Japan OKs bigger budget to host U.S. forces, step up alliance

in addition to last December's 'agreement' to pay the U.S. more for continuing to use Japan as its outpost I take it.

I would have much prefer it if some of the money is actually use to support our own development in the weapon industry. Otherwise we will only keep buying overprice gears that cost a lot to shipped here. Not to mention maintenance parts that we also constantly need.

The 1.05 trillion yen ($8.6 billion) host nation support budget covers the purchase of advanced arsenals used in their joint military exercises, as well as utilities and facilities used by the U.S. troops and their Japanese employees working on American bases in the country through March 2027.

From the pockets of Japanese workers to American defense contractors.

" Kindness " ?

Typical passive agressive.

Yes JAPAN you need stronger alliances and money cant buy everything.

Freedom is NOT a given or Free.

Show Us The Money!

Nice JEEP in the background, where can I get one? LOL

Paul, as an American, we are not nationalist,but we want Putin to reap what, he sowed for meddling in the election

The one trillion yen could be better spent developing domestic nuclear and other military capabilities. Japan needs to get real. Look at what’s happening in Ukraine. The US won’t come to Japan’s rescue in the event of war with China, another nuclear power.

Show me your $money, say's the rogue state of the USA with it's military arm's based economy.

@Meiyouwenti, are you just lying to yourself?

US cannot say no. Firstly their army is already are in these bases. There largest amount of troops is here and only we had the capability and willing to host that many and their fleet. Any hostile nation has to attack them before they can even think of landing troops on Japan soil. Secondly they are bound by the agreement they signed. If they lose Japan their greatest ally, they lose access to whole Asia. Along with any reputation or trust any ally would have for them. Thirdly Japan practically is connected with the US economy. If one crash, the other will follow. If you study economy, you should understand just how bad US would be in if they lose Japan. It will cripple them literally.

There is a difference with Ukraine. US troops were never in Ukraine. Don't spout nonsense if you don't know much about Ukraine history and Russia. There is several huge reason why Russia would never allow Ukraine to join NATO.

You shouldn't worry about if US will or will not defend us. They has no choice in fact then to fight. The question instead should be if they are willing to defend Taiwan or not if war break out there.

I would have much prefer it if some of the money is actually use to support our own development in the weapon industry. Otherwise we will only keep buying overprice gears that cost a lot to shipped here. Not to mention maintenance parts that we also constantly need.

@Hiro, Japan produces almost all of its military hardware domestically. Some hardware are foreign designs built under license. The Type 90 tank is basically a Japanese Leopard 2 built by Mitsubishi. The newer Type 10 tank is a purely Japanese design optimized for Japanese conditions. Japan builds all of its warships and most of the radars and sonars are purely Japanese designs. About the only foreign radar the JMSDF buys is for their Aegis equipped DDGs. Japan built their own F-15s along with the F-1 and F-2. They build it all in house. Japan has their own unique maritime patrol / ASW aircraft called the Kawasaki P-1. Japan isn't buying the Boeing P-8 to replace their old Lockheed P-3 Orion's as the US is. The P-1 is a bigger airplane too. Japan builds its own surface to surface and air to surface missiles and many of its air to air missiles. Japan builds its own excellent transport aircraft, the C-2. You don't give Japan much credit for what it does. Oh yeah, and Japan is co-developing the Standard SM-3 Block II with the US. They aren't going to just buy off the shelf, Japanese scientists and engineers have been developing and testing that new missile in cooperation with the US. There is literally no better ballistic missile defense weapon in any other nation's arsenal.

There is a difference with Ukraine. US troops were never in Ukraine. Don't spout nonsense if you don't know much about Ukraine history and Russia. There is several huge reason why Russia would never allow Ukraine to join NATO.

Two things many do not realize. Number one, Ukrainian independence efforts go all the way back to the close of WWI. Ukraine back then was not one. The southern part including the Crimean Peninsula and almost the entire coast of the Black Sea and Sea of Azov belonged to the Ottoman Empire. East of the Dnieper River and north of the Ottoman Empire was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When the Allies defeated the Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians the Ukrainians declared independence. That lasted about a year before the USSR invaded and subjugated them. What is now a chunk of northern Ukraine belonged to Poland. That piece became part of Ukraine after the Russian-German invasion of Poland.

Russia off and on controlled the eastern part of Ukraine from the early 1700s after a Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth that controlled Russia and was trying to turn it into a Catholic country for the Pope got lazy and was run out. Before the Poles it was cris- crossed by the Mongols, the Swedes, the Ottomans, and others. Many Ukrainians were so poor and miserable as a result of Molotovs agricultural collectivization and confiscation of private property they cheered the Nazi invasion, thinking they would be free of the USSR. There remained a persistent low level war for independence in western Ukraine into the 1950s. When the USSR collapsed Ukraine gained their independence from Russia. Now Russia seeks to turn the clock back again.

That's what you get for continuing to support the LDP, Japanese people.

Err, we are not enemies of either Russia, China or North Korea. Russia, China and NK are the enemies of USA.

We should be charging rent to USA for occupation of 3.5% of Japanese land. And compensation for Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

my weekly living cost is up 15%. I just gave a $300 donation to my neighbor because she can’t but food or electricity.

japan first.

@Hiro

There was the same argument going before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, that Jpanese and American economies complemented each other and so there would never be a war between the two countries.

Meiyouwenti: “The US won’t come to Japan’s rescue in the event of war with China, another nuclear power.“

You’re only about 98% wrong, so give yourself credit for that 2%. I doubt the U.S. would launch a Full-scale war or do much if China put boots on the Senkaku for whatever reason, but if the latter invaded Taiwan or other parts of Japan they most certainly will be there.

“There was the same argument going before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, that Jpanese and American economies complemented each other and so there would never be a war between the two countries.”

what does that even mean in defense of your argument? You’re all over the map.

Japan needs to become self-reliant in phased manner and reduce these spendings on foreign military !!

another proof that Japan as so called sovereign country is in possition of american vassal.

even with own army forces we pay costs from our pockets.

we are still forced to pay very high costs for us occupying forces on japanese grounds.even we are not agree government never cares.

Japan likes to play international face of peace loving country but these money fundings are real support for any war in region may start in near future and yes -by money of japanese tax payers.

few questions remains.

why Japan needs own army if all of us have to pay for us ocuppying forces costs?why we have to pay for both costs?

if we ned to have us army here than cancel japanese one and use money to improve life of ordinary japanese cirtizens/social welfare,family support and kids rising support,lowering tax on fuels etc etc-list of things to do is endless/and lpower japanese crazy high debt!

but if we need japanese army anyway than act as sovereign state and send boys and girls back to Iowa and than money saved use for improving of our life economy and so on!

war have ended in 1945 now its 2022.soviet forces left east europe in 1990-1992.

why us army cant leave western europe japan and other us bases located all around the world?

to take care of and mind own business at home?

why west european governments and japanese one as well must act in possitition of US vassals all the time?recent situation with Ukraine is great example!

Err, we are not enemies of either Russia, China or North Korea. Russia, China and NK are the enemies of USA.

You're having a laugh.

If the success of the Ukraine resistance is related to American military training, then Japan should embrace the U.S. military alliance and learn how to be more formidable.

Nice one Japan—-agree to pay the trillion yen only after the Russian invasion and threats of North Korea and China are becoming real everyday ^^

As I commented in a post on another thread, the trailblazer of this "host nation support", widely known as "sympathy budget" in Japan, was a request by the U.S. government for Japan to share the labor cost of Japanese nationals working for U.S. bases. Grilled during a Dietary session and cornered to answer on what legal basis Japan must shoulder such cost, then Director General of Defense Agency Shin Kanemaru snapped; "Out of sympathy (for the finance-pinched U.S. government)". Note that Article 24 of SOFA clearly states that the U.S. must bear all costs "incident to the maintenance of the United States armed forces in Japan".

Eventually, new items were added one after another to the legally unfounded budget now called "host nation support": water and electricity, maintenance of facilities, transportation of troops to and from drills. The new budget (1.05 trillion yen or $8.6 billion) now includes, according to the article, "the purchase of advanced arsenals". In other words, Japanese taxpayers must pay for U.S.-made arsenals used in USFJ-JSDF joint exercises. 

Shenanigans go unpunished indeed when it comes to Japan-U.S. military alliance.

Japan endorses bigger budget to host U.S. forces, step up alliance further :

That is the way to curry favor, no more, no less..

The quite extensive Japanese involvement in their military equipment is not widely known. The US-Japan alliance is the best defense option for Japan, which, despite having the ability, does not want the political baggage that comes with being a nuclear power. And is still carrying Artocle 9 around its neck. That also serves as the best option for the United States, having a reliable ally in East Asia. The U.S, could not have carried on the Korean War or Vietnam War without the strategic hub that Japan provided. The way the world is going with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, the US-JPN alliance is destined to only get deeper.

Japan should pay us $100 Billion a year.

Japan’s parliament on Friday approved a new agreement with the United States, endorsing Japanese government spending exceeding 1 trillion yen ($8 billion) for hosting U.S. troops as the two sides strengthen their military alliance in the face of growing threat from China and North Korea in the region.

And Russia.

TeslaInvestorToday  01:21 pm JST

Japan should pay us $100 Billion a year.

Absolutely.

Japan is not the only nation to either host US forces or to contribute to the cost of doing so. Japan does pay the highest co contribution.

South Korea, Germany and even Australia helps cover some costs for the yearly rotation of 2,500 US marines through Australian bases.

The US has put itself in a position that it is committed to defend a great number of nations. That commitment has a cost not just in one nation but every nation it bases or rotates troops through.

I do not know of any other nation that is as prepared as the US is, to defend so many nations around the world. Yes Japan has agreed to pay a huge chunk of money to help base a lot of troops and equipment in Japan as a forward deployment that adds to Japans defense and as a deterrence for any nation thinking of attacking Japan.

Nations that are alone, without allies can easily end up in the situation Ukraine finds itself in today.

Japan has a strong ally and is looking to create more over time and that helps keep Japan safe and sovereign. Military's cost, munitions cost, alliances cost, and freedom costs. The cost of failing to defend your nation has a much more brutal cost that is also higher in money also.

Matthew HopkinsToday  02:12 pm JST

It confuses me that Japan pay for this because the advantage of a base in Japan is massive for the US.

The advantages are massive for both Japan and the United States. Japan does not want to go nuclear.

@ ossan

Japan definitely wants to go nuclear !

@Mathew Hopkins

Ofcourse there's nuclear weaponry in Japan .

USA military subs and munitions ,bullets and missiles etc.

In Japanese waters and on japanese soil since ww2.

Don't doubt it .

Realize it.

Since the collapse of USSR and the decline of US global power after loosing the wars in Iraq , Syria and influence in India-China a totally new Global horizon is emerging.

Japan is very lucky , not to have any participation in the past 70 years of nuclear military race.

The new high technology conventional, highly precise ,anti-missile and anti-air-naval weaponry and currently development of new military weapons, has made nuclear ICBM’s ineffective and is only a terror-threat of civilian populations everywhere.

Japan should just double their conventional military defence budget over the next five yers; that will be enough to stop any military aggression from any country.

Japan should also invest in high power laser-technology, both air- and space based, capable of destroying nuclear attack weapons on the ground before launching…anywhere. That is already possible and realistic and all the atomic bombs will become obsolete.

Besides this legally unfounded sympathy budget amounting to 1.05 trillion yen or $8.6 billion for the next round, we must shoulder damages incurred at U.S. bases, pay rents for private lands taken up by the occupation forces to build and expand bases, as well as all the expenses for the construction of a new base in Henoko, Nago City, Okinawa. 

Donald Trump, a real estate tycoon-turned U.S. President, wasn't satisfied with this at all, calling on Japan to pay more.  

I assume the U.S. government started the scheme of "host nation support" after studying why great empires in history had perished. The conclusion that queer study project made, queer for a war department, the Pentagon, was these empires had fallen because they had expanded their territories too wide and broad, whereby they were crushed under the heave of defense budgets.

Learning a lesson from this, the U.S. government began to ask countries where there are U.S. bases to pay the cost to maintain the bases, calling these countries U.S. base-hosting nations and the cost they shoulder "host nation support". In this vein, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell under the George W. Bush administration could boast the U.S. didn't possess any inch square meter of land in foreign countries.

When you pay the yakuza, they will ask for more.

No wonder why japanese companies are jumping to the rest of Asia, why stay in Japan and fund the US war machine?

What a waste of Japanese taxpayers money.

Japan should also invest in high power laser-technology, both air- and space based, capable of destroying nuclear attack weapons on the ground before launching…anywhere. That is already possible and realistic

It is not realistic yet. The US has been testing this since the Reagan administration. Focusing a laser from great distance on a small object that is moving at the speeds of an ICBM is not a trivial engineering challenge. It is hard enough to hit small boats and slower moving UAVs with lasers at short range. Aside from the challenge of focusing sufficient energy on a pinpoint in space to destroy it, lasers consume vast amounts of energy. Storing that energy or producing it in real time is still something not fully worked out. You can get a few shots off and then it takes a long time to recharge capacitors, or you need to bring a big nuclear power plant along with you to power this laser. The chemicals used in chemical lasers are hideously dangerous to their operators. The last problem is that a laser can only engage one target at a time. Saturation is a real possibility if there are too many targets to engage in too little time. More lasers helps solve this but consider the limits imposed by the great amount of power they consume.

Ofcourse there's nuclear weaponry in Japan 

While there were nuclear weapons stored on US Navy warships home ported or that visited Japan for port calls, that is not true today. The US Navy brought all of its non-strategic nuclear weapons, meaning the nuclear ASROCs, nuclear depth charges (quite the white knuckle mission for the poor SH-3 pilot who had to drop one on a Soviet boomer !), B-61 gravity bombs and nuclear Tomahawks back to shore based storage. Since then only the SSBNs go to sea with nuclear weapons, and those do not make foreign port calls. All of the nuclear Tomahawks were either destroyed or converted to conventional Tomahawks with the Russians visiting the Tomahawk plant in San Diego to confirm this work in person (there would be an AN-24 parked next to the old General Dynamics plant at Lindberg Field every month with the Russians there to verify treaty compliance)

Nuclear weapons were removed from Okinawa prior to reversion to Japan. Not long after the US removed nuclear weapons from Taiwan and Philippines, mainly because the cost to secure them overseas was so great and the degree of security could never be as good as having the weapons on US soil. Today many former nuclear weapons storage sites at active military bases have been closed and the weapons consolidated in a few big sites that are easier to secure.

The new high technology conventional, highly precise ,anti-missile and anti-air-naval weaponry and currently development of new military weapons, has made nuclear ICBM’s ineffective and is only a terror-threat of civilian populations everywhere.

By and large you are correct. For tactical war fighting precision guided munitions and hard target penetrator warheads have made tactical nuclear weapons unnecessary for most target sets. However as a terror weapon to keep an opponent from attacking your nation and threatening its existence, ICBMs and SLBMs remain valid. What could be disruptive however are American stealth bombers. With an ICBM attack your enemy will see it coming and have 10-15 minutes to launch their own ICBMs in a counterstrike. Mutually Assured Destruction. A raid by stealth bombers could conceivably approach undetected and kill a nations leadership before they realized they were under attack and importantly destroy their command and control infrastructure making it impossible to effect a nuclear attack by whoever survived. All of this could be accomplished conceivably using conventional precision guided weapons only. Subsequent raids could take out their ICBMs, plinking out their silos with precision guided hard target penetrator warheads. The B-2 can carry two 7.5 ton bunker buster bombs in their bomb bay (its maximum bomb load using physically smaller bombs is even greater). Imagine what a couple of B-2s could do to the Kremlin! Do the Russians or the Chinese have the means to detect and engage something like a B-2 or the upcoming B-21?

Desert Tortoise,

Nuclear weapons were removed from Okinawa prior to reversion to Japan.

So were chemical weapons, thank God. But there's a secret agreement between Tokyo and Washington to the effect that the U.S. could bring back nuclear weapons whenever necessary.

If there always were secret agreements behind official ones, making big loopholes, what's the use and meaning of all these ostentatious bilateral treaties and agreements?  

Shenanigans indeed go unpunished when it comes to matters involved in the Japan-U.S. security alliance.

Another shenanigan I see there is to the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is the fact that large contingents of U.S. Marines are stationed in Japan, especially in Okinawa, occupying so many swaths of land, despite the provision of the treaty that says the only U.S. forces that can use bases and areas in Japan are the Army, Navy and Air Force. No mention of the Marine Corps. The Navy and the Marine Corps are two different services independent of each other, aren't they?

The English version of the said Security Treaty refers to what the Japanese version calls "the Army, Navy and Air Force" as "land, air and naval forces". Note, however, that “land, air and naval forces” are tactical and, so to speak, "nonce" words referring to military formations formed for makeshift purposes for an attack and landing on enemy land. Thus, a naval force may be composed of a fleet of ships and landing personnel, including Marines and Army infantrymen, as we saw in the Battle of Okinawa. One cannot call a naval force the Navy and hence the Marines aren't the Navy.

A U.S. naval unit, Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2, carried out this past week peril-fraught flight maneuvers in the Bay of Nago, Okinawa, an area not offered to U.S. forces for military exercises.

Okinawa Prefecture, let alone Nago City, whose new mayor is pro-relocation for Futenma to relocate to Henoko, Nago City and also LDP-backed, took no time to protest. To this, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi responded, saying that there's no provision in the Security Treaty cum SOFA forbidding the USFJ can’t train in an area not offered to USFJ for bases and areas.

If Hayashi is right, then USFJ can train with impunity anywhere in Japan, whether it is offered to USFJ or not as if it were an occupied country, which it seems it is. Japan is indeed an unsinkable carrier (for the U.S.) as the late Hiroyasu Nakasone metaphorized.

It is so mind-boggling that the cabal of most conservative people in today’s Japan, who still admire Imperial Japan’s action to invade foreign countries saying it was a sublime war but after the war flipflopped their opinion 180 degrees, starting to say it was a wrong war, should be always wagging their tails to the U.S.

IPJ’s sacrificing of Okinawa as a riprap during the war and the LDP government’s offering of Okinawa to the U.S. as a fortress are no different in nature.

voiceofokinawaToday  01:07 pm JST

If Hayashi is right, then USFJ can train with impunity anywhere in Japan, whether it is offered to USFJ or not as if it were an occupied country, which it seems it is. Japan is indeed an unsinkable carrier (for the U.S.) as the late Hiroyasu Nakasone metaphorized.

Makes sense. From all perspectives.

Another shenanigan I see there is to the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is the fact that large contingents of U.S. Marines are stationed in Japan, especially in Okinawa

Sigh. Still beating this dead horse? The US Marines are part of the US Navy. While they have been used, some would say misused in recent years as a general purpose land force, they are really part of the Navy and are re-equipping and training for maritime warfare in the South China Sea, First Island Chain, eastern Med and North Atlantic.

The littoral regiment combat team is “designed to provide the basis for employing multiple platoon-reinforced-size expeditionary advance base sites that can host and enable a variety of missions such as long-range anti-ship fires, forward arming and refueling of aircraft, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of key maritime terrain, and air-defense and early warning,” MCCDC said in an emailed statement.

MCCDC told Marine Corps Times that the combat team will employ an anti-ship missile fired from a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle known as Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System or NMESIS.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/05/14/new-marine-littoral-regiment-designed-to-fight-in-contested-maritime-environment-coming-to-hawaii/

Or Marines can engage in anti-submarine warfare in parallel with the Navy.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-marine-corps-may-have-new-mission-sinking-submarines-171936

A U.S. naval unit, Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2, carried out this past week peril-fraught flight maneuvers in the Bay of Nago, Okinawa, an area not offered to U.S. forces for military exercises.

More BS. I flew that helicopters predecessor, the CH-46D, and did the same mission, helicopter combat support. That is not the ASW version of the MH-60. It is used for lifting external loads, what we called VERTREP for VERical REPlenishment, search and rescue, boarding and inspection (troops fast rope from the helo to the deck of a ship or boat) and minesweeping.

I found images of the helos low to the water. They appear to be deploying a SAR swimmer from the side door. I have done this countless times in the CH-46D and before that the old SH-3 (the MH-60Rs predecessor in ASW).

http://english.ryukyushimpo.jp/2022/03/29/34549/

Nothing terribly dangerous here, just normal operations for a US Navy helicopter. Here is the squadron website and you can see detailed photos of the swimmer being deployed and then another image of the swimmer being hoisted back up with the "survivor" (usually another SAR swimmer who plays the part of the survivor to make the training realistic). We did this a lot. We also deployed inflatable boats off the ramp at the back of the helicopter, actually dragging the ramp in the water while the boat slide out the back, and would return to pick them up hanging a net off the ramp from 10 feet, 10 knots. Yep, ten feet over the water. We did this sort of thing with the Seals all the time.

https://www.seaforces.org/usnair/HSC/Helicopter-Sea-Combat-Squadron-12.htm

I flew this exact same aircraft, now on display on USS Midway in San Diego. My log shows I have 14 hours in "Bureau Number" (BUNO) 150954. I flew her on seven occasions before she was sent to the depot and was overhauled, during which she was converted from an A model to a greatly improved D model.

https://cdn.jetphotos.com/full/2/96325_1247963551.jpg

This is an Army CH-47D but we'd do exactly the same mission deploying Seals off the ramp of the CH-46D

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2013/05/02/us/MILITARY-2/MILITARY-2-jumbo.jpg

I've flown Chinooks too. It's funny but in a helicopter being really high feels more unnatural than flying low to the water or ground.

Desert Tortoise,

The US Marines are part of the US Navy

Be clear.　Are the Marines part of the U.S. Navy when they are engaged in expeditionary operations or is the Marine Corps a subsidiary of the Navy on a par with the Army or the Air Force as a service?  

There's a unit in JSDF that is similar in character to U.S. Marines, the Amphibious Special Task Force. But they belong to GSDF (Army), not to MSDF (Navy). Is the U.S. Marine Corps part of the Navy in that sense?

Desert Tortoise, 

More BS. I flew that helicopters predecessor, the CH-46D, and did the same mission, helicopter combat support.

You actually participated in similar maneuvers and piloted a combat support helicopter? Good for you. But I'm not interested in your personal experience in such training. What’s that to do with the point at issue?

The point at issue here should be whether or not the USFJ can train in areas in Japan not provided to them for bases and facilities or whether the USFJ can train wherever they want to in Japan.

If you say you can, I would then say Japan, Okinawa in particular, is still under U.S. military occupation 77 years after the end of WWII.

Marines are training parachuting skills in U.S. facilities on Iejima. The Marines may be taking precaution for safety all the time, but accidents occur once in a while. Training Marines often parachute down outside fences into civilian sectors by erratic winds. Is the training safe in view of Iejima islanders?

What is preposterous about Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi's contention that since there's no mention in SOFA of where USFJ can't train in Japan, the U.S. Navy Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 2 can train in the Bay of Nago without any hitch. If what he says is true, then the U.S. can maintain missile bases in Ukraine because there's no such agreement between Kiev and Washington as forbidding that the U.S. keep missile bases in Ukraine.

voiceofokinawaToday  10:51 am JST

The point at issue here should be whether or not the USFJ can train in areas in Japan not provided to them for bases and facilities or whether the USFJ can train wherever they want to in Japan.

Sure, why not?

If war broke out with Russia and Japan, wouldn't the US military protect the entire country of Japan?

Or just their training areas?

painkiller,

The problem with you is that you cannot think of matters from reverse perspectives – no compassion for a victim offered as a sacrifice consonant with the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. Suppose foreign armed forces were stationed in the U.S., saying they were there to protect you, but that they went their own way and trained in areas not having been provided with them for training, would Americans be reticent about it?

Contrary to what you call yourself, you are a real pain enforcer. Or should I say a troublemaker?