Jun 22, 2012

Heed sentiment on Osprey

The government is trying to persuade local governments concerned in Okinawa and Honshu to accept a U.S. plan to station 24 MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft at U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, to replace the same number of CH-46 Sea ...

Jun 6, 2012

Cabinet reshuffle for convenience

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda reshuffled his Cabinet Monday — the second in nine months. His aim is clear: removing obstacles — Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka and infrastructure and transport minister Takeshi Maeda — to facilitate negotiations with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito ...

May 15, 2012

Okinawans deserve better

Forty years have passed since Okinawa reverted to Japanese rule on May 15, 1972, after 27 years’ of occupation by the United States following the end of World War II. Polls show that about 80 percent of Okinawans regard the restoration of Japanese rule ...

May 4, 2012

Mr. Noda, Mr. Obama and the alliance

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on April 30 and later issued a joint statement underlining the importance of “the U.S.-Japan Alliance” as “the cornerstone of peace, security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.” Clearly an ...

May 1, 2012

Changing Futenma statement

Japan and the United States on April 27 issued a joint statement — an interim report on the review of the 2006 plan to realign U.S. armed forces in Japan. The statement hints at the possibility of exploring new options concerning the plan to ...

Mar 17, 2012

U.S. soldiers consumed by wars without end

by Robert H. Scales

I guess I knew it would eventually come down to this: Blame the U.S. Army’s institutions in some way for the horrific and senseless slaughter of 16 innocent Afghan civilians in Kandahar, allegedly by an infantry noncommissioned officer (NCO). In their search for a ...

Mar 8, 2012

Revenge of the Japanese mandarins

by Masahiro Matsumura

Ever since the huge earthquake that hit Japan’s Tohoku-Pacific coast on March 11, 2011, the country’s mass media have obsessively focused on the magnitude of the physical damage and the loss of life. Repeated broadcasts of traumatic video images of the great tsunami and ...

Jan 13, 2012

Caveman defense budgets

by Gwynne Dyer

If you’re not allowed to enslave people any more, or even loot their resources, then what is the point of being a traditional great power? The United States kept an army of over 100,000 soldiers in Iraq for eight years, at a cost that ...

Jan 5, 2012

Futenma issue in impasse

Confusion surrounded the submission to the Okinawa prefectural government of an official document related to the Japan-U.S. plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the densely populated Ginowan to the less populated Henoko in Nago, both on Okinawa Island. This indicates ...

Jan 1, 2012

Quality of governance in 2012

Even though the new year has started, it is impossible for people in Japan to put 2011 behind them. The effects of the March 11 triple disasters — the magnitude-9 earthquake followed by the massive tsunami that devastated the Tohoku coastal area, plus the ...