behave more assertive­ly toward its neighbors.” 

The for­ward-bas­ing con­cept itself is chang­ing, using the realign­ment roadmap Japan and the Unit­ed States issued five years ago. The most sig­nif­i­cant and con­tentious change is the relo­ca­tion of the Air Sta­tion Futen­ma on the Japan­ese island of Okinawa. 

“Com­mu­ni­ties that host our bases make crit­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions to Japan’s secu­ri­ty and peace in the region, but we are con­stant­ly seek­ing ways to reduce the impact that U.S. mil­i­tary activ­i­ty impos­es on the local pop­u­la­tion,” Gates said. “The Futen­ma relo­ca­tion plan will return land to the Oki­nawan peo­ple, move thou­sands of U.S. troops out of the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed south­ern part of the island and move the air sta­tion to the less pop­u­lat­ed north. 

“As a result,” he con­tin­ued, “after the relo­ca­tion is com­plet­ed, the aver­age cit­i­zen of Oki­nawa will see and hear far few­er U.S. troops and air­craft than they do today.” 

As the alliance grows and deep­ens, Japan must take on an even greater region­al and glob­al lead­er­ship role that reflects its polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and mil­i­tary capac­i­ty, the sec­re­tary said. The Unit­ed States is wrestling with the size and cost of the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary, he added, but Amer­i­ca will stand by treaty allies. 

“To do this, we need a com­mit­ted and capa­ble secu­ri­ty part­ner in Japan,” Gates said. “I’m cer­tain that our alliance will remain an inde­struc­tible force for sta­bil­i­ty, a path­way for pro­mot­ing our shared val­ues, and a foun­da­tion upon which to build an ever-more inter­con­nect­ed and peace­ful inter­na­tion­al order.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →