In the wake of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, a range of U.S. troops and civilian rescue workers joined the relief effort. The scale of the disaster led to unprecedented logistical challenges on both sides and calls for more joint training specifically for disaster relief.
Now, five years later, the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military are involved in annual joint disaster response exercises. But although progress has been made, some experts have concerns about how quickly and smoothly a future joint disaster response would be, while politics creates its own barriers to doing more.
The central government has since 2013 been focused on planning for an earthquake and tsunami along the Nankai Trough, which runs from Suruga Bay in Shizuoka Prefecture and ends off the coast of Kyushu.