Moving US Marines out of Okinawa would be a grave mistake

A US Marine officer did what Marine officers are supposed to do the other day. He opened a can of worms.

Lt Colonel Caleb Eames, a fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and his colleague wrote anarticleproposing a halt to the relocation of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.

The move was agreed to in 2006 during theUS-Japan Defense Policy Review Initiative(DPRI). It calls for moving 9,000 Marines fromOkinawatoGuam, Hawaii and the US mainland, while 10,000 Marines would remain on Okinawa.

There’s an instinctive logic to not moving Marines to Guam. For one thing, it’s 1,500 miles from where they are most likely to be needed in the event of an emergency.

Top brass push back

Eames isn’t the only one who thinks this is a bad idea. In 2025, the Marine Corps Commandant, General Eric Smith, said moving Marines to Guam “puts us going the wrong way.”

It’s not clear if he meant more than the Guam-bound Marines, but he could (and should) have. General Smith didn’t say this just to be contrary. That’s what his on-scene commanders were telling him.

Hopefully, somebody in the US Department of War and the United States Indo-Pacific Command, which we all callUSINDOPACOM, is listening – and thinking.

Time for a DPRI Update

The DPRI agreement needs to be revised. China, North Korea and Russia are now far more of a threat than they were 20 years ago.

Back then, you couldn’t even say China might one day be an enemy. And the DPRI negotiations paid little attention to actual military threats anyway.

Indeed, almost nobody was thinking about fighting a war along Japan’s southern islands, the Nansei Shoto or theFirst Island Chain. That’s even though they run from Japan to Taiwan through the Philippines and on to Malaysia.

DPRI was a chaotic and largely unnecessary attempt to placate supposed widespread Japanese opposition to the presence of US forces.

The idea was that moving US troops, mostly Marines on Okinawa, away from where Japanese people lived would dissolve the opposition. And, in turn, that would save the overallUS-Japanalliance.

A flawed deal

But that misread the reality of the situation and far overstated actual opposition.

Moreover, Japan’s central government refused to take on vocal opponents of US forces. Many of the latter understood that the louder they complained, the more money they got from Tokyo.

The US side, including the US Marine leadership in Washington, appeared incapable of presenting a coherent and forceful defense of the US Marine “laydown” in Japan.

In the end, the US negotiators followed instructions from DC and rolled over and agreed to a bad deal, but declared success.

Strategic oversight at Henoko

The Atlantic Council piece also calls for retainingFutenmaMarine Corps Air Station in central Okinawa, which is scheduled to close once a replacement facility is built farther north along the east coast atCamp Schwab, the US Marine base nearHenoko.

Eames’ suggestion will cause heads to explode in Tokyo and Washington. But it’s the right thing to do. Agreeing to close Futenma was an act of self-harm.

The plan calls for closing down a full-service air station that can handle just about every aircraft in the inventory and replacing it with a pygmy-sized air facility that’s really a very large heliport.

That demonstrates the scant thought DPRI negotiators on both sides gave to actual warfighting capabilities as opposed to just “making the problem go away.”

Even worse, there was a better, feasible alternative that involved constructing a full-sized, joint US-Japan airbase in the shallow waters off Okinawa’s Katsuren Peninsula.

But the US side had already made up its mind that Henoko was the only option. And when bureaucrats make up their minds, contractors and politicians smell money. It’s game over.

Bureaucracy vs reform

So Eames and the Commandant are just asking to correct missteps and lack of foresight by US and Japanese negotiators and their bosses, some twenty-plus years ago.

But, how hard will it be to re-look at DPRI? Answer: very hard. Bureaucratic laziness is a powerful force, and reopening negotiations is always difficult. There’s also strong vested interests, not the least financial, in keeping DPRI intact.

And one expects anti-base politicians in Okinawa to complain. They always complain, no matter what the Americans and the Japanese governments do.

But these days, there’s also a general understanding among the broader Okinawan population of the bases and their importance. They are also aware that Okinawa is handsomely compensated for hosting the bases.

Opportunity for change

In Japan’s recent Lower House snap election, four ruling Liberal Democratic Party candidates, who are generally pro-base, were elected to the four open seats in Okinawa.

With the right approach involving persuasion and compensation, things might work out, especially with pro-defense Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi firmly in power.

And as a practical matter, if the 5,000 Marines don’t move to Guam, nobody would much notice the difference.

To change anything, however, the US side, namely the Department of War and USINDOPACOM, needs to make the first move.

You’ll of course hear it’s all “too hard.” No, it isn’t. Being a Lance Corporal on the breaching party in Fallujah is what’s really “too hard.”

Rethinking DPRI just requires alliance managers and leaders on both sides to do some extra work. And when China’s People’s Liberation Army is coming, hard things should look easier, and a can of worms starts to smell pretty good.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He is the author of the bookWhen China Attacks: A Warning To America.

This article first appeared on JAPAN Forward and is republished with the author’s permission. Read the original here. Find Newsham’s articles onJAPAN Forward.