U.S. Defense Department holds sway in Japan

By Edward Neilan

The occupation ended long ago but security issues loom larger than ever in background.

TOKYO (JP): Which arm of the United States government has the most influence in Japan?

The answer is the Department of Defense, which oversees 100,000 troops in Asia -- one third of them in Japan -- all of which are now within range of North Korean missiles.

Then there is the added responsibility -- one which Japanese politicians shun even talking about -- of managing the external security deterrent for Japan, familiarly known as the "nuclear umbrella."

The U.S. Treasury department is second in terms of U.S. governmental clout in Japan. Secretary Robert Rubin is well- respected and there is good dialog, for the most part. Japan lets itself be nudged on some points because of this respect. The American financial establishment, including Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, deals with something the Japanese know and admire -- money.

Third-ranked in terms of American influence in Japan (the White House is fourth) is the State Department. Secretary Madeline Albright will visit China Feb. 28 for two days, then Thailand for a day, then Indonesia, then back home. That's called the "leading edge" of U.S. policy in Asia.

Visit Japan? No way.

Assistant Secretary of State for Asia and Pacific Stanley Roth, who will celebrate his 45th birthday next month, recently spent several days visibly dealing with Asian affairs. The first was in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, then he went to Indonesia.

Visit Japan? No way.

In fact, in Davos he gave what turned out to be a full-page interview in Asiaweek magazine (Feb. 19 issue), managing to mention almost every country in Asia, except Japan.

Thank goodness for Ambassador Thomas Foley's occasional speech and ribbon-cutting or we wouldn't even know the State Department existed in Tokyo.

What's going on here?

The convergence of issues in Northeast Asia is startling. At least Secretary of Defense William Cohen shows up here frequently; so frequently that some feel he may have a second home in Minato-ku.

There is the North Korean missile fear, emerging from the missile Pyongyang fired across Japan last year and igniting worries in Japan (it's about time!) over danger from that direction. There is China's uncertainty about how to deal with the North Korean missiles. There is the arguing among Japan-South Korea-U.S. over how to handle North Korea ranging from "Sunshine policy" to a policy we might call "darkness at noon" favored by some in the Pentagon. North Korea, as expert Katsumi Sato pointed out (Japan Times, Feb. 14), goes merrily on its way, playing the neighborhood for a bunch of fools.

Former Secretary of Defense William Perry is drafting a report to make some sense out of a flawed U.S. policy toward North Korea and will be bringing it to Tokyo and other Asian points next month.

The report is expected to expand on U.S. proposals for a Theater Missile Defense (TMD) that would defend Japan and South Korea. China didn't like the idea even before Taiwan was mentioned as a possible benefactor and participant in the Star Wars-like shield.

More recently, there is the China missile-rattling which press reports have characterized as 100 ballistic missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait at Taipei and other cites. Subsequent reports have said there is nothing new to that deployment.

And in the background, questions like if Japan is attacked by North Korean missiles, who will defend it? The United States? Would Japan agree to U.S. retaliation on North Korea for such attacks?

Meanwhile, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1960 is the most pertinent diplomatic document between the two countries. In fact, the Pentagon calls the shots because of the troop and force deployment of Americans.

Polls have shown that most Japanese know little if anything about the 31,669 U.S. military personnel based in Japan today. Of them, 1,808 are Army, 6,521 are Navy, 19,311 are Marine Corps, and 14,029 are Air Force.

The aircraft carrier USS Kittyhawk is now based at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. It is the only American aircraft carrier home- ported outside the United States.

The Kittyhawk carries 5,500 sailors and 80 aircraft, currently including two squadrons of F/A-18C Hornets and one squadron of F- 14A Tomcats.

Arriving with the Kittyhawk was the USS Chancellorsville, a cruiser with the U.S. Navy's latest combat systems suite, including increased missile capabilities.

The Chancellorsville is equipped with the AEGIS weapons system, M41 vertical launching system, anti-submarine rockets, Tomahawk cruise missiles and the Phalanx close-in weapons system. It has a total capacity of 122 air, surface shipping and land attack missiles.

The writer is an analyst of Northeast Asian affairs and a media fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University.