Plans to realign American forces in Japan by 2014 represent the most significant shift of US military forces in Asia since the Vietnam War. They come at a time when Asia’s threat levels, as seen in Japan, are far higher than even five years ago. China’s intermediate-range missiles, now aimed at Taiwan, can also reach Japan’s southern shores. North Korea claims that it has weapons of mass destruction.

The shifts in forces, as well as the costs, are substantial — as much as $30 billion, of which Japan would be asked to pay $26 billion. Under the new arrangement, US and Japanese forces will be practicing war fighting in a more closely coordinated environment, not unlike that of US-NATO forces. US planes would start practicing with Japanese fighters at six Japanese bases, something that has not happened before. Japan will participate fully in a new programme that will put Japan deeply into the US defence grid via the Aegis missile-defence network.

Yet, the costs of “committing to US strategy,” as the Japan Times puts it, comes at a moment when deficit spending is weighing heavily on the public mind, and when America’s profile is not at a peak of popularity, in part due to the Iraq war. That’s why over the past week, as the figures Deputy Undersecretary of Defence Richard Lawless released, the plan has developed a black cloud over it in the public mind. But leaders see a ‘win-win’ situation that will substantially deepen the mutual alliance, mission, and capability. Moreover, as the costs are examined, it appears that a good deal of the payout will go to firms already part of Japan’s well-oiled public works machine.

The US officials counter the argument over Japan’s unique high cost with their own point that the highly “asymmetric” security relationship between Japan and the US is highly unusual in modern history. “The US defends Japan in all circumstances,” one highly placed State Department source pointed out, “But Japanese, by terms of the alliance, don’t have a mirror obligation. We will defend Tokyo, but they don’t have to defend Los Angeles. Looking at costs, this isn’t an exercise in charity. There is a trade-off.”

The two-plus-two agreement, if it holds, represents the third shift in US forces in Japan, since the end of World War II and the American occupation under General Douglas MacArthur. In 1957, most of the US soldiers scattered throughout Japan were sent home, and bases were consolidated. In 1972, US forces were further consolidated, and most sent to the island of Okinawa, where they have been located now.

In the new plan, the US Army will move its 1st Corps headquarters from Washington State to Camp Zama in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture. Japan’s air defences will be headquartered at an enhanced base at Yokota, near Tokyo. Advanced US missile-defence systems

will be placed in Aomori Prefecture, and Patriot and air-land-sea radar systems will become increasingly interoperable. Two different landing strips will be built at a cost of as much as $4

billion. — The Christian Science Monitor