Not here in the US, but over on the right side of the International Dateline. In Japan they will be having elections for the lower house today. Its not looking good for the home team of LDP. The odds are pretty good that they will go down to a crushing defeat. Stippy has a good detailed election round up:
The LDP won the last lower house election (2005) after Koizumi dissolved parliament to win support for his key policy of privatizing the post office. Voter turnout was huge (for Japan) and the LDP won 296 out of the 480 seats in the lower house. (327 including Komeito) The Democrats didn’t even win a quarter of the seats (113/480).
This time around the tide has changed and the Democrats will be focusing on two magic numbers. The first is 241 seats, enough for a simple majority of the lower house. The second is 373 seats. 373 seats would mean that combined with their 109 current seats in the upper house, the Democrats would have 2/3 of all votes in a combined sitting of parliament. In otherwords, they no longer need to worry about cooperating with any of the quacky minority parties who hold the casting vote in the upper house at the moment. If the upper house knocks back any of their legislation they can just have a combined sitting of the two houses and force any legislation that they like through. (The LDP+Komeito coalition have 103/242 seats in the Upper house. The Commies have 7/242, The Socialists have 5/242 and The People’s New Party have 4/242.)
The current incumbent Prime Minister has not done much to help the LDP cause-he is extremely unpopular. Not suprising when you run a commerical like this:
The commercial starts your life, your country-is with Aso. Truly protect Japan. Ji Minto (LDP).
A lot of LDP politicans who are trying to hold on to their diet seats have deliberately avoided placing Aso on their campaign posters. Why would they want their national TV ad campaign to put the focus on an uncharismatic and unpopular leader? It’s almost as if they are trying to increase the scale of the defeat.
And when it comes-it will bring some changes to the Japan / US security relationship. There won’t be anything drastic-but it will create headaches for US Forces in Japan. For one thing, the odds are pretty good that DPJ will reduce the amount of money Japan contributes to maintaining US forces in Japan and for construction of new facilities. The US has long relied on this money to avoid making hard decisions of its own about facilities-JFIP money is the crack cocaine of the Japan based military construction program. The US will also have to retrench on the number of Japanese Master Labor Contract workers it gets-another freebie that masks the true costs of maintaining 40,000 plus troop in Japan.
Which could not come at worse time-as the US will be knee deep in some of the boneheaded moves it agreed to back in 2005: moving CVW-5 from Atsugi to Iwakuni, moving USMC fixed wing aircraft from Okinawa up to Honshu, and the relocation of 8000 Marines to Guam. Japan was stuck with a bill for that last item that is over 6 Billion yen. Suffice it to say they are not happy about it. However that’s an agreement between the US and the Japanese government and I think they will be forced to abide by it.
Which is why I think they will cut the yearly cost sharing money and construction money.
A second issue will continuation of the JMSDF refueling mission in the Persian Gulf. DPJ has been on both sides of the issue, being initially against it then coming out in support. A lot of that opposition had to do with presence of Japanese forces in Iraq-so with them now being out of Iraq, it will be interesting what will transpire. It will be interesting to see what they do about this.
A third issue will be the construction of a replacement facility for Futenma MCAS in Okinawa. Right now they are supposed to build one on the north part of the island. DPJ will not allow a Futenma replacement facility on Okinawa. (Somewhere else in Japan? Possible… But not Okinawa…) That means the US will leave Futenma, move the Marine helicopters to Kadena, but refuse to pay for the huge environmental
clean up costs involving closing Futenma. That ought to be fun to watch.
Finally, there will be opposition to basing new types of assets on the Kanto plain. The nuclear carrier issue has been solved thankfully, but as Japan develops its capabilities for areas like ballistic missile defense-there will be more push back on anything that appears to be an expansion of US footprint. Again, another interesting thing to watch.
You can probably expect big publicity whenever something bad happens with a Sailor or Marine-but don’t expect any changes to the Status of Forces agreement. It would just get too hard for both sides.
I’m curious about your opinion as to how much longer the special relationship between Japan and the US will last. I suspect that most Japanese have gone beyond the ambivalent stage and are now actively questioning why the US is still in Japan. I would say the same thing about Korea. From everything I’ve seen, everybody scores in the great political game by damning the American presence and yet somehow we keep staying beyond our putative welcome. Understanding POLMIL I can see why we’re there, in both countries, but I don’t understand how we do it without a single politician, political party or voting bloc that comes out and denounces the opposition and endorses continued presence by the US.
Yet another of life’s mysteries.
GI Korea has talked about the US In Korea and why they will not leave despite the anti US bias that permeates Korean society.
My observation is that the Japanese are comfortable with the current US presence and most Japanese-not the radicals on both the left and the rigth-don’t want a change. For one thing, the Japanese cost sharing is a huge jobs program for Japan-most Japanese know that.
That said-they prefer to have the US be out of sight, out of mind. That’s why they like the idea of shrinking footprint on the Kanto plain-even though that clearly is not in US interest. ( Plus its really cool to be able to live close to Tokyo).
Okinawa however is a different matter. There you cannot get away from the presence of the bases-it is that pervasive. Plus Japanese on Honshu don’t like Okinawans and vice versa. Add that to the previous paragraph that’s why they don’t want other forces from Okinawa moving onto Honshu if they can avoid it.
Its complex-but at its heart, the Japanese gain from our being their. They also know-in the case of Japan at least-the US gets a big benefit too.
Can you explain why it cost so much money, for the Japanese, to move 8000 Marines to Guam?
Is Okinawa considered a “good duty” station?
The cost has to do with construction of facilities for the Marines on Guam. The US position was that the Marines did not need to move anywhere-and if Japan was going to make them move-then Japan should pay for them. That started a whole fight about who was going to do the work-Japan felt if they were paying the bill, Japanese construction companies should do the work. The US Congress got involved in that-wanting work for American companies, even though Guam does not have the construction capacity to handle the work. They struck a compromise where Japan teams with US companies and guarantees to hire Guamanians. (Which sucks for us-since they won’t do as good a job as Japanese workers would).
The other part of the bill is with moving CVW-5 to Iwakuni. Japan is tearing off the top of a mountain top and using the dirt to build a new runway at Iwakuni. Plus they have to build schools, hospitals, hangars, and maintenance facilities to house 2000 Sailors and their families (around 4000 people). Moving the air wing breaks irrevocably the logistics support for CVW-5-something the US did not address when they proposed this. It was an afterthought and both sides are paying dearly for that mistake. Even though some-like yours truly warned them about it at the time.
Having gotten tangled up in “building” military facilities in Guam I can appreciate the cost factor. By Navy regs the only buildings that can be constructed in Guam must be typhoon proof. One of our squadrons is FDNF on Guam and is still doing maintenance in the open air because nothing can be MILCON until the complete USAF/USN/USMC Guam building plan is approved. When you think about the Leslie Groves approach to building you just wince at what it takes these days to put a stupid building up.
Are the Marines in Okinawa all there on accompanied tours? Are the Japanese dragging the feet at building family housing in Guam?
Most Marines are on one year tours or they come on six month deployments-which is one of the problems with Iwakuni. It was fine as a base to deploy to-not so great if you are bringing Mama and the kids along too. Some Marines are on three year tours though.
I’ve heard too, that part of the problem on Guam is that the USAF refuses to be reasonable-e.g. there is hangar space HCS-25 could use, but USAF won’t play ball.