SECURITY ALLIANCE

WASHINGTON —  This fall, the U.S.-Japan military alliance will face its most severe test since the Korean War.

New guidelines for defense cooperation between the two countries will be announced in late September. The Japanese Diet will then take up legislation to permit Japan’s armed forces to react to security crises outside Japan. And the Japanese government must decide if it will participate in the “theater missile defense” system proposed by the United States to protect the Japanese islands from ballistic-missile attack.

If these events are mishandled, and especially if Japan drops the ball on assuming greater responsibility for maintaining peace in Asia, the U.S.-Japan security relationship may begin to rapidly unravel.

The Cold War U.S.-Japan security alliance served both countries well. But in its current state, it is unlikely to withstand either the tests of war or the strains of peace. If war broke out today on the Korean Peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait, the United States could not count on Japan to stand with it in a timely fashion. As a result, despite Japan’s status as America’s principal ally in the region, Japanese forces are “planned out” of, rather than “planned into,” the U.S. military’s contingency planning for potential Asian conflicts. This is an intolerable situation at a time when Japan has the world’s second-largest economy, the world’s second-largest military budget and growing economic and diplomatic interests in Asia.

Even if the alliance is spared the test of a crisis, the status quo is not sustainable. The Okinawa rape incident, in which an Okinawan girl was attacked by three U.S. servicemen, and ensuing Japanese demands for a scaling back of the U.S. military presence in Japan, demonstrated that the alliance is captive to events beyond both governments’ control. And the political imperative in Washington to balance the budget, with the growing pressure this puts on Pentagon spending, only ensures that military burden-sharing will be a festering sore point in U.S.-Japan relations for some time to come.

Fixing these problems is the single most important challenge facing U.S.-Japan relations today. The responsibility for the job rests most heavily on Japan.

The new defense guidelines go farther than ever before in laying out what Japan would do in support of U.S. forces in the event of a major conflict in Asia. But they may not go far enough. For example, in a Korean conflict, Japanese soldiers would not be obligated to play a combat role. But Japanese troops should be put in harms way. They should provide support services, sea-lane surveillance and patrol, mine sweeping and air lift of U.S. forces and refugees. Any attempt by the Japanese Diet to limit the explicit commitments in the new guidelines or to hedge on the implicit commitments should be strenuously protested by the U.S. government. Now is not the time to “understand” Japanese political sensibilities. It is the time for a frank exchange between allies.

Finally, Tokyo must be willing to engage Washington in a serious dialogue on the future cost of security. The current burden-sharing agreement, in which Japan pays about $5 billion a year toward U.S. military expenses in Japan, expires in 2001. The Japanese government must begin to prepare its public for the need to pick up more of the cost of the U.S. defense commitment. In the new century, Japan should pay all base and operational costs of U.S. forces stationed there, excluding the cost of equipment and the salaries of the military personnel.

In addition, neither the Japanese nor the U.S. government can continue to go it alone in buying weapons. In particular, Japan and the United States should share the research and development costs of the planned missile-defense system. Moreover, to hold down production costs, Japan needs to commit to buy the system once it is operational.

The U.S.-Japan security relationship is far too important to peace and stability in Asia and to U.S. interests in the region to allow it to wither away or implode at the first sign of a crisis. Decisions made later this year will determine the course of security relations for years to come. If reform does not begin now, the alliance cannot hope to be prepared for the Asian security challenges of the 21st century.