Blog #4 U.S. and Japan Agree to Broaden Military Alliance

As situations in the Middle East continue to thicken and become more intricate China has slowly been becoming a powerful and dominant power in Asia. To counter act this and give the US better footing in Asia the United States and Japan have agreed to broaden their alliance. The Secretaries of state and defense signed the agreement this past week. This agreement outlines some key points that would allow the United States to reduce costs and to make Japan a little bit more responsible for its own security. Japan intends to make a National Security Council based on the way that the US has its own set up. Japan would also reach out to Southeastern Asian countries and assist them as they try to resist the Chinese and their territorial claims. The current Japanese constitution prevents Japan from having a military like ours that is able to reach out and help. The way it is setup is purely for self-defense. Japan has slowly been pushing the envelope and has started to invest a bit more money into its military even though the country is debt. As China continues to grow in power the Japanese have tried to raise support to change the constitution to get rid of the constraints on the military, this idea however has won very little support with the populace. For now they are trying to expand it so that if the US comes into attack The Japanese can come to our aid. As a means to placate the Chinese worries that the US would have a closer relationship with Japan Mr. Kerry said that the US wants a cooperative relationship with China on issues of common ground. At the same time the US made its stance on the issue with pacific islands by saying that they “do recognize Japan’s administration of those islands.” In correspondence with all of this American Officials have welcomed and applauded the Japanese in their efforts to shoulder more of the responsibility for their own well being. The only issue out of all of this is that the US has been unlucky in its efforts to make Japan and South Korea operate together due to issues that stem from WWII. As a result of this issue the United States has been unable to get two of its closest Asian allies to work together. 

So what does this agreement mean? Could it be that the US is possibly preparing for another world war by strengthening its grasp on Asia? This is all very possible. China is giving Japan grief about some islands. If we give in the then China would show the rest of the world the impression that it can get whatever it wants by just making threats.  All in all the US is going to save money and allow Japan to get on its own two feet military wise. But who knows what will happen. Maybe this is the start of WWIII 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/world/asia/japan-and-us-agree-to-broaden-military-alliance.html?pagewanted=2

Kateland Patino

10/04/2013

2:20pm