Millennial Speech & Debate
Okinawa Withdrawal – March PF
Background/Reference 2
Okinawa Background 3
Pro 9
Contention I -- Alliance 10
Contention II – Cyber War 15
Contention IV -- Kick Out 20
Contention V -- Deterrence 27
Contention VI – Rotational Presence/China 33
Contention VII– Democracy Credibility 42
Contention VIII – China Encirclement 45
Contention IX – Okinawa-Japan Relations 54
Contention X – Allied Assurances 55
A2: They Should Stay in Okinawa and Go Elsewhere 58
A2: Withdrawal Undermines Allied Assurances 63
Pencil Pushers 69
Okinawa Bases Can Go Elsewhere 70
A2: Withdrawal Causes Japan to Go Nuclear 72
A2: Withdrawal Causes Conventional Rearmament 75
A2: Proposal Politically Unpopular 76
Con 80
Con Contentions
82
Contention I – Asian Credibility 83
Contention II – China 84
Contention III -- Taiwan 87
Contention IV --Korea 88
Contention V – Disaster Response
HADR 92
Contention VI—Alliance 96
Contention VII—Gradualism 97
Con China Extensions
99
Access Link Wall (China) 100
Con General Deterrence Extensions
102
Capability & Will Wall 103
AT: Navy / Air 104
AT: Guam 105
AT: Kadena 106
Uniqueness 107
AT: force Dispersal 109
AT: Kickout Now 110
AT: 35000 Protest 112
AT: Japan China War 113
AT: Deterrence Fails 115
Con Korea Extensions
121
Yes Korea Collapse 122
Impact 124
Con General Deterrence Extensions
127
Links 128
A2: Response Time Link Turn 131
A2: Marines Left Behind 134
A2: We don’t Know the Exact Number of Marines We Need 137
A2: Other Bases in Asia 138
Answers to Pro Advantages 139
A2: Dugongs/Environment 140
A2: Bases Benefit the Okinawa Economy 141
A2: Other Ways to Deter 143
A2: Not Enough Troops in Okinawa to Deter 145
A2: Can Move Bases to Mainland Japan 148
Asia War Impacts 150
Asia Arms Race Impats 157
China Threat 161
Japan-US Alliance Impacts 162
Japan Nuclearization 173
Background/Reference
Okinawa Background
Mio Yamada, January 20, 2016, Foreign Affairs, The Battle for Okinawa, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/japan/2016-01-20/battle-okinawa DOA: 2-2-16
Uchina, as Okinawa is called in its native tongue, was the largest island of the archipelagic Kingdom of Ryukyu in the East China Sea. An independent country from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, it played an important role in the maritime trade of East and Southeast Asia. Although it became a tributary state, first to China and then to Japan, it remained largely autonomous and prospered, providing a crucial channel between two kingdoms that otherwise had no formal relationship. Ryukyuans were not considered Japanese; in fact, Japan forbade them from adopting Japanese customs, clothing, or names.
This changed in 1879, when Japan’s Meiji government abolished the Ryukyu Kingdom and incorporated it as Okinawa Prefecture. Thus followed a period of subjugation and forced assimilation under imperial Japan, particularly during World War II. About a quarter of Okinawa’s civilian population lost their lives during the Battle of Okinawa, a series of skirmishes from April to June 1945 that resulted in Allied victory. Not all the deaths were a result of Allied action. The Japanese military ordered many Okinawans to kill family members and commit suicide rather than risk the shame of capture; Okinawans, indoctrinated to be loyal to the Japanese emperor and to “be more Japanese,” complied.
After the war, Okinawa effectively became a U.S. military colony, and the United States updated and expanded military installations around the island. Although the United States purchased much of the land from locals, it also reportedly resorted to coercion and deception in order to buy it, evicting unwilling residents by bulldozer and bayonet. The Okinawans under U.S. occupation had neither political authority nor legal redress for the seizure of property or for crimes committed by service members.
If Okinawans hoped that the reversion to Japanese governance in 1972 would decrease the U.S. presence on their lands, hopes were dashed by geopolitical considerations. With fleet anchorage, troop staging, and airfields at a close distance to Seoul, Shanghai, and Taipei, the island is key to the United States’ security strategy in the Asia-Pacific. Although Okinawa constitutes less than one percent of Japan’s total land area, it bears the burden of 74 percent of the U.S. military’s overall footprint in the country, including facilities, equipment, and roughly half of the 53,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan.
Associated Press, December 25, 2015, Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/okinawa-sues-japan-government-in-bid-to-stop-u-s-military-base-relocation-1451040155 DOA: 2-2-16
TOKYO—Local authorities on Okinawa filed a lawsuit against the central government Friday in a bid to stop the relocation of a U.S. air base on the southern Japanese island, deepening their decadeslong dispute over the heavy U.S. troop presence there.
The Okinawa government said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism illegally suspended the prefectural governor’s cancellation of approval for reclamation work needed to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a less-populated part of the island called Henoko.
“We will do whatever it takes to stop the new Henoko base,” Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga told a news conference in the prefectural capital of Naha. “Okinawa’s argument is legitimate, and I believe that it will be certainly understood.”
The central government filed its own lawsuit against Mr. Onaga last month, after he rejected an order from the Land Ministry to reinstate approval, issued by his predecessor, for the land reclamation. The ministry went ahead with the reclamation work.
“We’ll proceed with the construction to achieve the planned relocation as soon as possible,” Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said in Tokyo.
Half of US trrops are in Okinawa
Associated Press, December 25, 2015, Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/okinawa-sues-japan-government-in-bid-to-stop-u-s-military-base-relocation-1451040155 DOA: 2-2-16
he legal battle is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between the central government and Okinawa, formerly a tiny kingdom that was annexed by Japan in the 16th century.
Many residents want the U.S. base moved out of Okinawa entirely. They have been long frustrated by heavy U.S. troop presence on the tiny island and have complained about noise, pollution and crime associated with the foreign bases.
Under a Japan-U. S. security treaty, about 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, more than half of them on Okinawa.
Okinawa hosts 7% of US military installations in Japan
Arata Yamamoto, October 29, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/okinawa-relocation-u-s-military-base-triggers-protests-n453486 DOA: 2-2-16
The Japanese government resumed controversial construction work to relocate a key U.S. airbase in Okinawa on Thursday, with elderly protesters who tried to stop the project being dragged away by police.
Some residents oppose the plan to move the U.S. Marines' Futenma base to another location on the island. The government earlier this month overruled local Governor Takeshi Onaga's decision to rescind permission to build on the new site that had been approved by his predecessor.
Outside the gates of the construction site and on a flotilla, more than 200 protesters gathered to condemn the move. They say it will damage the environment. Okinawa was also site of bloody battles near the end of World War Two which left almost 100,000 civilians dead, and many locals resent hosting the U.S. military at all.
Despite the war scars, the island currently hosts 75 percent of all U.S. military installations in Japan.
"The fact that they forcibly executed this construction, there is nothing but anger," Takashi Kishimoto from the Okinawa Peace Movement Center who spoke to NBC News via cellphone from a protest boat. "We are outraged at these political tactics which ignore will of the people."
The area already returned area is very small
Grant Newsham is a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo. He is a retired US Marine Officer and a former US Diplomat and business executive with 20 years of experience in Japan, Asia Times, US military bases in Okinawa – still an essential deterrent, October 30, 2015, Asia Times, http://atimes.com/2015/10/us-military-bases-on-okinawa-still-an-essential-deterrent/ DOA: 2-2-16
The United States and Japan on Friday announced the upcoming return of two parcels of land from military bases in Okinawa to civilian use. The thin strips, currently part of U.S. bases, are to help widen roads and ease traffic jams.
The news came at a rare joint announcement by U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo.
The total size of the land is a tiny fraction of the massive territory occupied by U.S. bases, which together take up as much as 18.2 percent of Okinawa Island.
The transfer is not imminent, and will be complete by the end of March 2018.
Still, Kennedy and Suga played up its significance, in an apparent effort to ease growing anti-military sentiment among Okinawans, many of whom seek a reduction in the U.S. military presence.
New Okinawa governor blocking the construction of the Futenma replacement facility
Emma Chanlett-Avery, Congressional Research Service, January 20, 2016, The US Military Presence in Okinawa and the Futenma Base Controversy, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42645.pdf DOA: 2-3-16
Outlook for Construction of Offshore Runways at the Henoko Site
Construction of the new facility will involve challenges for both law enforcement officials and engineers working on the project. Reportedly, the offshore runways will require 21 million cubic meters of soil to create 395 acres of reclaimed land.2 The bulk of this soil will be delivered by ship from other areas of Japan ((In an attempt to prevent or delay the construction of the FRF, the Okinawa prefectural legislature passed an ordinance that requires imported soil to undergo special screening and allows the governor to cancel the import of soil). Japanese and U.S. officials have said that construction of the FRF would be finished in April 2022 at the earliest. A slightly larger offshore runway project at the Iwakuni Marine Corps base in mainland Japan took 13 years to complete,3 but the Henoko land reclamation project could proceed faster than the Iwakuni project if Tokyo commits more administrative attention and resources to it. Abe Administration officials have repeatedly declared their intent to return MCAS Futenma to local control as soon as possible, and the most plausible means of achieving that goal under the existing agreement would be to accelerate construction of the Henoko FRF.
Construction of the new base will also be a law enforcement challenge for Japan. The ability and will of the Okinawan Prefectural Police to thwart determined anti-base protesters and enable smooth construction could be severely tested. The Japanese Coast Guard has been called into service to prevent sea-going protestors in kayaks from interfering with the land reclamation operation. The mayor of the local municipality (Nago City) has declared that he will not cooperate whatsoever in construction of the Henoko FRF ((see section “Nato City Political Dynamics”), which could bring additional inconveniences and logistical delays.
New governor blocking base relocation on the island
Emma Chanlett-Avery, Congressional Research Service, January 20, 2016, The US Military Presence in Okinawa and the Futenma Base Controversy, https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42645.pdf DOA: 2-3-16
In the last days of 2013, the United States and Japan cleared an important political hurdle in their long-delayed plan to relocate the Futenma base when Hirokazu Nakaima, then-Governor of Okinawa, approved construction of an offshore landfill necessary to build the replacement facility. Nakaima lost his reelection bid in late 2014, however, and his successor as Governor of Okinawa has used a variety of administrative, legal, and political tactics to prevent or delay construction of the Futenma replacement facility. A U.S.-Japan joint planning document in April 2013 indicated that the new base at Henoko would be completed no earlier than 2022.
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