Defense secretary mulls turning US Forces Japan into a 4-star command

Editor’s Note: This piece by Seth Robson features quotes from CSP Senior Fellow, Grant Newsham.

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is looking “very closely” at a proposal to put a four-star general in charge of U.S. Forces Japan.

The secretary told reporters about the plan Monday at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense forum in Singapore.

“This is something that we’re looking at very closely,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the Defense Department website.

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A higher ranked commander makes no difference in terms of improved ability to fight and win a war, said Grant Newsham, a retired Marine colonel and senior researcher with the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo.

“What USFJ needs is the structure, resources, forces, command authority, and mission to be a real warfighting command – not a force that just apologizes to [the government of Japan] now and then when US forces misbehave and passes messages back and forth,” he said by email Tuesday. “Without the aforementioned, it really doesn’t matter if USFJ is a four-star or any other star.”

Plans to restructure USFJ were reported by The Financial Times in March. The aim is to boost military planning and drills involving the allies, according to the newspaper, which did not reveal its sources.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said at the time that discussions were underway about strengthening cooperation on command and control to improve the militaries’ readiness, training methods and ability to use each other’s equipment.

Japan might see a four-star U.S. general as more important and preferable since his Japanese counterpart might be the same rank, Newsham said.

“And if symbolism is what you’re after, a four star might suggest the US places more importance on Japan than symbolized by a three star,” he said. “But symbolism doesn’t win wars. And winning wars is all that matters.”

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