US, Japan unveil first steps toward strengthened military alliance

Japan has recently embraced a leadership role in the region, relaxing traditional military restraints and bolstering its defense capabilities, both to protect itself and to help the United States maintain stability in the Western Pacific. It has announced a plan to establish a joint operational command in March of next year to better coordinate its sailors, airmen, soldiers and Marines.

To adjust to Japan’s new command, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to announce on Sunday an upgrade of the current U.S. Forces Japan headquarters, which is largely an administrative office, to an all-service or “Joint Force” headquarters led by a three-star commander.

“It is truly historic as it relates to the alliance and our military ties with Japan,” said a senior defense official, who spoke at the conference along with other U.S. and Japanese officials. condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.

Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Tokyo this weekend to meet with their counterparts, Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, respectively. The officials will promote agreements — including increased co-production of weapons and greater defense industrial cooperation — reached between Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden during the state visit to Washington in April.

Deepening the defense relationship is part of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which aims to counter growing Chinese aggression by strengthening relations with like-minded countries.

“This is a strategy based on building collective capacity with allies and partners, and encouraging them to act in innovative ways,” Mira Rapp-Hooper, the White House senior director for East Asia, said during a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute this week, citing Japan’s partnership with the United States as a good example of the strategy.

The modernization of the American armed forces in Japan, stationed at Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo, is aimed at giving it powers similar to Japan’s new Joint Operational Command. Unlike U.S. Forces Korea, where a four-star U.S. commander oversees both South Korean and U.S. forces, the U.S. Joint Force headquarters in Japan will only command U.S. forces, though the goal is for “our two militaries to work together seamlessly,” the defense official said.

Under the plan, proposed by the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. forces in Japan will eventually be given greater authority and personnel to expand operational cooperation with Japan’s new joint command.

“It is the final transformation of the U.S.-Japan relationship into a true military partnership,” said Christopher Johnstone, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Japan and former White House director for East Asia.

Details of the modernized command are still being worked out, defense officials said, noting that they are doing so in consultation with Tokyo and Capitol Hill. Follow-up working groups will address issues such as the command’s area of ​​responsibility and operational authority.

“The fact is the Japanese see that China is not their only problem — they have North Korea and Russia on their side,” said retired Rear Admiral Michael Studeman, former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence. “It’s very clear that they have a multinational problem, and China is the biggest bully. That’s why they’re trying to strengthen the alliance.”

The closer the allies are integrated, the faster and more efficiently they can respond in a crisis, such as in the Taiwan Strait, experts say. Japan has also agreed to let U.S. Marines redeploy a regiment to Okinawa, allowing it to spread out more quickly to fight on austere, remote islands.

Japan’s push to modernize its military command structure comes amid a commitment to boost long-stagnant defense spending and a new national security strategy that calls for a long-range strike capability capable of reaching targets in mainland China. It’s a remarkable transformation for a country that has been constrained for decades by postwar pacifist sentiments.

U.S. and Japanese officials will discuss co-production of certain weapons, particularly air defenses such as Patriot missiles that are desperately needed in Ukraine. Future co-production projects could also include intermediate-range air-to-air missiles, officials said.

Japan’s strict defense export guidelines prohibit the transfer of lethal weapons to countries at war. But recent revisions allow it to sell weapons built under U.S. license to the United States, Japanese officials say. Washington could then transfer similar weapons to an ally, U.S. officials say.

With air defenses in Ukraine stretched thin, Japan has agreed to sell 10 Patriot interceptors to the United States to replenish its stockpile, U.S. officials said. Washington had hoped for dozens of interceptors, but that effort failed due to incompatibility with the U.S. stockpile, the officials said.

There will also be a trilateral meeting of the defense ministers of the United States, Japan and South Korea. are taking place this weekend in Tokyo. It is the first time in 15 years that a South Korean defense minister has visited Japan, a sign of the rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo, which in the past year have managed to put aside decades of animosity rooted in Japan’s 35-year hardline occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The leaders of the two Asian states and Biden met at a historic summit at Camp David last August and signed a formal “commitment to consult,” meaning they would treat a security threat to one country as a threat to all.

At the end of the trilateral agreement, defense ministers will sign a new framework for cooperation that will establish a regular schedule of ministerial meetings rotating among the three capitals, an annual trilateral exercise known as Freedom Edge (the first took place this summer), and real-time missile threat warnings among the three partners.

Blinken will also join his counterparts from South Korea, India and Australia in Tokyo this weekend for a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers to discuss shared security, economic and other concerns.

All of this activity — upgrading the military alliance, building diplomatic ties — has “clearly caught China’s attention,” U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said. And that’s “exactly the kind of party you want to see.”

During their meetings this weekend, U.S. and Japanese officials are expected to discuss for the first time at a ministerial level Washington’s commitment to defend Japan in the event of an attack, including the possible use of nuclear weapons, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported.

“As the security situation around our country becomes increasingly serious, it makes perfect sense to discuss bilateral cooperation among ministers to strengthen the US comprehensive deterrent,” Kamikawa said at a news conference this week.

Officials in Washington and Tokyo said they expect progress within the alliance to continue regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

“We believe that most of what we have done in the Indo-Pacific has been and will continue to be bipartisan support,” a senior administration official said.

“We will not change our course,” a senior Japanese official said. “If you objectively and soberly assess the benefits that this cooperation brings to the two countries, you have to conclude that this cooperation will definitely continue.”

Lee reported from Seoul. Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo contributed to this report.