April 1, 2025
TOKYO – Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth agreed on Sunday at their first in-person meeting to strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance’s deterrence power and response capabilities by upgrading the headquarters of U.S. forces in Japan.
They confirmed that efforts by the United States to upgrade the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan has begun, but there is still no overall picture of the realignment and various issues remain.
Sense of relief
“I believe this meeting was a great success,” Nakatani said at a joint press conference after their meeting in the Defense Ministry. “We were able to share, as defense ministers, our spirit as a leader of defense authorities, and also we share our recognition of the international security environment, and we could have been able to share our understanding.”
Hegseth said the United States was placing more importance on allies, stating, “America first does not mean America alone.”
“America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese,” he stressed.
Just before Hegseth’s arrival in Japan, there was a U.S. media report that, as part of cost-cutting efforts, the U.S. Defense Department intended to cancel plans to strengthen U.S. forces in Japan.
Regarding the transformation of the Headquarters U.S. Forces Japan to joint force headquarters status, Hegseth said the Pentagon “has started phase one.”
Upgrading U.S. Forces Japan “will improve our ability to coordinate operations with Japan’s own Joint Operations Command. It also increases our readiness to respond to contingency or crisis,” he said.
Nakatani and Hegseth’s remarks demonstrated to other parts of the world that neither Japan and the United States has changed their policy to jointly improve the command and control capabilities of their forces.
A senior Defense Ministry official said, “There had been concern that security cooperation that was confirmed with [former U.S. President Joe] Biden’s administration might change under the administration of [President Donald] Trump.”
The official expressed relief, saying: “At the latest meeting, we were able to confirm that Japan-U.S. cooperation will be accelerated and developed further, and that the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan will take place. We were able to gain what we wanted to gain.”
Rapid response
The Headquarters U.S. Forces Japan needs to be upgraded to a joint force headquarters because the current headquarters’ authority is limited to management of U.S. bases in Japan and other minor affairs.
As a result, there were concerns about such points as whether Japan and the United States could implement a rapid joint response in a contingency involving Taiwan and other crises.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters is in Hawaii, and there is a time difference between Japan and there.
If the status of U.S. forces inside Japan is upgraded and U.S. forces in Japan can better coordinate with the Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Operations Command, that will allow quicker communications in operational aspects and improve the capabilities for a rapid response by U.S. forces and the SDF.
The SDF’s Joint Operations Command was established on March 24.
These developments can be a message to China that an invasion of Taiwan will never be tolerated.
Hurdles to clear
However, the details of the realignment plan for the Headquarters U.S. Forces Japan are still undecided.
At the press conference, Hegseth said that the United States will reorganize “U.S. Forces Japan into a war fighting headquarters … giving its commander the authorities needed to accomplish new missions.”
But it is not yet decided whether the upgraded U.S. headquarters will have the authority to command major military units in Japan, such as the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet headquartered in Kanagawa Prefecture and the Third Marine Expeditionary Force, which commands marines stationed in Okinawa Prefecture.
The rank of the commander of the upgraded U.S. headquarters will likely not be a general as the Japanese side had requested. As the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters is a general, and would therefore outrank them, experts point to concerns that the command authority may become a dual structure.
According to the Defense Ministry, Japan and the United States will continue discussing what kind of missions will be given to the commander of the upgraded U.S. joint force headquarters.
One Defense Ministry official voiced discontent saying, “It will likely take several years to finish the reorganization, and thus a system to respond to a contingency will not be completed for a while.”