The U.S.-Japan alliance continues to struggle with the issue of reducing and relocating the U.S. Marine Corps presence on Okinawa. In a new op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Mike Mochizuki (of The George Washington University) and I—recognizing the potential seriousness of this problem for the alliance, as well as the fact that the current plan to reduce and/or relocate has been
straitjacketed by Japanese and Okinawan politics—propose a more significant set of changes. Our proposal would scale back the peacetime presence of the Marines on Okinawa even further than now planned, but it would preserve or even improve U.S. military responsiveness throughout the Western Pacific region in times of crisis or conflict.
Commentary
How to restore U.S.-Japan relations on Okinawa
June 15, 2016