Military

By Jun Okumura and Ross Schaap

The conventional wisdom in U.S.-Japanese relations is that things were largely fine until the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) upset the apple cart by winning control of Japan's government. Security policy observers appear to accept the idea that the DPJ has strained the close relationship that Japan's former ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had developed with the United States over the past several decades. A show of bilateral solidarity during President Obama's one-night stand in Tokyo last week has done little to change these opinions. The conventional wisdom has it wrong.

The source of this mistaken belief centers on the DPJ's electoral promise to review the 2006 U.S.-Japanese agreement that would move the bulk of a US Marine base out of the center of Ginowan, a city of nearly 100,000 in Okinawa, to Guam. The remainder -- a large contingency of helicopters-would relocate to a more remote location near Nago, also within Okinawa. The DPJ's indecision on whether to move ahead with construction of a new airfield above a coral reef near Nago seems to have thrown a wrench in the works, but the real difference between the DPJ and the LDP is simply in the visibility of its reluctance to give Washington what it wants.

The disconnect here is in overestimation of cooperation from the LDP. The long history of this redeployment headache gets left out of most accounts of the current controversy. The initial U.S. force redeployment deal was agreed in 1996, and the new airfield and redeployment were supposed to be completed by 2004. Instead, after seven years without progress, both sides went back to the bargaining table, a process that eventually yielded the 2006 agreement. Yet, more than three years of LDP rule later, authorization of construction at the airfield still falls to the new DPJ government. In other words, the LDP agreed to give the United States what it wanted ... and then did virtually nothing to make it happen.

So what has changed? The DPJ, not to mention its coalition partner the Social Democratic Party of Japan, is much more openly antagonistic to the 2006 agreement. The visibility of that reluctance has moved the US to respond publicly on an issue that slid by without action on a much lower profile during the Bush years. Unusually blunt public statements from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, insisting on quick implementation of the 2006 agreement, generated headlines -- and much chatter on bilateral strains. Though the Obama administration appears to have taken a step back, agreeing to set up a joint working group on the Ginowan issue, it continues to reject the one alternative that the Japanese Foreign Minister has been pursuing on his own -- moving the Marine helicopters to Kadena Air Base, an idea which the locals also reject.

That the United States started from a position of intransigence on renegotiation isn't remarkable. But this doesn't mean that's where the issue will end. The U.S. side has waited 13 years; it has no practical reasons to reject a technically and politically viable alternative even if it means a few more years of delay. In fact, further delay is the next likely course of action/inaction. The two sides have been stuck on the status quo conundrum for 13 years for reasons we can only guess at, but likely include operational requirements that leave little or no room for a non-Okinawa solution, while no other viable Okinawa alternative is in sight.

That said, the DPJ's political links to the anti-U.S. military presence in Okinawa, the SDP presence in the coalition, and the unfortunate political calendar, including a mayoral election in January in Nago and an Upper House election in the summer of 2010, are making it exceedingly difficult for the DPJ leadership to make up its mind to accept the lesser evil and give the go-ahead to construction work at Nago.

All this dictates the continuation of the status quo. But then, such a turn of events -- or the lack of one -- should not come as a surprise. In reality, history shows that for U.S.-Japanese relations, there's much less difference between the DPJ and LDP than meets the eye -- in principle or in practice.

Jun Okumura is a senior adviser to Eurasia Group and Ross Schaap is Director of Comparative Analytics.

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By Ian Bremmer and Willis Sparks

To mark 60 years in charge, China's Communist Party threw a lavish party last week, a triumphalist pageant with enough military hardware on parade to fill the nightmares of would-be "dragon slayers" for years to come. It was a reminder that China has developed advanced fighter aircraft, military satellites, the Dong Feng 21 missile (also known as the "aircraft carrier killer"), and has been working toward production of a first aircraft carrier of its own -- an asset that would enable China to project naval power further from its shores than ever before. As if the visuals weren't enough, the celebration included a 2,000-member military marching band.

So will China one day pose the 21st century equivalent of a Soviet-scale military challenge to America's geopolitical dominance? That's unlikely. China wants to extend its influence throughout East Asia, protect the commercial traffic that provides the oil, gas, metals, and minerals that feed China's growing economic appetite, and project national pride. It will one day pose a broader military threat than it does now, but its economy has grown so quickly and its living standards have improved so dramatically over the past two decades that it's hard to imagine the kind of catastrophic, game-changing event that would push its leadership to upend a profitable status quo and confront American leadership outside Asia. China's leaders know their government won't be ready anytime soon to bear a superpower's burdens. Their primary goal is to bolster their political control by generating prosperity for the Chinese people. Why would it allow anything short of the most dire and immediate threat to its territorial integrity to ignite a military conflict that would sever its web of commercial ties with countries all over the world -- and, in particular, with its three largest trading partners: the European Union, the United States, and Japan?

Beijing's primary military concern is the risk of a direct or proxy conflict with the United States over Taiwan. But the Chinese leadership knows that no U.S. government will support a Taiwanese bid for independence, and why should China invade the island when it can co-opt most of Taiwan's business elite with privileged access to investment opportunities on the mainland? Globalization has been good to China's Communist Party, and wars are bad for business.

Certainly, China has ambitious military modernization plans. With 2.3 million soldiers under arms, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is already by far the world's largest. It has reportedly invested considerable time, effort, and money in cyber-warfare technology. Its total military budget probably doubled between 2003 and 2009 to about $70 billion. But that's still only about 12 percent of what the United States now spends on its military each year -- and an even smaller percentage if supplementary U.S. spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is included.

The problem for U.S. policymakers over the next several years is not that the unipolar world order will give way to a multipolar but to a non-polar system. In other words, it's not that America has company on the global stage but that it must continue to carry so much weight on its own-and at a time when pressing problems at home will limit the American public's appetite for ambitious foreign-policy commitments.

Over the past 20 years, U.S. analysts have scanned the horizon in expectation of potential challengers to America's great power advantages. The European Union was already struggling to manage the latest round of expansion before the financial crisis gave EU leaders another reason to avoid potentially onerous new commitments abroad. Russia's leaders may be unhappy with the geopolitical status quo, particularly when it comes to the balance of power within several former Soviet republics. But they're far too preoccupied at the moment with the protection of domestic markets, banks, and companies from the worst effects of the financial crisis to embark on any long-term plan to build a threat to U.S. power outside its immediate neighborhood. India has market reform issues to manage and security worries flowing across the border from Pakistan. Within the Western hemisphere, Brazil appears to have no grander near-term aspirations than to promote stability in Latin America, jumpstart an economic recovery, find new ways to profit from its recent oil discovery, and to play a broader leadership role among developing states.

It's not a challenge for dominance, but a growing vacuum of power that should worry Washington. The more important questions for the next decade are: Who will take the lead on building a new global financial architecture that reflects 21st century realities? Who will take the lead on multilateral efforts to address climate change? Who will create a new (and more credible) nonproliferation regime? Who will provide momentum behind Middle East Peace talks? Who will provide the leadership to ensure that G20 summits don't simply turn into G8-style photo opportunities with a wider angle lens?

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by Ian Bremmer

In Afghanistan, even the good news isn't so good. The country managed to hold a presidential election in August, but there aren't many people inside or outside the country who considered it free and fair. It looks increasingly like Hamid Karzai will win without a second round, but his legitimacy will remain under a very large, very dark cloud. He'll face open revolt from Tajiks in the north, who overwhelmingly opposed his candidacy. And as evidenced by the significant recent expansion of terrorist bombings in Afghanistan's major cities and the assassination last week of the country's second-ranking intelligence officer, it will even become harder to secure Kabul. No one should have much confidence that a second round would do much to restore Karzai's credibility.

In addition, military operations against the Taliban inside Pakistan achieved some actual success this summer, but that has probably pushed some militants across the border into Afghanistan to harass coalition forces there. U.S. casualties have increased, though that's not surprising given the more aggressive operations of larger numbers of US troops. But last week's U.S. bombing on a Taliban target, which killed dozens of civilians, is just the latest in a series of setbacks for coalition military operations.

More worrisome: It's becoming increasingly clear that Afghanistan won't be able to stand on its own anytime soon. U.S. military officials report that the training of Afghan soldiers is well behind schedule. For the next two or three years, with coalition forces at their present levels, Afghan troops won't be nearly strong enough to maintain even the current level of security, let alone make any meaningful contribution to an aggressive counterinsurgency effort.

Inside Afghanistan, more locals than ever want the US out, whatever the cost. There's also dwindling support for the war in the United States, as the American media increasingly turns its attention from an economy beginning to improve toward the growing death toll in Afghanistan.

Within the Obama foreign-policy team, there looks to be a growing divergence of opinion on what to do next. There appears to be an internal consensus that the current strategy isn't working. But senior officials appear more divided on whether to "go long" or "go home." In the go long group, those who want more troops and more resources because "failure isn't an option," we see Secretary Clinton, envoy Richard Holbrooke, most of the generals on the ground, and most Republicans in Congress. In the go home camp, those who want to pull troops out before things get much worse, are Vice President Biden, most of Obama's political team, and a growing number of senior Democrats. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to have grown much more skeptical.

In short, Afghanistan is becoming Obama's first lasting foreign-policy crisis. A major terrorist attack somewhere in the world carried out by militants trained in Afghanistan could shift international public opinion toward greater engagement. Short of that, U.S. public opposition to the war will likely grow steadily over the coming year, bringing the issue to a head just in time for U.S. midterm elections and driving a wedge between members of the president's own party.

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