East Asia

Senators, we must pass the Bill to Reduce US Military Presence in East Asia, not only for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of the people of Japan. Japan is one of the United State's closest allies, yet this important relationship is threatened by our refusal to close outdated military bases. These six bases were established during the Cold War and maintained some 50,000 military personnel in Japan to help defend Japan from the Soviet Union and Communist China. Seeing that these threats have diminished, given that the Cold War occurred over fifty years ago, it is only common sense to deploy American troops. The first reason for why we must affirm this piece of legislation is that the Japanese people are fully capable of defending themselves. Japan fields a first-rate military. It hosts five armies, five naval divisions and three air defense forces. Together these units are a quarter of a million men strong. Now, US military presence in Japan does little to protect the nation. In fact, with US military presence, Japan is actually more susceptible to attack from North Korea. Since, Japan is much closer to North Korea than the United States is, North Korea poses a greater threat to Japan, and given that US troops are stationed in Japan and North Korea especially despises the US, this might spark an attack. Another source of friction is that Japan has a very low crime rate and the presence of thousands of young American GIs result in numerous robberies, assaults, rapes, and murders of Japanese citizens each year. Finally, Japan is densely populated while American military bases occupy large tracts of land in urban areas that are frequent targets of complaints and lawsuits because of loud aircraft. The irony is that closing or downsizing some of these bases would save the US millions of dollars a year and shift thousands of jobs to the U.S. economy. Maintaining 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan requires millions of dollars each year to rotate GIs for three-year tours, which includes shipping their children, pets, and household goods. In addition, mainland Japan is an unpopular duty station because of cold weather, high costs, and polite yet unfriendly locals. Since housing costs for military families and American civilian employees are twice that of the US, the U.S. military also spends millions of dollars for additional housing costs. Therefore, we can see that housing soldiers on military bases in Japan is simply unnecessary and inefficient. Let's begin with the first US military base stationed in Japan that the US should either downsize or close entirely- the US Marine Corps Station Futenma located on the island of Okinawa. Over 27,000 U.S. military personnel and their 22,000 family members are stationed on Okinawa. The Marines have a dozen camps and an airbase at Futenma where loud helicopters anger nearby residents. Discontent among the people of Okinawa regarding the foreign military presence has been rising for years. Their chief