From the Associated Press a few minutes ago:

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has backtracked on his campaign promise to close the U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.

Hatoyama had pledged to close the base but now says he’s decided to keep Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on the strategically important island, which is close to Taiwan and the Chinese mainland and not far from the Korean peninsula.

There is likely a correlation between this reversal on the part of Mr. Hatoyama and a restive and increasingly bellicose North Korea.

Glad cooler heads prevailed, for now.  Much as they might not like us there, they must have evaluated things and realized they would rather have us than not have us.

Realpolitik trumps domestic politics.  This time.

« I don’t want no teenage queen…..

Japan’s Grey Hull Health Diplomacy »

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Uncategorized

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

• http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/ Solomon

  Oh you’ve been pulling my chains lately.

  Time to dump the Japanese bases. Its even foolhardy to consider the cramped base at Guam.

  I’ve been hearing for years that we’re heading to the Northern Territories in Australia.

  That would be a win win. The Northern Territories are sparsely populated, the Australians would have no problem with us being there and the only real worries are the injuries from snake bites.

  Bases in Japan are just too close and too vulnerable in this modern age. A detachment of aircraft rotating in and out at a much smaller expeditionary type setup would be a better idea.

• Marcase

  Australia would be nice (still a bit too far from the SEA action, though). Re-opening the Philipine bases would be even better. Manilla is dealing with its own Jihadi-style terror group(s), that combined with the revenue may be good enough for the Philipines to consider a return of US forces.

• UltimaRatioReg

  Solomon, this post isn’t a debate about whether Oki is the BEST strategic location, but right now it is all we’ve got.

  There’s that word again. Australia. *Sigh*

• http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/ Solomon

  Then what is it about?

• UltimaRatioReg

  The Japanese PM did an about-face, perhaps because of the more imminent threat from nK.

  Not a common occurrence in Japanese politics.