Fallback to refueling mission a must: Nye

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Japan should find an alternative way to help stabilize Afghanistan if the incoming administration ends the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around the war-torn country, renowned U.S. scholar Joseph Nye said.

Joseph Nye

"The Indian Ocean refueling, I think, it's a symbolic Japanese support. . . . Finding a substitute for refueling is important if they decide to stop refueling," he said in a recent interview, calling for a more "civilian-based contribution."

"Japan has talked about a more equal alliance. That includes the ability of Japan to help the United States. So that's part of equality," he said. "I think Americans are saying, 'If not refueling, then what?' "

Yukio Hatoyama, the Democratic Party of Japan president slated to be voted in by the Diet as prime minister next week, suggested Thursday there is no change in his policy to end the MSDF refueling mission, which has been ongoing since 2001. The MSDF is also involved in antipiracy patrols off Somalia.

Nye, a Harvard University professor emeritus of international political science and a former assistant secretary of defense, said last December he told DPJ leaders at the time, including Hatoyama, in a meeting in Tokyo that they should exercise caution when discussing Japan-U.S. relations.

"I said that as a matter of friendly advice, they ought to be very careful on how they made certain statements . . . for example on the refueling," so the U.S. Congress would not interpret them as suggesting any pullback from the bilateral alliance, he said.

Nye was upbeat on the future course of the alliance.

"I'm optimistic that the U.S.-Japan alliance will stay as strong as ever because it's based on the self-interests of both countries and I think it's also based on 50 years of experience," he said. "The underlying importance of the alliance remains as important as ever."

But Nye said many Americans were "surprised" by Hatoyama's recent essay carried by U.S. media that seemed to be against U.S.-led globalization and in favor of a greater Japanese focus on Asia.

"The feeling was that the criticism of globalization seemed odd since Japan has benefited so much from globalization," he said, adding the essay "had more to do with campaign rhetoric than it did as a real blueprint for Japanese foreign policy under the Hatoyama administration."

Nye expressed concern about the Hatoyama administration's plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma outside Okinawa, despite a 2006 Japan-U.S. accord on the transfer of the facility within the prefecture.

"What worries me is that it took us so long to get the agreement we have that I would hate to see us trying to perfect it and waste as much time in the future as we've wasted in the past," he said.

"If you are going to improve the agreement without delaying the agreement, that's fine. But that would turn out to be hard to do," the professor emeritus said.

The relocation of the Futenma base by 2014 is a key item of the 2006 agreement. Japan and the United States also agreed that 8,000 marines and their dependents, who numbered some 9,000 at the time the 2006 pact was struck, will be moved to Guam from Okinawa when the Futenma relocation base is operational.

Asked for his advice to Hatoyama, Nye said that with the Japan-U.S. alliance being "one of the most important relationships in the world," it is vital "to be careful to maintain it and not to let small issues disrupt it."

Nye served as assistant secretary of state in the Jimmy Carter administration and as assistant secretary of defense in the Bill Clinton administration.

He is known as the author of a major post-Cold War U.S. defense strategy for East Asia in 1995 and as a pioneer of the theory of "soft power," which comes from diplomatic and cultural means.