Quote:
Originally Posted by ShimatheKat
Yeah right. The US has NO EXIT STRATEGY IN OKINAWA. So there.
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Actually, Guam would work just as well.... but that idea has the indigenous folks of Guam upset. Lets face it.... our military personnel are, for the most part, well-behaved if ignorant of local custom. But the recruitment qualifications have dropped to the bottom and we're exposing local people to some real bottom-of-the-barrel types in the mix. Then there's the noise, pollution, restrictions on movement/access. Its not like living next to a base in a US town where the employment, politics, and diplomacy are handled with care. US bases in Europe don't seem to have had this scale of irritation historically -- which seems to reinforce the idea that a lot of the problem is cultural ignorance.
It is a problem -- any US facility or shared facility would have to be "nuclearized" (those nuclear engines on boats). Japan has (for obvious reasons) very unpleasant feelings about that. Okinawa was taken during the war and organically grew into the large base it is today. Looking at the map, resources, and modern equipment ... its just not that different to be in, say, Guam or Australia - for purposes of force projection.
I'd rather see our force projection completely re-defined for today's threats and drop all this "status quo location" historical crap. But the resistance to change within the US military leadership is legendary.