SS+Futenma+1AC+7.26.2010



21

 WASHINGTON-- The U.S. government has effectively given up on completing the transfer of about 8, 000 U.S. marines stationed in Okinawa Prefecture to Guam in 2014  , sources have said,  a decision that also could scuttle the planned relocation of a U.S. base in the prefecture.The U.S. Pacific island territory's infrastructure cannot handle such a hasty co nstruction schedule, according to the Joint Guam Program Office (JGPO) of the U.S. Navy   .The United States told the Guam government Thursday of its unofficial decision, according to the sources. It had already informed the Japanese government of the possibility, they said. Moving about 8,000 III Marine Expeditionary Force personnel and their approximately 9,000 dependents from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam is one pillar of the U.S.-Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation, agreed upon between the two countries in May 2006. Another focus is the relocation of Futenma Air Station in the prefecture. Relocating Futenma and transferring the marines have been considered as a set, according to the U.S. Defense Department. With the marines' transfer expected to be delayed, some observers believe it highly likely that Futenma Air Station will not be relocated from its current location of Ginowan  .The possible delay in completing the marines' relocation to Guam was revealed in a preliminary meeting held Thursday on the environmental impact assessment by the JGPO.Although the bilateral agreement governing the transfer of the U.S. Marine Corps personnel from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam calls for a target completion date of 2014, the JGPO's statement says it "recognized that  G uam's infrastructure may not be able to handle such a rapid construction pace.   ""In response, the DEIS [draft environmental impact statement] will identify a mitigation measure called 'adaptive program management,' in which the pace and sequencing of construction will be adjusted to stay within the limitations of Guam's utilities, port, roadways and other systems. This will result in a more stretched-out, manageable construction timeline," the statement says.The statement took into consideration the Guam government's assertions that the territory's civil infrastructure, including utilities, must be improved to cope with the rapid population growth that will result from the marines' relocation. As the U.S. government is prioritizing the improvement of civil inf rastructure over construction of the marines' base, it became inevitable that construction would take longer and cost more than originally planned   .This position will be officially announced in the final environmental impact statement to be compiled within the month, the sources said. Meanwhile, a Japanese government source said this country's officials had been already briefed by the United States on the matter."It will take several years to improve the infrastructure," the source said, indicating that, objectively speaking, it would be impossible to complete the base's construction by the end of 2014. Some observers have said the postponement of the marines' relocation to Guam is partly the result of the lack of progress in Japan on the relocation of Futenma ." This may suggest that interest within the U.S. government toward promoting the overall realignment of U.S. forces has been diminishing  ," a Foreign Ministry source said.The Japanese and U.S. governments have agreed that Japan will shoulder 6.09 billion dollars, or 59 percent, of the total budget of 10.27 billion dollars for moving the marines from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam. The Japanese portion includes fiscal spending of 2.8 billion dollars.Guam's strong resistanceThe de facto postponement of completing the U.S. marines' relocation to Guam was prompted by strong resistance from the Guam government.Guam   Gov. Felix Camacho argued strongly for improvements in civil infrastructure when the Defense Department announced the draft environmental impact statement in November. As such improvements will require a certain amount of time and a larger budget, many within the U.S. government and Congress are now increasingly uncertain about when the relocation will be finished. As a result, the budget for fiscal 2011 sa w major cuts in funding for the construction of military facilities connected with the relocation to Guam.
 * The elimination of the relocation of 8,000 troops to Guam in the 2006 Security agreement highlights the unlikely relocation of Futenma and the diminishing desire to realign and reduce U.S. bases**
 * The Daily Yomiuri,** **July 24**, 20**10**, “U.S. marines' Guam move seen delayed / Futenma plan also could be jeopardized , “ http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T100723005957.htm,) SM

 Contention 2 – The Future of East Asia . Japanese resistance reflects the larger domino effect of global anti-U.S. military resistance Feffer, the co-director of foreign policy in Focus at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, March 6, 2  010, Asia Times, ”Okinawa and the New Domino Effect,”   []  , ) SM    The   current   battle over   the US Marine Corps air base at   Futenma on Okinawa  - an island prefecture almost 1,600 kilometers south of Tokyo that hosts about three dozen US bases and 75% of American forces in Japan -  is just revving   up  . In fact,  Washington seems ready t o stake its reputation and its relationship with a new Japanese government on the fate of that base alon   e, which reveals much about US anxieties in the age of President Barack Obama. What makes this so strange, on the surface , is that   Futenma is an obsole te base   . Under an agreement the George W Bush administration reached with the previous Japanese government, the US was already planning to move most of the Marines now at Futenma to the island of Guam. Nonetheless, the Obama administration is insisting, ov er the protests of Okinawans and the objections of Tokyo, on completing that agreement by building a new partial replacement base in a less heavily populated part of Okinawa. The current row between Tokyo and Washington is no mere "Pacific squall ", as Newsweek dismissively described it. After six decades of saying yes to everything t he United States has demanded, Japan finally seems on the verge of saying no to something that matters greatly to Washington,  and the   relationship that Dwight D Eisenhower once called an "  indestructible alliance" is displaying ever more hairline fractures. Worse yet, from the Pentagon's perspective, Japan's resistance might prove infectious - one major reason why the United States is putting its alliance on the line over the clo sing of a single antiquated military base and the building of another of dubious strategic value. During the Cold War, the Pentagon worried that countries would fall like dominoes before a relentless communist advance. Today, the Pentagon worries about a d ifferent kind of domino effect. In Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries are refusing to throw their full support behind the US war in Afghanistan. In Africa, no country has stepped forward to host the headquarters of the Pentagon's new Africa Command. In Latin America, little Ecuador has kicked the US out of its air base in Manta. All of these are undoubtedly symptoms of the decline in respect for American power that the US military is experiencing globally. But the current pushback in Japan is the surest sign yet that the American empire of overseas military bases has reached its high-water mark and will soon recede.

Furthermore, continued resistance over Futenma could spillover through the rest of Japan in the form of grass-root movements that could not only threaten the very existence of the bilateral security alliance and the credibility and role of the U.S. in East Asia, but also isolate Japan in the Western Pacific through anti-base resentments Michael Auslin, Director of Japan Studies at The American Enterprise Institute, June 16, 20 **10** “The Real Futenma Fallout,” Wall Street Journal, [] ) SM In particular, defense officials focused on Mr. Kan's promise to stick with a 2006 agreement with the U.S. to move a Marine air wing from one part of Okinawa Island to another . But even so, there remain fissures in the U.S.-Japan relationship that could erupt into further crises for the alliance   . Senior Japanese military officials I've recently interviewed believe former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama set back Tokyo's relations with its own citizens in Okinawa by at least a decade by waffling on the 2006 deal, and that  the opposition to U.S. bases in Japan, emboldened by the former prime minister's position, could endanger much broader bilateral military relations between the two countries. This bigger story has received almost no attention in domestic or foreign press, but needs to be understood by those dismissive of the recent spat's importance. The 2006 agreement to move the Marine air wing at Futenma to Camp Schwab in the northern part of the island, and 8,000 Marines to Guam from Okinawa, was just one part of a broader realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. In the view of senior Japanese military leadership, however, the actual centerpiece of the 2006 agreement is the expansion of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Iwakuni, located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the west of Japan's main island, Honshu.MCAS Iwakuni already hosts several Marine air squadrons, including the only American F/A-18 Hornet squadron permanently based abroad. Under the 2006 agreement, the USS George Washington's fighters, which comprise the navy's only permanently forward-deployed air wing, will relocate to Iwakuni by 2014 from the more congested Naval Air Facility Atsugi, located close to Tokyo. In addition, a squadron of Marine Corps KC-130 tankers will also vacate Futenma for Iwakuni. In their stead, a squadron of Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Forces surveillance planes, P-3s, will leave Iwakuni for Atsugi. All this might sound confusing, but the planned realignment will in essence reduce the chances of catastrophic accidents happening in heavily populated areas at both Futenma and Atsugi, and will build up the less-populated Iwakuni base. Here's the rub : The U.S. Department of Defense has made it clear that, unless the entire 2006 realignment plan goes forward, no individual pieces will be set in motion. **And** it all depends on moving the Marine helicopters out of Futenma, which has long been a source of political contention between Tokyo and Washington. The Japanese government, moreover, is committed to moving its surveillance planes to Atsugi, but that move probably won't happen if the American carrier air wing stays put. Japanese military officials worry that this year's protests in Okinawa could have spillover effects, inspiring protesters aroun d Atsugi to demand a reduced American presence, and possibly even agitating against the government plan to move Japanese planes there. Moreover, Iwakuni's mayor might reject the new burden of potentially hosting the George Washington's air wing. That, in t urn, would embolden antinuclear protesters in Yokosuka, the U.S. Navy's main base,  to step up their ongoing pressure to move the nuclear-powered George Washington, the Navy's only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, out of Japanese waters. This w orst-case scenario would be a series of simultaneous, grassroots movements against the U.S. military presence in Japan that could potentially put fatal stress on the bilateral security alliance and effectively isolate Japan militarily in the western Pacifi  **c**. Given Mr. Hatoyama's fate when he botched this issue, politicians now are more likely to respond to public demands or they will be replaced by those who do. Th e  resulting political clash  would either reaffirm tight ties with Washington or  lead to endemi c paralysis   in Japan's national security establishment. Given that the U.S. has permanently forward deployed ships and planes only in Japan, any scenario like the one sketched out above could significantly weaken U.S. capability to operate in the western P acific, and thus call into question U.S. credibility as the underwriter of regional stability at a time when a crisis is brewing on the Korean peninsula and China continues to flex its naval and air muscle. Anyone concerned about that scenario, even if unlikely, realizes that the next half-decade of U.S.-Japan relations will have to go back to basics: rebuilding trust in the relationship, agreeing on a common set of objectives in Japan's waters and throughout Northeast Asia, and strengthening a commitment to upholding the alliance's military capabilities. Feffer, the co-director of foreign policy in Focus at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, March 6, 2  010, Asia Times, ”Okinawa and the New Domino Effect,”   []  , ) SM    Wherever the US military puts down its foot overseas, movements have sprung up to protest the military, social, and environmental consequences of its military bases. This anti-base movement has notched some successes   ,  such as  the shut-down of a US navy facility in Vieques,  Puerto Rico  , in 2003. In the  Pacific  , too, the movement has made its mark. On the heels of the eruption of Mt Pinatubo, democracy activists in the Philippines successfully closed down the ash-covered Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Station in 1991-1992. Later,  South Korea  n activists managed to win closure of the huge Yongsan facility in downtown Seoul. Of course, these were only partial victories. Washington subsequently negotiated a Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines , whereby the US military has redeployed troops and equipment to the island, and replaced Korea's Yongsan base with a new one in nearby Pyeongtaek. But these not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) victo ries were significant enough to help edge the Pentagon toward the adoption of a military doctrine that emphasizes mobility over position. The US military now relies on "strategic flexibility" and "rapid response" both to counter unexpected threats and to deal with allied fickleness. The Hatoyama government may indeed learn to say no to Washington over the Okinawa bases. Evidently considering this a likelihood, former deputy secretary of state and former US ambassador to Japan Richard Armitage has said that the United States "had better have a plan B". But the victory for the anti-base movement will still be only partial. US forces will remain in Japan, and especially Okinawa, and Tokyo will undoubtedly continue to pay for their maintenance. Buoyed by even this partial victory, however, NIMBY movements are likely to grow in Japan and across the region, focusing on other Okinawa bases, bases on the Japanese mainland, and elsewhere in the Pacific, including Guam. Indeed, protests are already building in Guam  against the projected expansion of Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam to accommodate those Marines from Okinawa. And this strikes terror in the hearts of Pentagon planners. In World War II, the United States employed an island-hopping strategy to move ever closer to the Japanese mainland. Okinawa was the last island and last major battle of that campaign, and more people died during the fighting there than in the subsequent atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined: 12,000 US troops, more than 100,000 Japanese soldiers, and perhaps 100,000 Okinawan civilians. This historical experience has stiffened the pacifist resolve of Okinawans. The current battle over Okinawa again pits the United States against Japan, again with the Okinawans as victim s. But there is a good chance that the Okinawans , like the Na'vi in that great NIMBY film //Avatar//,  will win this time. A victory in closing Futenma and preventing the construction of a new base might be the first step in a potential reverse island hop. NIMB Y movements may someday finally push the US military out of Japan and off Okinawa.
 * And only withdrawing from Futenma can prevent a reverse island hop and still anti-base movements across Japans. Past NIMBY movements prove they have the ability to force Pentagon planners to pull out. **
 * Reverse island hop**

And, the Futenma debate is an immediate threat to U.S. Japanese relations, causing Japan to be susceptible to exorbitant U.S. base costs; only closing the base can ease tensions and derail future protests Feffer, the co-director of foreign policy in Focus at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, March 6, 2  010, Asia Times, ”Okinawa and the New Domino Effect,” [] , ) SM      The immediate source of tension in the US-Japanese relationship has been Tokyo's desire to renegotiate that 2006 agreement to close Futenma  , transfer those 8,000 Marines to Guam, and build a new base in Nago, a less densely populated area of the island  . It's a deal that threatens to make an already strapped government pay b  ig . Back in 2006, Tokyo promised to shell out more than $6 billion just to help relocate the Marines to Guam. The political cost to the new government of going along with the LDP's folly may be even higher . After all, the DPJ received a healthy chunk of voter support from Okinawans, dissatisfied with the 2006 agreement and eager to see the American occupation of their island end. Over the last several decades, with US bases built cheek-by-jowl in the most heavily populated parts of the island, Okinawans have endured air, water, and noise pollution, accidents like a 2004 US helicopter crash at Okinawa International University , and crimes that range from trivial speeding violations all the way up to the rape of a 12-year-old girl by three Marines in 1995. According to a June 2009 opinion poll, 68% of Okinawans opposed relocating Futenma within the prefecture,  while only 18% favored the plan. Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party, a junior member of the ruling coalition, has threatened to pull out if Hatoyama backs away from his campaign pledge not to build a new base in Okinawa. Then there's the dugong, a sea mammal similar to the manatee that looks like a cross between a walrus and a dolphin and was the likely inspiration for the mermaid myth. Only 50 specimens of this endangered species are still living in the marine waters threatened by the proposed new base near less populated Nago. In a landmark case, Japanese lawyers and American environmentalists filed suit in US federal court to block the base's construction and save the dugong. Realistically speaking, even if the Pentagon were willing to appeal the case all the way up to the Supreme Court, lawyers and environmentalists could wrap the US military in so much legal and bureaucratic red tape for so long that   the new base might never leave the drawing board. For environmental, political, and economic reasons, ditching the 2006 agreement is a no-brainer for Tokyo. Given Washington's insistence on retaining a base of little strategic importance, however, the challenge for the DPJ has been to find a site other than Nago. The Japanese government floated the idea of merging the Futenma facility with existing facilities at Kadena , a nother US base on the island. But that plan - as well as possible relocation to other parts of Japan - has met with stiff local resistance. A proposal to further expand facilities in Guam w as nixed by the governor there. The solution to all this is obvious: close down Futenma  without opening another base. But so far, the US is refusing to make it easy for the Japanese. In fact, Washington is doing all it can to box the new government in Toky o into a corner. Advantage 1 - East Asia War  Tkacick, Jr., Senior Research Felloe, July 13, 20  04 , Heritage Foundation, “China's New Challenge to the U.S.-Japan Alliance” [] ,” ) SM As Chinese warships and naval survey vessels ply Japanese waters hoping to stake their claim to potentially gas-rich seabeds, the United States is sending mixed signals to Japan on the U.S.-Japan alliance.  Ambiguity in Washington may undermine Japanese confidence in the alliance- in itself, a major strategic goal for Beijing   .  Washington must now publicly support Japan, our most important ally in Asia, if it hopes to deter China from further adventurism in Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone.  On Tuesday, July 6, Japanese antisubmarine aircraft spotted a Chinese naval survey vessel, the //Nandiao 411//, well within Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment on the incursion, saying it had not received any report of naval survey activities. On July 13, Japanese coast guard cutters discovered a Chinese civilian research vessel, the //Xiangyanghong 9,// within the EEZ and engaged in survey operations for which it had not sought, much less obtained, Japanese government permission-a possible violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). [|[1]] Japanese aircraft ordered the vessel to leave the area, but the Chinese ship refused to respond. Even more ominously, on July 14, a Chinese naval vessel overtook a Japanese resource exploration ship inside the EEZ, forcing it to alter its route to avoid a collision. [|[2]]  The Chinese navy has made a habit of traversing Japanese waters for the past two years, and Chinese ships and submarines have been particularly assertive in the past year. In January, the Japanese government declassified a report that Chinese naval vessels had entered the EEZ six times during 2003 "to survey subsea routes for Chinese submarines to enter the Pacific." These incursions include two violations of Japan's territorial waters by Ming class submarines in the vicinity of Kagoshima at the southern tip of Kyushu. So far this year, Japan's Self Defense Forces have documented at least twelve violations of the EEZ, including three separate incursions northwest of the Senkaku Islands in May alone.Alarmed by China's presence in Japanese waters, Tokyo will soon dispatch a civilian survey vessel-looking for natural gas-to the area near the Senkaku Islands (which China calls "Diaoyutai") to assert its own EEZ rights. Beijing's foreign ministry protested this news, claiming that the EEZ is "disputed." It warned Tokyo not to take "any action that may imperil China's interest and complicate the current situation." The Chinese navy's sudden assertiveness-indeed aggressiveness-in Japanese waters is a t est of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Washington must be careful not to confront this challenge with its traditional studied ambiguity. Ambiguous support for an ally against China's increasingly provocative territorial encroachments will encourage China to becom e more aggressive not just in Japanese waters, but also in the South China Sea and, of course, the Taiwan Strait   .The status of the Senkakus is clear. Japan first claimed the uninhabited and unclaimed islets in question in 1895 to use their rocky outcroppings for maritime navigation aids. From that time through the end of World War II, they were administered as part of Japan's Okinawa prefecture. Upon the Japanese surrender, the United States administered the islets under a military occupation authority. In 1972, when the United States returned Okinawa to Japanese administration, the Senkakus were included in the reversion. There is, accordingly, no doubt that the United States has always regarded the islands as Japanese.China and Taiwan have expressed interest in the islands since only 1968, when a United Nations Economic Commission for Asia report suggested there may be petroleum deposits in the seabed near the islets. (No petroleum or gas deposits have since been detected in the area.) On June 11, 1971, the Republic of China on Taiwan formally claimed the islands. After the United States returned the islands to Japan in the 1972 Okinawa Reversion Agreement, China lodged a formal protest with the U.S. government. Eager not to alienate Beijing just as President Nixon was beginning his opening to China, the U.S. State Department announced that the Reversion Agreement "did not affect the sovereignty" over disputed islands. As recently as March 2004, the State Department accepted China's claims over the Senkakus as being equally valid as Japan's title. Still, in a stance known affectionately in Japan as the "Armitage Doctrine ," U.S. officials have said that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty covers "all territories under the administration of Japan"   and there is no question that, as a matter of law-under the Reversion Agreement, the alliance treaty, and the terms of the U.S. military occupation of the Ryukyu island chain-that the Senkakus are indeed "under the administration of Japan." As such, any hostile activities a gainst the islands would trigger the treaty.In this context, China's forays into the Senkakus seem designed to probe where the bedrock of the U.S.-Japan alliance begins-or if it is there at all. Of course, Chinese survey vessels are also mapping the ocean bottom for the benefit of the country's rapidly expanding submarine fleet.

Richard L. Armitage et al., 2000 Kurt M.Campbell, Michael J. Green, Joseph S. Nye et al. fmr. Dep. Secretary of State, CSIS, CFR, JFK School of Government at Harvard (also contributed to by James A. Kelly, Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Edward J. Lincoln, Brookings Institution; Robert A. Manning, Council on Foreign Relations; Kevin G. Nealer, Scowcroft Group; James J. Przystup, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University; “The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership”, Institute for National Strategic Studies Special Report, October, http://www.ndu.edu/inss/strforum/SR_01/SR_Japan.htm) Asia, in the throes of historic change, should carry major weight in the calculus of American political, security, economic, and other interests. Accounting for 53 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of the global economy, and nearly $600 billion annually in two-way trade with the United States, Asia is vital to American prosperity. Politically, from Japan and Australia, to the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia, countries across the region are demonstrating the universal appeal of democratic values. China is facing momentous social and economic changes, the consequences of which are not yet clear. Major war in Europe is inconceivable for at least a generation, but the prospects for conflict in Asia are far from remote. The region features some of the world’s largest and most modern armies, nuclear-armed major powers, and several nuclear-capable states. Hostilities that could directly involve the United States in a major conflict could occur at a moment’s notice on the Korean peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait. The Indian subcontinent is a major flashpoint. In each area, war has the potential of nuclear escalatio  n. In addition, lingering turmoil in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-largest nation, threatens stability in Southeast Asia. The United States is tied to the region by a series of bilateral security alliances that remain the region’s de facto security architecture. In this promising but also po tentially dangerous setting, the U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship is more important than eve  r __.__ With the world’s second-largest economy and a well- equipped and competent military, and as our democratic ally,  Japan remains the keystone of the U.S. involvem ent in Asia. The U.S.-Japan alliance is central to America’s global security strategy. Advantage 2 – U.S. Primacy Takashi Inoguchi  ** - **Japanese academic researcher of foreign affairs and international and global relationships of states. and Paul  Bacon  - Associate Professor of International Politics, School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University, Japan. September 20**05**. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific. http://irap.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/5/2/117?rss=1&ssource=mfc) After the cold war, the United States clearly sought to reinforce its hegemonic strategy in East Asia, seeking a special role for itself as the principal guarantor of regional order. The United States could have withdrawn in order to let a local balance of power emerge and undertaken the role of offshore balancer. It could also have promoted multilateral regional security organizations, or sought to construct a regional balance of power that contained China. However, it did none of these things . Mastanduno argues that the United States will retain its preponderant power status in the coming years but that the task of maintaining and completing US regional hegemony will become more difficult  .  The  two  biggest challenges that the United States faces are the global war on terror and the management of the rise of China  , as a result of which the longer-term prospects for East Asian order are uncertain and problematic. There are two key features of US hegemonic strategy in the region. First, the United States has cultivated a set of bilateral relationships  with other key states in the region, the most important and enduring of which have been the ties with Japan and South Korea. Furthermore, the United States has reaffirmed its close partnership with Australia and sought to engage rather than contain China. This preference for a primary set of bilateral relationships is referred to as the ‘hub and spokes’ approa ch. The second institutional feature of US hegemony has been the US forward presence in the region **,**  and the US intention to maintain a substantial political and military commit ment to the region for an ‘indefinite duration’. US hegemonic strategy in the region has contributed to order in several ways. For China, the US presence effectively ‘contains’ Japan  , and, similarly, for Japan,  the US presence deters China from a bid for r egional dominance. The US presence has helped to deter major powers from intensifying dangerous rivalries ,  and it has, in so doing, reassured smaller states whose security and autonomy would otherwise be threatened by these large states. East Asia is a dangerous neighborhood, in which smaller states must coexist with larger states that have geopolitical ambitions, territorial claims, and a history of enmity. The United States has also worked hard to manage and stabilize regional conflicts that have the pote ntial to develop into local and possibly even systemic wars. In the 1990s, for example, the United States took initiatives in security crises between China and Taiwan, in North Korea, and in the Kashmir conflict. Finally, the United States has striven to d iscourage nationalist economic competition. It has pushed Japan over domestic economic reform, sought to integrate China into a globalizing world economy, and maintained access to sources of global liquidity and US markets in the wake of the Asian financia l crisis. US hegemonic strategy has, therefore, made a substantial contribution to regional order in East Asia  , but it also has its limitations.
 * AND, regional instability in Asia is the most likely flashpoint for global nuclear war.**
 * First, maintaining U.S. military dominance in East Asia is vital for U.S. hegemony – only through U.S. presence in East Asia can it maintain its primacy and deter rivalries**

Second, the US-Japan alliance and economic cooperation is key to US leadership abroad Lieutenant Col., William E., Rapp, with a PH.D in IR from Stanford , 2004 “Paths Diverging? Accessed online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pdffiles/PUB367.pdf)  The global war on terrorism and widely perceived   unilateralism on the part of the United States has, ironically, e nhanced the confidence of China to portray itself as a multidimensional leader in Asia   . The growing strength of the Kuomintang in Taiwanese politics and its agenda to build a closer relationship or even confederation with mainland China after the presidential elections of March 2004 may upend the security assumptions of the region. ** 1 **  Operation IRAQI FREEDOM has reinforced the concepts of transformation and power projection from a more limited number of forward bases advocated so strongly by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, while at the same time highlighting America’s need for allies in the war on terrorism. It is a region awash in uncertainly, but one in which the United States must remain firmly engaged to protect its vital interests. In the breadth of its reach and influence , the United States is often described by others as hegemonic  and the world’s sole superpower. This is a very clumsy caricature, however. Colin Powell recently quipped, “We are so multilateral it keeps me up 24 hours a day checking on everybody .” 2   The extent of that reach and the means necessary for achieving American interests around the world depend greatly on cooperative efforts with other like-minded nations  , if only in “coalitions of the willing” built by the United States for ad hoc purposes. In Northeast Asia, the United States has two vital alliances―with Japan and South Korea―already in place. ** Although the American relationship with the Republic of Korea ( ** ROK  ** ) is undeniably critical to security on this strategically important peninsula, the **  relationship is very narrow in its scope and its future in some doubt.3   The relationship with Japan, however, offers greater potential to achieve American interests in the long run in Asia, beyond simply the defense of Japan. Being off the shores of mainland Asia and combining the two biggest economies in the world,4 this alliance offers significant long-term opportunities to more actively promote peace, prosperity, and liberal values in the region.

The collapse of U.S. hegemony ensures mass destruction – we isolate multiple warrants
Peter, **Brookes,** senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, 20 **06** (“** Why they need us: Imagine a world without America”, Heritage Foundation Commentary, july 4th) ** // The picture isn't pretty. // Abse nt U.S. leadership   //, diplomatic influence, military might, economic power and unprecedented generosity, life aboard planet earth would likely be pretty grim, indeed. Set aside the differences America made last century - just imagine a world where this country had vanished on Jan. 1, 2001. // On security,  ** the United States is the global ** balance of power  //. While it's not our preference, we are the world's "cop on the beat," providing critical stability in some of the planet's toughest neighborhoods. // Without the U.S   //. "Globo-cop," // rivals India and Pakistan might well find cause to unleash the dogs of war in South Asia - undoubtedly leading   to  // history's first //  nuclear  // (weapons) //  exchange  //. Talk about Fourth of July fireworks. . // . In Afghanistan, al Qaeda would  // still //  be  // an honored guest, //  scheming over a global caliphate stretching from Spain to Indonesia  //. It wouldn't be sending fighters to Iraq; instead //,   Osama's gang would be fighting them tooth and nail from Saudi Arabia to "Eurabia   ." // In Asia //,   China would be the "Mid dle Kingdom," gobbling up democratic Taiwan and compelling pacifist Japan (reluctantly) to join the nuclear weapons club. The Koreas might fight another horrific war, resulting in millions of deaths  **//. //** A resurgent Russia, meanwhile, would be breathing down the neck of its  **// "near abroad" //**  neighbors. Forget the democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia **//, //**// Comrade**__!__** //  In Europe, they'd be taking orders from Paris or Berlin - if those rivals weren't at each other's throats again  **//. //** In Africa, Liberia would still be under Charles Taylor's sway, and Sudan would have no peace agreement  **//. //** And what other nation could or would provide freedom of the seas for commerce, including the shipment of oil and gas  **// - //**// all free of charge**?** //  Weapons of mass destruction would be everywhe re. North Korea would be brandishing a solid nuclear arsenal. Libya would not have given up its weapons, and Pakistan's prodigious proliferator  , A.Q. Khan,   would still be going door to door, hawking his nuclear wares. Also missing would be other gifts fro m "Uncle Sugar" - starting with 22 percent of the U.N. budget  **//. //** That includes half the operations of the World Food Program, which feeds over 100 million in 81 countries. Gone would be 17 percent of UNICEF's costs to feed, vaccinate, educate and protect children in 157 countries - and 31 percent of the budget of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which assists more than 19 million refugees across the globe. In 2005,  Washington dispensed $28 billion in foreign aid, more than double the amount of the n ext highest donor (Japan), contributing nearly 26 percent of all official development assistance from the large industrialized countries   //. Moreover, Presiden**t** // Bush's five-year $15 billion commitment under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment by a single nation toward an international health initiative  // - ever - working in over 10 //  0 (mostly African) countries. The United  States is the world's economic engine. We not only have the largest economy, we spend 40 percent of the world's budget on R& **// D, //**// driving mind-boggling innovation in areas like information technology, defense and medicine**__.__** //  We're the world's ATM, too, providing 17   percent of the International Monetary Fund's resources for nations in fiscal crisis, and funding 13 percent of World Bank programs that dole out billions in development assistance to needy countries

Finally, the transition away from American hegemony entails global chaos and conflict – other powers are incapable of maintaining stability – even if there’s a risk hegemony might be bad in the abstract, transition wars are worse Zbigniew, Brzezinski, National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration, Professor of Foreign Policy @ Johns Hopkins University, 2005, "The Choice") SM  __ History __ // is a record of change, a reminder that nothing endures indefinitely. It // __ can __ // also // __ remind us, __ // however, // __ that some things endure for a long time, and when they disappear, the status quo ante does not reappear. So it will be with the current American global preponderance __ // . It too, will fade at some point, probably later than some wish and earlier than many Americans take for granted. The key question is: What will replace it? //  An abrupt termination of American hegemony would without doubt precipitate global chaos, in w hich international anarchy would be punctuated by eruptions of truly massive destructiveness.   __ An unguided progressive decline would have a similar effect, spread out over a longer time __. // But a gradual and controlled devolution of power could lead to an increasingly formalized global community of shared interest, with supranational arrangements increasingly assuming some of the special security roles of traditional nation-states. In any case //,   the eventual end of American hegemony will not involve a restoratio n of multipolarity among the familiar major powers    // that dominated world affairs for the last two centuries // __. Nor will it yield to another dominant hegemon that would displace the United States by assuming a similar political, military, economic, technological, and sociocultural worldwide preeminence. __ The familiar powers of the last century are too fatigued or too weak to assume the role the United States now play  __ s __. // It is noteworthy that since 1880, in a comparative ranking of world powers (cumulative1y based on their economic strength, mi1itarybudgets and assets, populations, etc.), the top five slots at sequential twenty-year intervals have been shared by just seven states // :  // the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, and China. Only the United States, however, unambiguously earned inclusion among the top five in every one of the twenty¬ year intervals, and the gap in the year 2000 between the top-ranked United States and the rest was vastly wider than ever before. // __The former__   major E uropean powers    // – Great Britain, Germany, and France – //  are too weak to step into the breach. // In the next two decades, // __ it is quite unlikely that the European Union will become sufficiently united politically to muster the popular will to compete with the United States in the politico-military arena. __ Russia is no longer an imperial power  __, and its central challenge is to recover socioeconomically lest it lose its far eastern territories to China. __ Japan's population is aging and its economy has slowed  __ ; __ // the conventional wisdom of the 1980s that Japan is destined to be the next "superstate" now has the ring of historical irony. // China, even if it succeeds in maintaining high rates of economic growth and retains its internal political stability (both are far from cer tain), will at best be a regional power still constrained by an impoverished population, antiquated infrastructure, and limited appeal worldwide. __ The __ same is true of India, which additionally faces uncertainties regarding its long-term national unity. Even a coalition among the above  __ – __ // a most unlikely prospect, given their historical conflicts and clashing territorial claims – //  would lack the cohesion, muscle, and energy needed   // to both push America off its pedestal and //  sustain global stability  __. __ // Some leading states, in any case, would side with America if push came to shove. Indeed, any evident American decline might precipitate efforts to reinforce America's leadership. Most important //, __the shared resentment of American hegemony would not dampen the clashes of interest among states.__   The more intense collisions – in the event of America's decline – could spark a wildfire of regional violence, rendered all the more dangerous by the dissemination of weapons of mass destruction  __. __ // The bottom line is twofold // __ : For the next two decades, the steadying effect of American power will be indispensable to global stability, while the principal challenge to American power can come only from within – either from the repudiation of power by the American democracy itself, or from America's global misuse of its own power __. // American society, even though rather parochial in its intellectual and cultural interests, steadily sustained a protracted worldwide engagement against the threat of totalitarian communism and it is currently mobilized against international terrorism. As long as that commitment endures, America's role as the global stabilizer will also endure. Should that commitment fade – either because terrorism has faded, or because Americans tire or lose their sense of common purpose // __–__   America's global role could rapidly terminate  __. That role could also be undermined and de1egitimated by the misuse of U.S. power. Conduct that is perceived worldwide as arbitrary could prompt America’s progressive isolation, undercutting __ // not America's power to defend itself as such, but rather // __ its ability to use that power to enlist others in a common effort to shape a more secure international environment. __

Active U.S. ‐ Japan cooperation on energy and environmental issues has a powerful, unprecedented logic today, given prevailing political configurations in Tokyo and Washington , D.C. Both the Obama and Hatoyama Administrations place emphasis on these issue areas, and their general approaches are broadly similar. The Obama energy policy approach, for example, emphasizes down stream energy efficiency  rather than upstream energy resource development. and also systematic long ‐ term reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Hatoyama priorities appear to be broadly congruent. Both administrations are also interested in broad, systemic approaches to energy and environmental problems, integrating technological innovation and mas s ‐ transportation policy into solutions for energy and environmental questions. Both administrations also find multilateral cooperation congenial. U.S. and Japanese capacities in addressing energy and environmental issues are also complementary in many important respects. The U.S. has historically proven adept at technological innovation, and was a pioneer in nuclear and resource ‐ exploitation technology, such as off ‐ shore drilling. Japan is a global leader in promoting energy efficiency through technical innovation, as well as systems and product engineering, and in devising effective industrial standards  __. __ Given the pressing nature of global energy and environmental problems, the general congruence of underlying U.S. and Japanese approaches to these issue s, and the strategic importance of strengthening the U.S.  ‐ Japan alliance, the two countries could productively initiate a bilateral energy and environmental dialogue. The US currently engages in such bilateral dialogues with both China and South Korea, and the logic is strong for an analogous dialogue with Japa n. __The two countries can also, of course, productively cooperate in broader international__ __fora, as they have in the COP__ ‐ __ 15 process. __ Among the concrete topics on which the U.S. and Japan can productively consider energy and environmental cooperation are  __ the following __ : (1)  Demonstration projects , such as energy ‐ efficient buildings , that illustrate novel methods for reducing resource use, and thereby reducing global emissions; (2)  Clean coal technology  , where their capabilities are well ‐ matched, in an area of fateful long ‐ term importance for large ‐ scale energy consumers such as  China and India  ; (3)  carbon capture and storage  (CCS)  technology  ; (4)  mass ‐ transit approaches, including high ‐ speed rail  , which reduce use of resources; (5) product standards that promote energy efficiency; (6) civilian  nuclear issues  , including safety and storage questions,  the closed fuel cycle  , and  the improvement and strengthening of multilateral non ‐ proliferation regimes;  and (7) water use. __Both countries can learn substantially from the other, thereby strengthening and broadening their vital bilateral relationship.__ Cooperation on energy and environmental matters, however, cannot easily serve as a substitute for cooperation in areas of hard security , such as host ‐ nation support, however, for both strategic reasons and do to the configuration of embedded political interests in both countries.
 * Advantage 3 – The Global Warming Debate A strengthened U.S. Japan Alliance is key to enter into effective dialogue and cooperation to combat global warming** Kent E. ** Calder **, Director of Reischauer C enter for East Asian Studies at SAIS/Johns Hopkins University, 02/01/20 ** 10 ** “U.S. CLIMATE POLICY AND PROSPECTS FOR U.S. ‐ JAPAN COOPERATION”, < [] >. AP)

And, increased U.S. actions on global warming gets other countries on board key
Paul **Harris**, Professor of Political Science @ Lingnan University, ** 09 ** Energy Policy, Vol. 37, Iss. 3, March) For those interested in climate change and the global environment more generally, understanding the role of the United States is central  . Its emissions of GHGs surpass those of any other country except China. On a per capita basis , US emissions of GHGs are among the highest in the world. With less than one-twentieth of the world's population, the United States produces nearly one-fourth of the world's GHGs. What is more, as the world's largest economy, the Unite d States has considerable financial resources that can be directed at environmental problems abroad, and its technological capability has tremendous potential to help mitigate GHG pollution   .  If the United States were to lead on addressing climate change, i t could set an example that other countries would likely follow. If it continues to reject such a leadership role, many other states will not reduce their own GHG emissions. This could leave Europe more-or-less alone in taking major action on climate change, and at worst it might induce Europe to backtrack in this respect. In other words, a lack of US climate leadership could undermine Europe's climate leadership. While the practical and political importance of US action is crucial, the United States also has an ethical obligation—as the world's largest polluter and as the world's wealthiest country—to address climate change and its consequences. A change in US policy is not only essential for effective international climate policy; it is also the morally right thing for the United States and its people to do. And, global warming leads to extinction Oliver Tickell, environmental researcher,  20 08,  8/11, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange)

We need to get pr epared for four degrees of  global __ warming __, Bob __Watson__ [__PhD in Chemistry__, Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advacement of Science] __told the Guardian last week__. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But __ the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous __. Global __ warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean __, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "__the end of living and the beginning of survival__" for humankind. Or perhaps __ the beginning of our extinction __. __The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable __, bringing long-term __ sea level rises of __ 70 -__80 metres__. All the world's __coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and__ much of the world's most productive __farmland__. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. __ Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. __ __Billions would__ undoubtedly __ die __. Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David __King__ [__Director of the__ Smith __School of__ Enterprise and __the Environment at__ the University of __Oxford]__, who __warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise __ it is quite possible that __we would__ begin to __see a runaway increase__ ". This is a remarkable understatement. The __climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks__, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. __ The more __ the __ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed__ by the sea, __and the more the Arctic warms__. And __as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane __ – a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years – __ captured under melting permafrost is already under way __. __To see how far this process could go, look__ __55.5m years to the Palaeocene__-Eocene Thermal __Maximum__, __when a global temperature increase of 6C__ coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. __Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today__. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. __Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth __. CHAOS, REVOLT and policy gridloc k newspapers and pundits yesterday spelt out the painful implications of Japan s weekend election, which has left Naoto Kan s job in doubt just 33 days since he moved into the prime minister s office. Mr Kan s Democrats (DPJ) have lost control of the upper house after voters punished the party for a series of missteps in what was essentially a referendum on its 10-month rule. It is surely one of the shortest honeymoons in Japanese parliamentary history. Worse for Mr Kan, the result has brought the party s conservative Liberal Democrat (LDP) rivals juddering back to life after they were tossed out of power and declared a political corpse in last year s historic lower house poll. The LDP took 51 of the 121 seats up for grabs 13 more than it had before the election, while the Democrats won 44, losing 10. I believe the first step toward our party s rebirth has been made, LPD ruler Sadakazu Tanigaki said after the results came in. DPJ junior partner People s New Pa7rty, meanwhile, has emerged empty-handed, forcing the government to begin scrambling for another coalition ally. The government lost its other junior partner, the Social Democrats, in June after they resigned en masse in protest at a decision to allow a new US base to be built in the southern prefecture of Okinawa. Sunday s result is a disaster for a party that has promised radical economic and political reform. Although the upper house is far weaker than the lower chamber, it has the power to block all but the most important Bills. Mr Kan needs both houses onside if he is to achieve his pledges to transform government and pull the country out of a fiscal nosedive. Just after taking office on June 8th, he warned that the country s enormous national debt nearly 200 per cent of gross domestic product could throw the country s roughly $5-trillion economy into a Greek-style crisis. The warning was meant to concentrate minds: unlike Greece, Japan s dept is held domestically. But many analysts believe the threat of implosion in the world s second-largest economy is real enough, given its spluttering growth and the ballooning costs of propping up Japan s greying society over five million are set to retire this year and next. Unfortunately, voters did not warm to Mr Kan s proposed solution: a long-mooted hike in consumer tax from five to 10 per cent. Few believed his assurances that the tax would not punish the poor, a fact he acknowledged yesterday. My lack of explanation about (the tax) was a big factor (in the disappointing outcome). With gridlock looming in the upper house, the prime minister must now go back to the electorate and persuade them to surrender more of their declining income. In 10, 20, or 30 years from now, I hope the public will see this government as the defining factor that began rebuilding Japan s economy, he said at the weekend. Mr Kan must also face down protests against the US base on Okinawa, the political graveyard of his predecessor Yukio Hatoyama, and deal with the inevitable fallout for Japan s military alliance with the US.
 * Advantage 4 – Japanese Politics**
 * Kans political career is on the brink of death, to pass the economic reforms necessary to save his county he has to re-create the coalition lost due to the US military base.**
 * Irish Times**, 7/13/**10**, "Japan faces political gridlock after drubbing of ruling party", lexis, DH)

Ensuring stability is key to the New Prime Minister Kan’s Agenda – Okinawa base issue will derail Kan’s public popularity destroying his agenda 10, “Stability, unity key to Kan’s success: expert http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100611f2.html) WASHINGTON —  Ensuring stability and unity, unlike the previous administration, is key to the success of the new government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, according to a U.S. expert. " Stability in governance and unity in terms of the execution of policy, both domestic and foreign policy, I think, will be very key to Mr. Kan's success  ," Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent interview. Noting Kan is Japan's fifth prime minister in four years, Smith said, "There is a lack of stability in Japanese political thinking, but of course, serious instability in terms of governance." She also said there was "a certain amount of disunity, or at least the appearance of disunity," in the government of Kan's predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, who resigned last week after some eight months in office. "People were saying different things. It wasn't clear which way the government was going" under Hatoyama, Smith said, adding that what is needed now is a cohesive policy team. Smith said she finds the elevation of Kan "refreshing," as he is not from a political family, unlike the four previous prime ministers, who were all descended from former leaders. Coming from a citizen activist background, Kan's starting point is that governance must be responsive to the needs of citizens, as his time as health and welfare minister in 1996 proved, she said. "If he can carry that perspective effectively into the prime minister's office," Kan will succeed in steering the nation's politics, Smith said. Smith, who has followed Japanese politics over 20 years through various postings, including in Japan, pointed out that Kan and U.S. President Barack Obama may get along well due to their "pretty similar backgrounds." "Barack Obama is a community organizer from the streets of Chicago. . . . They can relate to where they came from and how they ended up in national politics and how they ended up as leaders of their two countries," she said. The new government under Kan and the Obama administration need to build "consistent interaction at all levels of the government" to maintain their alliance, Smith said. With regard to Hatoyama's government, Smith said it did not have "a big strategic vision within which the alliance functioned." On Japan's postponed national defense program outline, Smith noted that if Tokyo draws up the national defense policy guideline, it will be much easier for the two countries to resolve the issue of how to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, as Washington will better understand Japan's strategic priorities. Calling the base relocation issue "an **Achilles heel** for the alliance," Smith said the challenge for Kan and his Cabinet, as well as for the U.S. government, is "**whether they can persuade the people of Okinawa that they can offer them a better opportunity to reduce the burden.** **"** " It's time to look toward a more mature basing policy as we look forward ," she said.

Lack of action leads to Japanese economic collapse Rafferty, former managing director at the World Bank, editor in chief of PlainWords Media, a group of journalists specializing in economic development issues  June 10 ,  20 10 (“Can Kan Revive Japan?” Special Report for the Japan Times http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100610a1.html) Some economists, including foreign ones, say that Japan can relax even with higher ratios than Greece. One reason is that the published figures are gross debts and the net figures are much lower, closer to half the gross ones. More importantly, Japanese debts, unlike those of Greece, or the U.S. or Britain, are predominantly owed to Japanese, not foreigners. This has allowed Japan to get away with low interest rates on its debts as well as not to worry about a selloff. The benchmark 10-year government bond yield is steady around 1.3 percent because of brisk demand from domestic life insurance companies and banks. According to the Bank of Japan, domestic investors held 94.8 percent of Japanese government bonds at the end of 2009. Cynics say that the old boy network of the Japanese elite means that the institutional investors have no real choice except to swallow the bonds, and no foreign investor would look at such low yields. But even with these factors in Japan's favor, Kan is correct to worry. The rise in numbers is scary. The ministry of finance forecasts that Japan's central government debt could reach ¥973 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year.Apart from conventional concerns such as government borrowing crowding out the private sector and the fear of reaching a tipping point when markets will declare they have had enough even of the Japanese government, the country is running up a heavy burden that future generations will not be able to bear. Damaging effects are already being seen, in household savings rates that have fallen below those of the U.S., and in huge unfunded pensions at big companies because of the low yields of government bonds and the falling stock marke t, less than 24 percent of its 1989 peak. Unfunded liabilities at Hitachi are ¥1.1 trillion and those at NTT are ¥576 billion, huge gaps and potential disappointments for workers expecting a comfortable retirement, who will then find that the state has no money to pay for their medical and pension bills. What should worry Kan most of all is the lack of any realistic debate on the wide socioeconomic implications of heavy debts, economic stagnation and an aging society.

Reforms on Kan’s agenda solve deflation and save the crumbling Japan economy Wall Street Journal, June 18, 20 10 “Correct: Japan Govt Aims For Growth Through Investments, Tax Cuts” [] ** ) ** SM  Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet approved a 113-page mid- to long-term economic growth strategy that targets the creation of almost 5 million jobs in the environment, health care and tourism by 2020. The plan aims to lower the unemployment rate to below 4% as quickly as possible from about 5% currently.As a first step to generate more demand, the strategy calls for an end to persistent consumer-price falls from the fiscal year starting April 2011. It calls on the Bank of Japan to make "every effort" to accomplish that. The plan also says the yen shouldn't rise excessively as that could hurt export performance.The plan proposes gradually cutting the nation's 40% effective corporate tax rate to 25%, in line with other major counties, to make domestic companies more competitive internationally and attract foreign firms to do business in Japan. The new administration's growth strategy aims at ending the stagnation that has hobbled the world's second largest economy over much of the past two decades. Prices have been falling as consumers, worried about the economic outlook and job security, have tended to save rather than spend. At the same time, leading domestic industries such as electronics manufacturers have faced increasing competition from Asian neighbors such as South Korea and China. The government wants to turn the country's economic fortunes around by banishing deflation and encouraging the growth of new industries .It won't be easy. The government's ability to make new investments to spur growth is limited by its huge debt, the largest in the industrialized world and nearly twice the size of annual growth domestic product. Japan also has found it hard to overcome deflation, which has pecked at the economy for over a decade. Consumer prices have fallen for 14 straight months.The Kan administration targets average GDP growth exceeding 2% on an inflation-adjusted basis, and 3% on a nominal basis over the next 10 years. But those are ambitious goals for an economy that in recent years has ranged between growth of 2% and contractions of as much as 3%. The government's targets could be difficult to realize because deflationary pressure may persist as the population declines, said Mizuho Research Institute economist Hirokata Kusaba. A shrinking population could lead to a shortage of demand, driving prices downward. "As the Japanese economy is recovering at a gradual pace, in part helped by downturns in past years, the plan is a bit aggressive," Kusaba said. To pump up the economy, the plan says policy makers should focus on seven major areas expected to stimulate growth: the environment; health care; trade and business with other Asian countries; tourism and revitalization of regional economies; science and technology; job training and employment opportunities for groups such as the newly retired; and improvement of financial circumstances.The environment and health care are seen as particularly promising. By putting Japan's technological expertise toward environmental innovation, the government hopes to create 1.4 million new jobs. And as the country's population ages, health care is expected to become an even bigger industry that could create 2.84 million new jobs, according to the government's strategy. The two areas are each expected to produce Y50 trillion in new demand. The new strategy also envisions 560,000 new jobs and Y11 trillion in new demand from increased tourism, and 190,000 jobs and Y12 trillion in new demand from rising business ties with Asia.It wants Japan to become an Asian hub for global business. To help achieve this, it will take steps such as giving corporate tax breaks to foreign firms, streamlining immigration and subsidizing large-scale investments. The government says it will consider the details of such steps and start implementing them from fiscal 2011.The government will also establish a "comprehensive exchange" that deals broadly with securities and commodities to boost overseas investment by facilitating foreign investments in financial products.The administration's growth strategy is broadly in line with the policy direction the previous administration of Yukio Hatoyama, which also called for growth in environment, health care and Asia-related businesses. But calls for a corporate tax cut and a quick end to deflation--which could put pressure on the central bank to ease monetary policy further--are new. Kan took over as Japan's prime minister after Hatoyama resigned earlier this month."My thinking is, no reform no growth ," said Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist at Credit Suisse. " The bottom line is, unless we put an end to deflation, nobody wants to borrow money and the economy cannot revive."

That’s Global war, and extinction Walter Russell Mead,  Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations,  0 9 , Henry A. Kissinger , 2/4/2009 (,“Only Makes You Stronger,” The New Republic, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2) The damage to China's position is more subtle. The crisis has not--yet--led to the nightmare scenario that China-watchers fear: a recession or slowdown producing the kind of social unrest that could challenge the government. That may still come to pass--the recent economic news from China has been consistently worse than most experts predicted--but, even if the worst case is avoided, the financial crisis has nevertheless had significant effects. For one thing, it has reminded China that it s growth remains dependent on the health of the U.S. economy. For another, it has shown that China's modernization is likely to be long, dangerous, and complex rather than fast and sweet, as some assumed. In the lead-up to last summer's Beijing Olympics, talk of a Chinese bid to challenge America's global position reached fever pitch, and the inexorable rise of China is one reason why so many commentators are fretting about the "post-American era." But suggestions that China could grow at, say, 10 percent annually for the next 30 years were already looking premature before the economic downturn. (In late 2007, the World Bank slashed its estimate of China's GDP by 40 percent, citing inaccuracies in the methods used to calculate purchasing power parity.) And the financial crisis makes it certain that China's growth is likely to be much slower during some of those years. Already exports are falling, unemployment is rising, and the Shanghai stock market is down about 60 percent. At the same time, Beijing will have to devote more resources and more attention to stabilizing Chinese society, building a national health care system, providing a social security net, and caring for an aging population, which, thanks to the one-child policy, will need massive help from the government to support itself in old age. Doing so will leave China fewer resources for military build-ups and foreign adventures. As the crisis has forcefully reminded Americans, creating and regulating a functional and flexible financial system is difficult. Every other country in the world has experienced significant financial crises while building such systems, and China is unlikely to be an exception. All this means that China's rise looks increasingly like a gradual process. A deceleration in China's long-term growth rate would postpone indefinitely the date when China could emerge as a peer competitor to the United States. The present global distribution of power could be changing slowly, if at all. The greatest danger both to U.S.-China relations and to American power itself is probably not that China will rise too far, too fast; it is that the current crisis might end China's growth miracle. In the worst-case scenario, the turmoil in the international economy will plunge China into a major economic downturn. The Chinese financial system will implode as loans to both state and private enterprises go bad. Millions or even tens of millions of Chinese will be unemployed in a country without an effective social safety net. The collapse of asset bubbles in the stock and property markets will wipe out the savings of a generation of the Chinese middle class. The political consequences could include dangerous unrest--and a bitter climate of anti-foreign feeling that blames others for China's woes. (Think of Weimar Germany, when both Nazi and communist politicians blamed the West for Germany's economic travails.) Worse, instability could lead to a vicious cycle, as nervous investors moved their money out of the country, further slowing growth and, in turn, fomenting ever-greater bitterness. Thanks to a generation of rapid economic growth, China has so far been able to manage the stresses and conflicts of modernization and change; nobody knows what will happen if the growth stops. India's future is also a question. Support for global integration is a fairly recent development in India, and many serious Indians remain skeptical of it. While India's 60-year-old democratic system has resisted many shocks, a deep economic recession in a country where mass poverty and even hunger are still major concerns could undermine political order, long-term growth, and India's attitude toward the United States and global economic integration. The violent Naxalite insurrection plaguing a significant swath of the country could get worse; religious extremism among both Hindus and Muslims could further polarize Indian politics; and India's economic miracle could be nipped in the bud. If current market turmoil seriously damaged the performance and prospects of India and China, the current crisis could join the Great Depression in the list of economic events that changed history, even if the recessions in the West are relatively short and mild. The United States should stand ready to assist Chinese and Indian financial authorities on an emergency basis--and work very hard to help both countries escape or at least weather any economic downturn. It may test the political will of the Obama administration, but the United States must avoid a protectionist response to the economic slowdown. U.S. moves to limit market access for Chinese and Indian producers could poison relations for years. For billions of people in nuclear-armed countries to emerge from this crisis believing either that the United States was indifferent to their well-being or that it had profited from their distress could damage U.S. foreign policy far more severely than any mistake made by George W. Bush. It's not just the great powers whose trajectories have been affected by the crash. Lesser powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran also face new constraints. The crisis has strengthened the U.S. position in the Middle East as falling oil prices reduce Iranian influence and increase the dependence of the oil sheikdoms on U.S. protection. Success in Iraq--however late, however undeserved, however limited--had already improved the Obama administration's prospects for addressing regional crises. Now, the collapse in oil prices has put the Iranian regime on the defensive. The annual inflation rate rose above 29 percent last September, up from about 17 percent in 2007, according to Iran's Bank Markazi. Economists forecast that Iran's real GDP growth will drop markedly in the coming months as stagnating oil revenues and the continued global economic downturn force the government to rein in its expansionary fiscal policy. All this has weakened Ahmadinejad at home and Iran abroad. Iranian officials must balance the relative merits of support for allies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria against domestic needs, while international sanctions and other diplomatic sticks have been made more painful and Western carrots (like trade opportunities) have become more attractive. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and other oil states have become more dependent on the United States for protection against Iran, and they have fewer resources to fund religious extremism as they use diminished oil revenues to support basic domestic spending and development goals. None of this makes the Middle East an easy target for U.S. diplomacy, but thanks in part to the economic crisis, the incoming administration has the chance to try some new ideas and to enter negotiations with Iran (and Syria) from a position of enhanced strength. Every crisis is different, but there seem to be reasons why, over time, financial crises on balance reinforce rather than undermine the world position of the leading capitalist countries. Since capitalism first emerged in early modern Europe, the ability to exploit the advantages of rapid economic development has been a key factor in international competition. Countries that can encourage--or at least allow and sustain--the change, dislocation, upheaval, and pain that capitalism often involves, while providing their tumultuous market societies with appropriate regulatory and legal frameworks, grow swiftly. produce cutting-edge technologies that translate into military and economic power. They are able to invest in education, making their workforces ever more productive. They typically develop liberal political institutions and cultural norms that value, or at least tolerate, dissent and that allow people of different political and religious viewpoints to collaborate on  a vast social project of modernization--and to maintain political stability in the face of accelerating social and economic change. The vast productive capacity of leading capitalist powers gives them the ability to project influence around the world and, to some degree, to remake the world to suit their own interests and preferences. This is what the United Kingdom and the United States have done in past centuries, and what other capitalist powers like France, Germany, and Japan have done to a lesser extent. In these countries, the social forces that support the idea of a competitive market economy within an appropriately liberal legal and political framework are relatively strong. But, in many other countries where capitalism rubs people the wrong way, this is not the case. On either side of the Atlantic, for example, the Latin world is often drawn to anti-capitalist movements and rulers on both the right and the left. Russia, too, has never really taken to capitalism and liberal society--whether during the time of the czars, the commissars, or the post-cold war leaders who so signally failed to build a stable, open system of liberal democratic capitalism even as many former Warsaw Pact nations were making rapid transitions. Partly as a result of these internal cultural pressures, and partly because, in much of the world, capitalism has appeared as an unwelcome interloper, imposed by foreign forces and shaped to fit foreign rather than domestic interests and preferences, many countries are only half-heartedly capitalist. When crisis strikes, they are quick to decide that capitalism is a failure and look for alternatives. So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again. None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born?

The Futenma base is useless, and closing it could quell public opposition John Feffer , the co-director of foreign policy in Focus at the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies, March 6, 2  010, Asia Times, ”Okinawa and the New Domino Effect,”   []  ,) SM  The Futenma base - and its potential replacement - would be well situated, should Washington ever decide to send rapid response units to the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or the Korean peninsula. Strategic planners in Washington like to speak of the "tyranny of distance ", of the difficulty of getting "boots on the ground" from Guam or Hawaii in case of an East Asian emergency.  Yet the actual strategic value of Futenma is, at best, questionable  .  The South Koreans are more than capable of dealing with any contingency on the peninsula. And the United St ates frankly has plenty of firepower by air (Kadena) and sea (Yokosuka) within hailing distance of China. A couple thousand Marines won't make much of a difference (though the leathernecks strenuously disagree). However, in a political environment in which the Pentagon is finding itself making tough choices between funding counterinsurgency wars and old Cold War weapons systems, the "China threat" lobby doesn't want to give an inch. Failure to relocate the Futenma base within Okinawa might be the first step down a slippery slope that could potentially put at risk billions of dollars in Cold War weapons still in the production line. It's hard to justify buying all the fancy toys without a place to play with them. And that's one reason the Obama administration has gone to the mat to pressure Tokyo to adhere to the 2006 agreement. It even dispatched Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Japanese capital last October in advance of president Obama's own Asian tour. Like an impatient father admonishing an obstreperous teenager, Gates lectured the Japanese "to move on" and abide by the agreement - to the irritation of both the new government and the public. (See [|Gates gets grumpy in Tokyo], October 28, 2009) The punditocracy has predictably closed ranks behind a bipartisan Washington consensus that the new Japanese government should become as accustomed to its junior status as its predecessor and stop making a fuss. The Obama administration is frustrated with "Hatoyama's amateurish handling of the issue," writes Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. "What has resulted from Mr Hatoyama's failure to enunciate a clear strategy or action plan is the biggest political vacuum in over 50 years," adds Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council. Neither analyst acknowledges that Tokyo's only "failure" or "amateurish" move was to stand up to Washington. "The dispute could undermine security in East Asia on the 50th anniversary of an alliance that has served the region well," intoned The Economist more bluntly. "Tough as it is for Japan's new government, it needs to do most, though not all, of the caving in." The Hatoyama government is by no means radical, nor is it anti -American. It isn't preparing to demand that all, or even many, US bases close. It isn't even preparing to close any of the other three dozen (or so) bases on Okinawa. Its modest pushback is confined to Futenma, where it finds itself between the rock of Ja panese public opinion and the hard place of Pentagon pressure. Those who prefer to achieve Washington's objectives with Japan in a more roundabout fashion counsel patience. " If America undercuts the new Japanese government and creates resentment among the Japanese public, then a victory on Futenma could prove Pyrrhic,"   writes Joseph Nye, the architect of US Asia policy during the Clinton years.

 Dyer, j ournalist and former intelligence analyst, who served internationally for US Naval intelligence from 1983 to 2004  March 11, 2 010 “Past Time to Rethink Our Approach to Japan ,”   []  ” ) SM    “Smart power” from the Obama administration is looking downright differently-abled to basically everyone outside the United States, where if most people think about Japan it’s because they own a Toyota or they love the Winter Olympics, or just like ‘em some sushi or yakisoba.The Brits [|perceive us] as having a tiff with Japan. Asia-based //The Diplomat// [|perceives us] as having a tiff with Japan. The Chinese [|perceive us] as having a rift with Japan. //Al Jazeera// [|perceives us] as having a tiff with Japan. The //New York Times// [|perceives us] as having a tiff with Japan. The Japanese [|perceive us] as having a tiff with Japan.//Newsweek// offers a rare [|contrasting view] pointing out that in some key ways, even if we are, in fact, having a tiff with Japan, our relations are still strong.But the current situation is troubling, because what it amounts to is the Obama administration being dismissively recalcitrant about something that does, in fact, involve Japanese sovereignty and Japan’s mastery of her o wn destiny. The situation is that we want to move a Marine Corps air base to Futenma on Okinawa – from its previous location on Okinawa – and Okinawans don’t want the base at Futenma. (They want it gone altogether  .) There’s been resistance to it for some time, but a previous Japanese government concluded an agreement with the Bush administration in 2006 to go ahead with the Futenma move. Since the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, formed his government in September 2009, however, Japan has been rethinking the 2006 agreement. There were different ways to handle this, but what the Obama administration has done is insist, with what is perceived as summary rudeness, that the 2006 agreement be honored. Hatoyama signaled in December that his government would not simply agree to that right away, and announced that a final decision would be given no earlier than May. Hillary Clinton called in the Japanese ambassador and gave him a talking to. Obama himself declined requests for a personal sidebar with Prime Minister Hatoyama at the Copenhagen summit (although since he also declined such requests from Gordon Brown, Hatoyama might not need to feel super-especially slighted. “Diss our best allies” seems to be one of the principles of Obamian Smart Power).Now senior American officials are visiting Japan and being interviewed every other week uttering veiled threats about the consequences, if Japan doesn’t stop with the domestic politics already, and just move forward with the Futenma base.Have we lost our minds? For one thing, what happened to all that Obama business about shedding arrogance and being solicitous of the rest of the world? If we went by his administration’s rhetoric and supposed aspirations, we’d think that if the Okinawans don’t want a Marine air base, Obama would be the first one to listen and take their concerns to heart. Indeed, if Republican senators under a GOP administration were over in Japan [|telling the Japanese] that Futenma is the place we need to put the base, Obama would probably lead the charge against such “imperialism.”But there’s a more fundamental issue here, and it makes the Obama administration’s weird inflexibility particularly ill-timed. The issue’s origin is very simple: time has passed. The world has changed in some important ways since 1945. We haven’t given our alliance with Japan a really fresh, critical look since Nixon handed Okinawa back in 1971, and it’s high time we did .The UK //Guardian// article linked above comes, like most such treatments, from the perspective that the only alternative to a divisive tiff between the US and Japan is the restoration (or at least reaffirmation) of the post-1971 status quo in our relationship. But that status quo is losing support in Japan, and it’s not because the Japanese “don’t like us,” or because they want to reemerge as an imperial power and start talking about Co-Prosperity Spheres again. It’s because the justification for the features of Japan’s role in the alliance is startin g to crumble.Most   Americans aren’t aware that Japan pays the cost of maintaining the military bases we use there. It costs the Japanese a lot of money to host our forces. That feature of our relationship might not be called into question if there were no dispute over how many bases there should be, and where they should go – but there is. If there were still a Soviet Union rattling a big saber short miles across the La Perouse Strait from Hokkaido, such disputes might loom smaller in Japan’s domestic politics. But there isn’t. It’s shortsighted to dismiss an emerging sense among Japanese voters that they’d be perfectly safe with fewer bases hosting fewer US forces on their islands, and it’s downright obnoxious to demand that the national government behave as if that sense didn’t exist, or wasn’t a real and serious factor in its internal obligations to its people.Japan has every right to her own evolving perceptions about her security requirements. This is a voluntary alliance, not the Warsaw Pact. We may not like all of those evolving perceptions, and they may present inconvenient decision points for us, but throwing diplomatic tantrums is exactly, and I mean precisely, the //wrong// way to handle such developments. The truth is, our relationship with Japan //has// to evolve. We can grunt angrily and resist, or we can get out ahead of the problem and do some rethinking ourselves. That’s what we have State and Defense Departments for: to think ahead of current conditions to what will
 * Contention 4 – Solvency**

position us for future ones .What we should want is to manage our way to a new, more sustainable relationship with Japan. The day is going to come when we assume more of the cost of basing forces there, and probably have to keep fewer on the Jap anese islands anyway. This need only happen in alarming, confrontational jolts if we sit around twiddling our thumbs and assuming nothing has to change. It’s not a bad thing to contemplate our alliance with Japan evolving to a different basis. It’s a ne cessity, but it’s also a positive   opportunity.I think we will always want to count Japan as an ally – an official military ally, by treaty agreement – but our alliance in 2010 and beyond doesn’t have to have exactly the same features as our alliance up to now. Getting on a new footing with Japan isn’t something to be feared, it’s something to be planned, negotiated, and managed.The signals our moves send to China and Russia (as well as everyone from India to Australia) will also matter tremendously. It’s not to our advantage at all for the US-Japan alliance to appear grudging, and maintained mainly out of fear of China. (It’s not to Japan’s either; Japan is and will always be too big for China to intimidate militarily anyway, without China rattling sabers that would bring retribution down on her from elsewhere.) The US has a permanent interest in an East Asia that is not under the domination of a hostile hegemon, but is as democratized as feasible and open to trade, travel, and cultural exchange. This interest is common up the scale of national interests, from pure defense (we can’t let the other side of the Pacific become an armed imperium), to trading interests, to our national interest in promoting liberalization and consensual self-government. This should be our starting point for strategy – not the exact wording of today’s Status of Forces Agreement with Japan. The latter is something that can change over time without compromising our security or interests. As Lord Palmerston famously said, it’s the interests that endure.