Greeting from Bloomington

Hi, Shoji,                                                                              Good to hear from you.  I'm pleased to learn about Bon...this is new information for me.  I'm sure it is beneficial to old and young to have spiritual ties to their relatives.

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As in many other parts of the world, we are experiencing an unusually hot summer in Bloomington.  It has been over 90 F every day in August.  Fortunately, we had a good respite in the last week of July: we joined a tour group for 10 days in Scotland.  It was the first time in Scotland for both of us, and we enjoyed it tremendously.  Daily high temperature was only about 60 F, with frequent rain and mist, but that is normal for western Scotland, and we loved it.  The scenery is fantastic, with low mountains, valleys, lakes and sea visible from almost every part of the country...and plenty of picturesque villages and medieval castles.  We hope to return again to see more of the islands and historic sites.

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I always enjoy your reports of visits to shrines.  Janet and I have a similar hobby--visiting the county courthouses of Indiana.  Indiana is divided into 92 counties, each of which has a government center which houses the county executive, legislative, and judicial offices.  Traditionally, the courts were the most prominent part of the government, so they are called "courthouses."  Among the 92 counties, you find some courthouses that were built at the beginning of the state around 1820, others buil throughout the 19th century and some built very recently.  So it's a way to get a grand survey of public architecture over 200 years.  A typical example is the Jefferson County courthouse http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/population/photos/ShowCH.asp?FIPS=18077

So far, we have visited 58 courthouses, with 34 remaining.  Of course, when we visit other states we try to visit their county courthouses also.

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Toyota is out of the news here.  Business seems to be normal.  Did I mention that Janet adopted Abby's Toyota Rav4 when Abby moved to Guam?  So now both of us are driving Toyotas. 

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Thanks to your questions, I have been following the discussions on the National Board of Asian Research online forum.  So I see daily exchanges of opinion about the  strategic implications of policy decisions in the US, Japan, the Koreas, and China.  The Asia experts who give their opinions often differ sharply on the significance of each policy, so it seems to me that there are at least two sides to every issue.  One of the experts who seems to be respected in the NBR forum is Rodney Armstrong. 

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Today Armstrong gave his opinion about the Okinawa issue:

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"Here are some reasons the Marines should be sent home from Asia, and several reasons why they are likely to be welcomed home sooner rather than later.

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1. There is no requirement for infantry in Asia. When Okinawa was reverted, the US Army, recognizing the proof in the Vietnam defeat of Eisenhower's dictum against fighting land wars in Asia, withdrew infantry from Okinawa. There was recognition that American infantry on Okinawa was too far away to be useful if war broke out on the Korean Peninsula because of the proximity of Seoul to the DMZ. Any new outbreak of violence on the peninsula would have to be handled by the South Koreans themselves with their own forces, which were being rapidly strengthened in the mid-1970s as they lost confidence in the US after the Vietnam defeat..

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2. The Marines took over the infantry facilities on Okinawa for bureaucratic empire-building purposes. They had previously not had any overseas bases, and they wanted a seat at the Washington conference tables where international policies were discussed. The subsidization of their bases on Okinawa by the Japanese government's "sympathy budget" added to the attractions of a takeover from the US Army. However, now the "sympathy budget" is being reduced. The drain of dollars from the large Marine "tail" of dependents (9,000?) becomes more troubling for the US Government and the high yen provides severe household budget problems for the dependents.

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I note former Ambassador Armacost's statement at a meeting in April this year:

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"It is not entirely clear what the Marine Corps contributes to the defense of Japan. Our Marines do a lot of training – which is useful – with other services, and engage in a lot of highly worthy disaster-relief missions elsewhere in the region. Is this critical or just "nice to have if the costs are reasonable?"

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It is not clear how many Marines are on Okinawa at this time. Both the Pentagon and Ryukyu Prefectural numbers, at upwards of 20,000 seem high. There are reports from Okinawa of mothballed facilities and empty parking lots at Marine facilities in Okinawa, and shuttered bars in the entertainment districts. Marines who were sent to Iraq from Okinawa do not seem to be coming back. One knowledgeable Okinawan friend estimates that there are somewhere between 12 and 15 thousand Marines on Okinawa at present.

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In November the Okinawans seem likely to elect a Governor opposed to the Henoko project. If the two governments do not come to an agreement that will close Futenma, it is likely that protests will rise to the point that Futenma will become unusable (I am assuming that Prime Minister Kan will simply throw up his hands if the new governor refuses to authorize Henoko.) I do not predict violence, but the protests in Kyushu that closed in 1974 another base too close to an urban area, the Itazuke Air Force base near Fukuoka, were not violent either---but they were effective.

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The Marines' problems will be complicated by the American budgetary problems as the Iraq and Afghan wars wind down. Both the US Army and Marines have been subjected to incredible stresses---in terms both of personnel and equipment. The Marines were going into the Guam transfer program in the time-honored Pentagon way of giving modest up-front estimates and then depending on their superb congressional lobbying resources to fill in the expected overruns.

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This time, however, the Marines will have to compete in bitter budget battles with the larger services, all of whom have their own serious needs and priority requirements. The nuclear weapons lobbies had to be bought off with an $8 bln/year, ten-year program of weapons "maintenance" in order to get START II on its way to approval. The Air Force needs more resources for a new fighter. And so on. The Marines and their Asian ambitions are likely to come far down the list, certainly following their own need to re-equip and restore.

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Greg Clark has suggested that the Chinese might wish to fish in the Futenma-troubled waters. Ironically, the Chinese are all for the use of Okinawa for training Marines to fight in Afghanistan. From the Chinese point of view, our efforts there help to dampen Islamic pressures in Xinkiang (although their Uighur problems really do not appear to be related to radical Salafi Islam). Pakistan is China's only strategic ally, and our aid is propping up that rickety regime.

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But the Chinese would not like to see the Marines in Korea. The idea of monolingual US Marines going in to capture ports in North Korea in case of a DPRK collapse is risible. If the ROK Marines say they would welcome such assistance, then they are putting us on. The Koreans have two divisions of their own Marines who are well trained for the port capture eventuality. The only possible role the US Marines could play would be to assist in bringing in relief supplies and equipment under combat conditions to backstop the South Koreans' efforts. Just as was the case after the Marines' great performance in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami, they would be asked to leave as soon as their services were not required. And China would be growling from the get-go.

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Regards, Rod Armstrong"

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So, I don't know what's best for Japan, but Armstrong thinks that Marine withdrawal from Okinawa would be good for US interests.... Armstrong reminds us that, just as there are many conflicting interest groups in Japan, there are many in the US, including the different branches of the military.  It is difficult for civilians to understand and accept the competition exercised by the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.  We would expect each agency to be most interested in the national welfare, not the welfare of their branch.  But this is not the case. 

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Best regards,

Mike

コメント 1

This last paragraph is what I share fully with.
This piece is very enlightning.

"It is difficult for civilians to understand and accept the competition exercised by the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. We would expect each agency to be most interested in the national welfare, not the welfare of their branch. But this is not the case."


by I Watanabe (2010-08-18 07:51)