In Japan, there are 76 exclusive-use U.S. navy bases, hosted on the invitation of the Japanese authorities underneath the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Safety between the USA and Japan. Regardless of occasional disagreements over how a lot cash Japan ought to contribute to the alliance, each Tokyo and Washington have lengthy supported this navy presence. In her most current assembly with U.S. President Donald Trump in March 2026, for instance, Japan Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae promised, “Going ahead, I’ll proceed to work with President Trump to raise the Japan-U.S. alliance to additional heights.”
Nonetheless, the U.S. navy presence in Okinawa Prefecture is extra controversial. Though the islands include lower than 1 % of Japan’s whole land mass, by space they host 70 % of the U.S. navy footprint in Japan. Consequently, Okinawans bear the burden of navy crimes, noise, and environmental injury; furthermore, the bases hinder the native economic system and infrastructural enhancements. Many residents consider that the focus of those bases of their communities is unfair – and that the U.S. bases ought to be redistributed extra evenly all through the nation.
In a brand new ebook, Jon Mitchell – a journalist with Okinawa Occasions – attracts upon his 16 years of expertise reporting about Okinawa to discover how the islands got here to host the majority of the U.S. navy presence in Japan. Within the excerpt beneath, Mitchell discusses a number of the arguments and misconceptions in regards to the present U.S. navy presence in Okinawa. The textual content has been revised from its authentic model for conciseness.
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The United States and Japan insist that the American navy in Japan furnishes an indispensable deterrence impact, which dissuades potential enemies from attacking the nation. Provided that 70 % of the U.S. navy presence may be present in Okinawa Prefecture, it might be pure to imagine that the burden of deterrence lies there, too. However a more in-depth examination reveals that the weather with probably the most skill to discourage assault are situated on mainland Japan and elsewhere.
Yokosuka Metropolis, Kanagawa Prefecture, is host to the most important U.S. Navy base abroad, dwelling to greater than 50 ships and submarines, notably the one U.S. nuclear-powered plane provider homeported outdoors the USA. In Tokyo, Yokota Air Base is headquarters to U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) and the Fifth Air Power. In the meantime Camp Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, homes the U.S. Military’s headquarters in Japan, serving 4 thousand troopers and their households. Masking these bases – and Japan as a complete – is a community of defensive missiles, whereas above stands the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Because the Chilly Struggle, Tokyo has sought – and obtained – assurances from the USA that if Japan got here underneath risk by a nuclear-armed foe, Washington would use its nuclear arsenal to defend it.
So how do the 31 U.S. bases in Okinawa serve to discourage potential enemy aggression? Arguably, the power with the most important position is Kadena Air Base, which was used to launch assaults within the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Pentagon nonetheless refers to Kadena because the “Keystone of the Pacific,” and it hosts the most important fight wing within the air pressure.
Regardless of its measurement, noise, and environmental injury, the potential for shutting the bottom is just not raised by Japanese politicians in discussions to cut back the navy footprint. As Okinawa Worldwide College professor Maedomari Hiromori argued, “The reason being clear. It’s as a result of ‘Kadena is off limits.’” Asking the People to take away their keystone, Japanese officers consider, would change into tantamount to suggesting the dissolution of the Japan-U.S. Safety Treaty itself.
In addition to Kadena, although, the deterrent position of Okinawa’s different 30 U.S. bases is extra doubtful. The military occupies a handful of amenities, however its major mission is relegated to sustaining gas provides for the opposite companies, plus the administration of Naha Army Port, which is just seldom used (a lot to the chagrin of residents, who lament the waste of waterfront actual property). The navy has 5 amenities, notably a port at White Seashore (shared with the military), the place no vessels are completely stationed.
In order that brings us to the U.S. marine corps, probably the most outstanding navy presence in Okinawa (130 sq. kilometers). Pressured from mainland Japan by protests within the Nineteen Fifties, right now the marines have 13 bases in Okinawa, together with Futenma Air Station in the course of Ginowan Metropolis. Specialists have tried to evaluate the extent of deterrence the marines really present – and most have concluded the reply may be very little. Professor Mike Mochizuki or George Washington College’s Elliott College of Worldwide Affairs contended that Japanese policymakers’ assertions of the marines’ deterrence have been obscure and the roles of the U.S. Air Power and Navy – plus the nuclear umbrella – have been extra necessary.
In line with Yanagisawa Kyōji, former head of Japan’s Nationwide Institute of Protection Research, too, U.S. nuclear weapons and standard missile protection methods have a extra highly effective deterrent impact: “The U.S. Marine Corps troops are able to be deployed anyplace on the planet. By the character of their mission, they don’t seem to be to remain and defend a particular area.”
Probably the most thorough exploration of the deterrence offered by the marines in Okinawa was carried out by Paul O’Shea of the Middle for East and Southeast Asian Research, Lund College, Sweden. O’Shea argued that “the Marines’ position in deterrence is overstated at finest, and comparatively insignificant at worst.” Their deployment within the occasion of a battle within the East China Sea can be unlikely or troublesome as a result of stationing of their transport ships in mainland Japan, O’Shea discovered. Furthermore, in comparison with the bigger deterrence created by the U.S. Air Power and Navy and joint operations with the Japanese Self-Protection Forces (SDF), stationing marines in Okinawa added little to the general impact.
Each Mochizuki and O’Shea argued that as a substitute of offering important deterrence, the preponderance of marine (and different bases) in Okinawa would possibly conversely have the alternative consequence. “One may argue that the Marines play as a lot a ‘magnet’ position as a deterrent one,” O’Shea wrote.
Sitting Geese
Lengthy earlier than China and North Korea developed missiles able to reaching Okinawa, American officers questioned the knowledge of cramming so many bases into such a good house. Throughout the mid-Nineteen Fifties, at the same time as the USA was forcibly increasing its amenities in Okinawa, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees warned they have been “sitting geese – troublesome if not inconceivable to defend, prone to be knocked out utterly in a one-shot operation.” Within the following years, the Soviet Union and China developed their nuclear arsenals, heightening the dangers. In addition to enemy assault, the navy’s personal negligence posed an equally catastrophic risk, as proven by a 1959 Nike Hercules misfire at Naha Air Base and a hydrogen bomb misplaced from the usTiconderoga in 1965. (After which there are the pure risks posed by typhoons, earthquakes, and tsunami.)
As China developed its missile capabilities and staged strikes in opposition to a mocked-up Kadena Air Base in its western deserts, even navy commanders have been ringing alarm bells. In 2020, the Indo-Pacific Command instructed U.S. Congress, “It’s not strategically prudent, nor operationally viable to bodily think about giant, close-in bases which might be extremely susceptible to a possible adversary’s strike functionality.” Then in 2023, the Congressional Analysis Service printed an evaluation of navy infrastructure, quoting specialists who surmised that Kadena Air Base was “uniquely ill-positioned for completely basing giant numbers of American plane” and urged rotating and dispersing U.S. forces within the area.
It’s a stark irony that, as of the mid-2020s, many navy officers lastly aligned their pondering with what Okinawans had been demanding for many years: the relocation of the bases away from their islands. However, the U.S. navy nonetheless possessed 31 navy bases in Okinawa, consisting of 70 % of its presence in Japan.
So Why Is the U.S. Army Actually in Okinawa?
Duty for the continued overconcentration of bases in Okinawa have to be apportioned between the USA and Japan. For America, the islands present three benefits: the projection of energy; the power to coach forces with out civilian interference; and, most significantly, cash. For Japan, Okinawa serves as a nationwide sacrifice zone, a spot geographically distant from the mainland that may be compelled to bear the risks that the remainder of the nation refuses to tolerate.
Energy Projection
For eight a long time, the USA has used Okinawa to stage navy, covert, and psychological warfare around the globe. Initially, it used the veneer of U.N. trusteeship to manage Okinawa, alongside islands in Micronesia, from which to run CIA operations, check and stockpile weapons of mass destruction, and combat wars all through Asia (whereas denying these islands’ residents the freedoms it was claiming to advertise). These aggressions compelled Okinawans to marketing campaign for reversion, however after 1972, the USA continued to make use of its bases to dispatch troops to wars within the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Successive Liberal Democratic Social gathering (LDP) governments have backed these wars, for instance contributing $13 billion towards the U.S.-led Gulf Struggle.
Freedom to Prepare
The U.S. navy regards Okinawa Prefecture as one large coaching website, instructing jungle and concrete warfare, seaside assaults, parachute drops, and air-to-ground bombings. In contrast to inside the USA, the place such workout routines are likely to happen removed from residential areas and the Pentagon (generally) heeds native communities’ complaints, it routinely ignores Okinawans’ objections. When coaching goes fallacious (because it typically does), the Japan-U.S. Standing of Forces Settlement (SOFA) permits the navy to flee the results, overlaying up plane accidents and blocking native officers from accessing crash websites. Army workout routines take a heavy toll on the surroundings, and Japanese taxpayers are left with the tab to wash up unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium, and consuming water contaminated with PFAS from a long time of on-base firefighter coaching.
The Cash
In 1935, embellished marine Basic Smedley D. Butler wrote the best-selling booklet “Struggle Is a Racket,” wherein he railed in opposition to arms producers benefiting from battle and U.S. colonialism. Ninety years later, the overall’s title adorns marine corps bases in Okinawa through the collective title for six amenities: Camp Smedley D. Butler. Whether or not supposed or not, the naming rubs Japanese taxpayers’ noses in the truth that they pay 211 billion yen a 12 months in host-nation assist, an estimated 75 % of the price of stationing U.S. troops in Japan and virtually double the ratio paid by South Korea. It’s cheaper for the USA to maintain its troops in Japan than at dwelling.
Between 1978 and 2010, Japan paid some $22 billion in enhancements to U.S. amenities. Then it funded a $500 million NSA listening submit at Camp Hansen and MV-22 Osprey touchdown pads within the Yanbaru forests. Below the 2009 Guam Settlement – slammed by historian Gavan McCormack as “unlawful, colonial, and deceitful” – Tokyo additionally promised to construct two new marine corps bases: one atop Oura Bay (costing between $2-22 billion) and the opposite in Guam ($6 billion). Tokyo’s funding is so beneficiant that even when the U.S. navy breaks the legislation, Japanese taxpayers foot the prices – in courtroom rulings for unlawful noise from U.S. air bases, the compensation comes from the Japanese authorities. Furthermore, American arms producers have loved a windfall. In line with the Division of State, as of 2021, Japan was paying not less than $32.5 billion for U.S. weaponry and different navy gear. If conflict is a racket, then Japanese taxpayers are the marks.
Structural Discrimination
Though the three aforementioned components make it engaging for the USA to find its navy in Japan, this nonetheless leaves unanswered the query of why the bases have to be in Okinawa. Below the phrases of the Japan-U.S. Safety Treaty, the USA would get pleasure from these advantages wherever in Japan its troops have been stationed. In the end, then, the reply should lie with the Japanese authorities.
In earlier a long time, Tokyo has spurned repeated U.S. ideas to maneuver the navy from Okinawa as a result of mainland politicians are unwilling to pressure bases on their constituents. The hypocrisy was highlighted by former Governor of Okinawa Onaga Takeshi, who stated, “If the vast majority of the residents of Japan really feel that the U.S.-Japan Safety Treaty is important, then the federal government ought to pretty distribute the burden of the U.S. bases to the remainder of Japan.”
Many Okinawans assert that such therapy is a manifestation of structural discrimination (kōzōteki sabetsu). Along with the overt discrimination traditionally skilled by Okinawans (slurs; indicators barring them from companies; and racist Nineteen Fifties wage scales), structural discrimination refers back to the methods wherein U.S. and Japanese authorities insurance policies have colluded to maintain the bases there.
The Okinawa Human Rights Affiliation attributed structural discrimination to the “coexistence of the U.S. authorities’s self-righteousness and the Japanese authorities’s irregular subordination in direction of the USA.” Historian Arasaki Moriteru took the argument additional, asserting that structural discrimination in opposition to Okinawans was a basic pillar of Japan-U.S. relations: “This mechanism was created by the USA, the victor and occupier, and was carried over even after Japan’s independence.”
In the meantime, educational Matsushima Yasukatsu drew a reptilian analogy: Okinawa “may be sacrificed just like the cut-off tail of a lizard. Every time Japan faces an inconvenient state of affairs, it makes use of Okinawa, traditionally as a negotiator with China, or as a commodity to promote, as a spot to combat her battles or to ascertain navy bases.”
As these arguments reveal, with out the sacrifice of Okinawa, trendy Japan wouldn’t exist as it’s. The nation relies on the previous and current exploitation of the islands’ residents. Because the 1879 Ryukyu Disposal via World Struggle II, Japan used the islands to safe its personal security. In 1951, Japan ceded Okinawa in alternate for the return of its personal sovereignty (albeit nominal). Then, due to base-construction contracts and the sieve economic system, Japan was capable of increase its greenback reserves. In the present day, as a result of greater than two-thirds of U.S. bases are shunted onto Okinawa, mainland Japanese residents are largely protected from navy crimes, accidents, and environmental injury. Likewise, many benefit from the (illusory) sense of safety offered by the bases situated out of sight and thoughts far-off to the south. Accordingly, the happiness of mainland Japan stays rooted within the exploitation of Okinawans, however you’ll be hard-pressed to search out mainland residents of any political stripe who would willingly acknowledge this reality.
Persistent discrimination in opposition to Okinawans begs the query: why is there no more worldwide acknowledgment of the issue? For sure, some blame lies with the worldwide media’s poor monitor file of overlaying indigenous actions that conflict with U.S. protection priorities. One other issue is the extent to which the 2 governments have been capable of restrict data about Okinawa. Between 1945 and 1972, the U.S. navy managed journey to the islands, and after reversion, each international locations destroyed huge volumes of official paperwork. The Japanese authorities, too, pushes to erase proof of its wartime atrocities from historical past textbooks, paving the best way for a brand new technology to embrace a remilitarized Japan.
As a result of the media, the navy, and colleges are failing to report about Okinawa, misinformation typically seeps in to fill the vacuum. This confusion gives fertile floor for Chinese language nationalists to launch their very own inaccurate claims that Okinawa doesn’t belong to Japan and the Senkaku Islands have at all times been an inherent a part of Chinese language territory.
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This text was excerpted from “Why are We in Okinawa? A Historical past of Violence” by Jon Mitchell. © Bloomsbury Publishing 2026.
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