It is my understanding that we currently have a number of U.S. troops in Japan, and that they are forbidden from having their own military. Is this accurate, and if so, why is this still in effect and is it practical to bring them home (those that want to come)?
I really only want the factual policy answers, if this slides into GD territory that’s fine too, but it’s not my intention.
It hasn’t been true for quite awhile. In the 80’s Reagan encourage them to build up their “Coast Guard” Their Coast Guard consisted of many state of the Art Destroyers painted Bright White to maintain the Facade they weren’t military.
We (The USS Ranger’s Battle Group) were on maneuvers with them in 1986. The flagship had the berth next to us in Pearl. This was kind of surreal. I believe the rules have continued to be relaxed, but you are correct about there still being a significant USA presence there. I believe the reason is Japan mostly likes it as we help protect them and we like it as a base to support action in Korea, Taiwan and the rest of the area.
Japan currently has what they refer to as the Self Defense Forces, composed of the Ground Self Defense Force, the Maritime Self Defense Force, and the Air Self Defense Force. The SDF is, for all practical purposes, a military.
The current mutual military cooperation between Japan and the United States seems to be working out very well as far as both governments are concerned.
Well, first off, Japan does have its own military - Army, Navy and Air Force. However, they are constitutionally forbidden from being an offensive force and are only allowed on overseas missions for disaster relief and UN approved peacekeeping.
The reason is that 1) the US wants to have a large military presence in Asia and the Japanese bases are a great way to do that. 2) Given their history, nobody in Asia really wants Japan to have a strong military. 3) Japan seriously beefing up their military would likely cause China to accelerate its already accelerated modernization efforts and may lead to an arms race in the region, which would do nobody any good.
They’re there because it suits everyone’s needs to have them there, really.
jrfranchi is referring to the JMSDF, although he’s calling it the coast guard. Japan also has the Maritime Safety Agency, aka Japan Coast Guard. That is a different entity from the JMSDF.
I would guess it was this class of ships
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/asagiri.htm
Our Captain actually addressed the ship and used the phrase Japanese Coast Guard on special maneuvers will be participating with us in simulated ASW {Anti-Submarine Warfare} drills.
I found a Pic
Bring who home? I don’t get it.
As has been covered earlier, Japan does have a military force called the “Self Defense Forces.” It is a very capable military.
The Japanese constitution, basically written by the United States during the occupation after World War II, requires Japan to renounce belligerency and any military capability that would be construed as a threat to use force. This has been construed to allow only a self defense force and to prohibit any overseas deployments, although in the recent years that prohibition on deployments has been eased for certain limited purposes. The text of the relevent article of the Japanese constutition is as follows:
“Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. 2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”
My assumption, based on outdated information, was that there were troops there as a result of WW2 that had simply never come home again as a result of being “forgotten” i.e. we put them there, no point in moving them. My mistake.
Would Japan beefing up really provoke so much concern? I’d thought that China would squash them fairly easily.
China and both Koreas are still paranoid about Japan. China would be especially upset.
There are American troops in Japan. But they’re not forgotten - new personnel are rotated in and out of assignments in Japan the same way they are in other posts.
They were originally stationed there for occupation duties after WWII. Japan later became a staging area for American military operations in East Asia, especially in Korea and Vietnam. Japan has also served as a base for military intelligence operations such as photo-recon flights over military bases in the Soviet Union or China.
While China has a very large army, their naval and air forces are notably weaker than those possed by Japan, and they lack amphib capacity - the PRC would be very hard pressed to invaded Taiwan, a nation much closer and much smaller than Japan.
The only way China could really harm Japan would be with nuclear weapons, and then I don’t think the US would take a nuclear attack on Japan by the Chinese lightly, to say the least. Plus, the Japanese have both a well developed civilian nuclear program, and space programs, and if tensions rose between the to nations, Japan could probably field quite a few ICBM’s in a short period of time.
And just for the record, Japan has the third highest military spending in the world, at 45 billion dollars.
Here’s a link to a Japan Coast Guard site containing some pictures and information. DD (destroyers) aren’t included in the JCG, but rather are JMSDF vessels. You’ll also notice that, like the USCG vessels, JCG vessels have a stripe (in the case of JCG, 3 stripes) near the bow.
I’m guessing y’all would like the link.
http://www.japanwings.com/jcoastguard.html
It’s not actually a JCG site, but a site about the JCG.
Besides all that, a Japan posting can be a treat. It’s not exactly a hardship post.
There is a contingent of the self-defense force in Iraq, for “humanitarian” purposes, including building a bridge. In order to comply with the constitutional prohibitation of sending forces into a combat situation, offical Japan maintains a fiction that the area where the force is located is a “non-combat” area.
I was reading that China is quietly working on increasing their invasion capabilites, including better anti-ship missile capability from submarines. This allows them to keep the US aircraft carriers at a greater distance, until the submarines can be located and sunk.
Some people think that the ugly anti-Japanese protests in China this year were partly a message from their government which was pissed the the joint US-Japan security resolution. There was one line,
which concerned Taiwan, but that was enough to really set off storms…
cite
Many people see the real meaning of sending the SDF to Iraq is a message to China and North Korea that Japan is getting more aggressive again.
Strange, in the 80’s, we couldn’t afford to be posted in Japan. The cost of everything but electronics was double what it was back home.
Just imagine how much money you could make running a resale business on eBay nowadays though. Walkmen, DVD players, PS3s, etc. 
80 foot tall Mecha ain’t cheap, you know 