Stand with Our Ally in Tokyo

With a rising China, it is time to reinvigorate a long-standing alliance. 

By J. Randy Forbes

February 14, 2014

For nearly seven decades, the U.S. alliance with Japan has been the cornerstone of the American-led security order in East Asia. Together, our two countries have helped to usher in an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity in a region formerly identified with persistent conflict and endemic poverty. Working together through the long years of the Cold War to resist the Soviet Union’s attempts to gain influence in the region, followed by more recent cooperation on everything from counterterrorism to disaster relief, the United States and Japan have established one of the most enduring alliances in modern times. Now, as Asia takes on a newfound importance in international relations, the alliance is poised to play a consequential role in shaping the security architecture of the region. More specifically, the strength of the alliance will help determine the course of the peacetime competition now emerging between the People’s Republic of China and the United States for leadership in the region.

Last November’s announcement by China that it would establish an “air defense identification zone” (ADIZ) in the East China Sea was another attempt by Beijing to test the U.S.-Japan alliance and, more broadly, America’s appetite for sustaining its commitments to the region. Since 2010, Beijing has consistently resorted to forms of coercion to patiently challenge the United States and its allies. Whether it is claiming the entire South China Sea as sovereign territory or initiating unnecessary crises with neighbors like Vietnam or the Philippines, Beijing has sought to employ military, economic, diplomatic and legal tools in an attempt to challenge the status quo and write its own rules across the East Asian littoral.

Of the many instances of growing Chinese assertiveness, recent incidents surrounding Japan’s southwestern islands are perhaps the most serious. Beijing has aggressively pursued its claims to Japan’s Senkaku Islands, with official newspapers even going so far as to assert that the entire Okinawa island chain is Chinese territory. More ominously, Chinese incursions into Japanese airspace and territorial waters have grown exponentially in recent years, raising the prospect of potential miscalculations.

Some onlookers here in the United States have declared it unnecessary to commit the United States to defending a “pile of rocks” in the East China Sea. Give in to Beijing’s coercion or split the islands in half and the problem can be solved, they insist. But what is at stake is not maritime rights or airspace, but a set of rules-based principles that the United States has fostered and sustained in Asia since the Second World War. Allow these principles to be challenged or chipped away at by China today, and tomorrow Beijing will only press for more until commitments like “freedom of navigation” or “settling disagreements peacefully” are just phrases we once used to describe an orderly period in Asia’s history.

This ongoing peacetime competition demands a strong alliance to influence PRC decision-making in ways that are amenable to our interests. For its part, Tokyo has begun to reverse a long-trend of declining defense budgets with investments in sea control, mobility and ISR capabilities that will allow it to secure Japan’s archipelagic interests. Coupled with recent moves to establish a National Security Council and a defense research agency similar to the Pentagon’s DARPA, Japan is positioning itself to be an anchor of stability in Northeast Asia. As Tokyo debates its future contributions to regional security, I welcome the development of a more “normal” Japan that can accept an equal share of alliance responsibilities in the years ahead.

Washington will also need to reinfuse its defense posture in the Asia-Pacific if it hopes to keep pace with the PRC’s maturing anti-access/area-denial investments. This will require new doctrine and operational concepts like AirSea Battle that will enable our forces to operate more effectively in contested environments. It will demand investments in platforms like submarines, amphibious capabilities, and a family of power-projection systems, among others. We will also need to invest in a new generation of munitions that can keep pace with the demands of the maturing guided-munitions regime. Finally it will mean investing in new technologies like directed energy, electromagnetics and hypersonics, that will help the U.S. keep its edge in game-changing capabilities.

But perhaps the best ways for the U.S. and Japan to counter PLA modernization efforts is to find areas where we can work together to match our competitive advantages against some of China’s enduring weaknesses. By viewing the military balance as an extended peacetime competition, the alliance can find areas to impose costs on the PLAs strategy and shift the balance of power in favorable ways over time. One obvious area is undersea warfare, where Washington and Tokyo retain qualitative advantages against China’s nascent anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. Protecting and investing in the undersea competition with an expanded submarine fleet, new sonar technology, and unmanned-underwater vehicles, for instance, could force China to reassess its defense posture and invest more time and resources in defensive ASW capabilities to counter the balance in the undersea domain. I believe a competitive strategies approach like this, developed and nurtured by strategic thinkers during the Cold War like Andy Marshall, should be a framework for alliance defense planning in the decade ahead.

Moreover, the challenge of Beijing’s efforts to use forms of coercion demand greater coordination here in Washington, including the formulation of a far more holistic national strategy for the region. That is why I recently led a bipartisan letter to National Security Advisor Susan Rice requesting that the Administration conduct an East Asia Strategy Review to better articulate U.S. efforts within our government and to our allies in the region. It is not enough to simply identify a laundry list of objectives; we must instead determine our goals and then decide on the right mix of ways and means to get us there. Although the Administration has been reluctant to conduct a review thus far, there is a growing bipartisan consensus amongst elected officials and the think tank community that this effort should move forward.

Lastly, the U.S. and Japan must find ways to generate greater trust and cooperation between America’s allies in the region. Making and keeping friends has never been more important. That is why steady alliance management and integration is a primary diplomatic and strategic task for the years ahead.

The U.S.-Japan alliance has remained strong for nearly seventy years because of a shared national interest in a peaceful, prosperous Asia and the tremendous ties forged between our two nations since 1945. The challenge of a rising, assertive China should serve as a catalyst for both nations to reinvigorate their alliance, pushing Tokyo to undertake important national security reforms and compelling Washington to address lingering questions about its commitment to the region over the long-term. It is clear to me that a vigorous U.S.-Japan partnership is the most surefire way to safeguard the stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific in the decades to come. Let’s get to work.

Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.

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