<html><body><P>American Enterprise Institute</P> <P>November 20, 2008</P> <P>[Edited transcript from audio tapes]</P> <P><BR> <TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>12:45 p.m.</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Registration </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>1:00</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><EM>Presenters:</EM> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><A target=_blank href="http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.127/scholar.asp" target=_blank>Michael Auslin</A>, AEI</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Christopher Griffin, Office of Senator Joseph Lieberman </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><EM>Discussants:</EM> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Richard Lawless, Richard Lawless and Associates</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Sak Sakoda, Armitage International </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Lieutenant General Bruce Wright, U.S. Air Force (retired)</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>2:30 </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Adjournment </DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P> <P> </P> <P>Proceedings:</P> <P>[Note: Some non-native English speakers.]</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Good afternoon.  I know that a few people are still beginning to, or continuing to wander in but in order to not take up too much of your time this afternoon, we wanted to get started and move along with our presentation.  If you haven t, please do get a copy of the actual report.  It s outside at the registration desk along with a folder that gives you a little bit more information about this afternoon s event and some of the things that we re doing here at AEI on Japanese and Asian studies.</P> <P>Welcome.  My name is Michael Auslin.  I am a resident scholar here in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies.  I focus on Japan and run the Japan studies program and I m thrilled to have you all here as well as the distinguished panel which I will introduce in a minute.  To, in essence, cap what has been a year s worth of work for many of us here at AEI on looking forward and looking ahead to the next phase of the U.S.-Japanese Alliance and where it might be going and that is the topic for today, to have a conversation and take a look at the report and share that with you and open it up for what we hope and assume will be a rather robust discussion on these very important issues.</P> <P>I d like to do some brief introductions and then and I and my co-author, Chris Griffin, will introduce the report briefly, taking different aspects of it, to explain what we were trying to do with it.  And then we will turn it over to our panel for comments and then open it up to all of you for a discussion period. We will wrap everything up by about 2:30 or so.</P> <P>Let me introduce the panel.  Actually in a group like this, I think most people know everyone up here but nonetheless, with a group this accomplished and distinguished, it is worth repeating who they are and what they ve done so that it can be duly noted that we ve had a wide input of voices and opinions from people in Washington and in Tokyo and are certainly pleased to have folks today here to comment on the report.</P> <P>As I mentioned, directly to my right is Chris Griffin, who wrote the report with me and until a few months ago, was a research fellow here at AEI focusing on Asian studies, Japan and Southeast Asia and has gone on to bigger and better things, becoming the defense legislative assistant for Senator Joseph Lieberman.  So a great loss for us but a great gain for Capitol Hill and now we get to go to him and ask for his opinions on all sorts of different matters.  </P> <P>Next to Chris is Richard Lawless.  Of course, most of you dealing with Asia know Richard extremely well, who is currently the President and CEO of Richard Lawless and Associates but, of course before that, was Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs, for five years, 2002 to 2007, which was merely the latest in a very long line of positions in the U.S. government as well as out dealing with Asia on a broad variety of fronts.</P> <P>Next to Richard is Lieutenant General, Retired, Bruce Wright, who was the commander of U.S. Forces Japan from 2005 until April of 2008.  Orville, as he s known to many of you, deeply involved with issues related to basing, to the U.S. presence, that very difficult dual hat, of course, of working on a political level with Japanese officials while also maintaining the force readiness and everything else required for our commitments in Japan, and thrilled that he has been an early and enthusiastic adviser to Chris and me on this project. </P> <P>And batting clean-up for us at the end of the table is Sak Sakoda, currently at Armitage International, a partner at Armitage and also before that, holding the Japan Desk Senior Country Director in the Office of Secretary of Defense.</P> <P>So when you add all that together, we have literally a decade s worth of U.S.-Asia and U.S.-Japan experience represented at this table and we re thrilled to have them comment on this report.  I think Chris and I would like to kick things off now and give you a sense of what we were trying to do.  Hopefully, illuminate bits of the report.  We won t go into all the details, you have it and there s no sense repeating specifics.  But try to lay out the broader sense of what we think the U.S. and Japan should be thinking about for this alliance today.</P> <P>The purpose, or broadly, or maybe even in an unconscious sense for us is that, sitting here today, we re at the inflection point of two moments: one moment, of course, being a change in U.S. administrations, the end of the Bush administration, the beginning, very soon, of the Obama administration and therefore our natural time, I think, across the board not just with Japan but across the board to take a look at where we stand with our policies, both security and political, where we stand with our allies and where we may be going in the future.</P> <P>At the same time, of course, we are rapidly approaching the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan Alliance Signing, back in 1960, which, if you re a historian like I am, this is a rare moment. These don t happen often and we re actually in a, I would argue, somewhat unique position today of taking these long-term decades, long alliances for granted.  We think this is the way that states run their foreign and defense policies and actually, it s not the historical norm.  It s the historical aberration.  </P> <P>So to have an alliance that is nearing the half century mark and one in which both partners almost reflexively assume that it will continue and that it covers an increasing sphere of their bilateral relations is actually something that is relatively new for states.  And the historical experiences that both we and our partners have with that are extremely limited.  In essence, we re writing the history as we do it.  I mean, you do that with any particular case.  But in this case, we are writing the history of how states, over a multi-generational, multi-decade period, craft a convenience of working relationships, a community of principles, and presumably maintain a commitment to shed blood and treasure for each other.  And that is something that we will be talking about a lot more, I think, in the coming years as this anniversary approaches. But for us, it seemed a moment to step back and review a little bit where the alliance has been in recent years and where it s going. </P> <P>It would be an understatement to say that the last eight years had been tumultuous across the board for the United States, for the world.  And moving from one type of disruption in foreign affairs to another type of disruption that is global and economic in basis means that there s going to be very little time for anyone in government and many of those out of government to sit back and try and absorb the lessons of the past eight years and we hope that this can be one small attempt to do so.</P> <P>And so given what has happened in the past eight years, not even a decade yet, it may seem like ancient history to go back to 2001 and remember that the Bush administration entered office with a very clear vision of where it wanted to go in its foreign policy in Asia; where it wanted to go in its relations with Japan and narrowing down the aperture more, what it wanted to do with the alliance, the alliance as a political and military mechanism.  And this was a moment in which there was a great amount of attention focused on the alliance, on prescriptions for what had gone wrong and prescriptions for what we should do and quite a bit, I think, in retrospect, of activity on both sides, to address shortcomings in the alliance but also frame it within a new context that would allow that alliance to grow over what the Bush administration anticipated would be the next phase of its life.  Meaning largely, not only the post-cold war period, but the post-interregnum period of the Clinton administration, even before 9/11 and trying to set out new basis for where U.S. foreign policy would be driving forward, not just in a reactive sense, but in a pro-active sense.  </P> <P>Of course, we all remember that a lot of this was driven by changes in Asia.  Changes that even a decade before would have seemed, if not quite unimaginable, then unlikely; growth of new competitors within the region, the explosion of the North Korea crisis throughout the 1990s and its lack of resolution during that period.  Japan s own descent into a decade of lost economic growth, of political wondering and questions about just what the country would be able to do to pull itself out of a slump and therefore, by extension, whether it would continue to be a credible partner and an active player in the Asia Pacific region.  And those were the types of questions that both the Bush administration and subsequent and consecutive Japanese administrations were actually trying to answer.  </P> <P>The result was an ambitious agenda.  An agenda that actually stretched back into the last years of the Clinton administration, when relations had certainly fallen quite low, had become somewhat precarious for a number of reasons.  But the agreements that were entered into, at the end of the Clinton administration, the 1997 revised guidelines followed on the joint declaration - all designed, again, to give new rationales and new commitments to the alliance, became part of the ongoing work of the Bush administration, the ongoing work of Japanese governments as well to define new roles and missions and capabilities to really finally grapple with the thorny questions of base alignment and base presence in Japan, that would address local concerns and yet maintain U.S. credibility and capabilities in the region.  </P> <P>What was happening at the same time though, and something that we wanted to do specifically in the report, was do something I guess that in this audience may have been more well-known but was fairly unreported upon by the U.S. press, which was the story in Japan.  And to the degree that people understood that Richard Armitage and Richard Lawless and Sak Sakoda and others were in the government, driving alliance processes, there was an equivalent and steady, and in certain ways, more era-breaking moment going on in Japan that got less attention here although everyone in this room, being focused on the issues and experts knows it better than most, but we did want to take some time in the report to go over that.  </P> <P>And the report, therefore, it self-structures itself around the past ten years or so of what s been happening in Japan.  From the postwar agreement onwards in which the United States would maintain bases and troops in Japan through the tumultuous 1970 s and strategic realignments in U.S. policy, there were deepening of the relationship in the 80s and finally, into the 1990 s.  Japanese leaders had continually been grappling with the question about what was the optimal security posture for them, how do you align domestic concerns and domestic restraints along with changes in the Asia Pacific environment, new goals and new missions and at the same time, maintain this robust partnership with the Americans or keep it as robust as it possibly could be?</P> <P>Headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the Japanese grappled increasingly throughout this decade with these questions in a way that I think observers initially of the Japanese, might not have expected to occur.  Koizumi, a combination of his own instincts and his own desires, put forth a, I would argue, a relatively unstructured but radical program to increase Japan s capabilities and increase its presence in the world, not only in Asia but around the world.  Japanese leaders, as a whole, began to question the postwar restraints on the use of Japanese force, on the ability of Japan to work in concert with allies and with other nations in the region.  And so, in essence, trying to craft a new approach that would increase Japan s role in Asia and the world but also -- and this is always the nub of that argument in Japan, more properly reflect Japan s international position, its strengths as a stable democratic nation and as the world s second largest economy.</P> <P>What exactly would have happened with this trajectory and this set of prescriptions will never be known because of 9/11.  As much as the U.S. focuses on 9/11 and appropriately in a Middle Eastern context, the effects on Japan and the alliance were profound as well.  And very quickly, the changes that the alliance managers wanted to undertake, changes that Japanese policy makers wanted to undertake, were subsumed by concerns over responding to the challenges posed by 9/11.  And therefore, it s hard to disentangle exactly what might have happened without the pressures of the moment and the expectations of the Americans on the part of the Japanese, and as well what the Americans might have expected on their own without 9/11.  </P> <P>And without going over it too much, I m actually going to let Chris talk about more of the military specifics regarding what happened and what we believe, should happen, just to remind the audience of the quantum leap, so to speak, in Japanese overseas operations, dispatch of troops to Iraq, to Afghanistan, still in the Indian Ocean on refueling missions, the close cooperation with the United States on ballistic missile defense, which continues today.  And then, after Prime Minister Koizumi and with Prime Minister Abe during his year in office, a more articulated attempt to rationalize what types of changes needed to occur and change structurally inside Japan and confront head-on some of the constraints that were continuing to hamper the Japanese.  </P> <P>Certainly, foremost among them, the Constitution, Article 9, the interpretation of the Right of Collective Self-Defense issues that the Japanese political world has skirted around for decades, but at the same time begin to regularize, so to speak, security issues within the Japanese body politic and discussions in Japan; the creation of a Ministry of Defense out of the old Defense Agency, the attempts to create and discuss what it would mean for Japan to have a National Security Council, a Japanese National Security Council, to strengthen as Koizumi had been doing, the role of the Kantei, the Prime Minister s office, in national security decision making; whether or not to coordinate and unify the intelligence operations, intelligence gathering activities of Japan.  </P> <P>All of these things that had been separated into many various bailiwicks and not addressed head-on were also thrown into the mix.  And of course, as we know, most of that came to a rather abrupt halt with the resignation of Prime Minister Abe and Japan s plunge into political paralysis, where it currently sits today.  </P> <P>So our questions were first, to try to get our hands on what had happened.  Why did it happen?  Give a sense of what we call the the unfinished transformation , and yet one that in its outlook and its ultimate potential resolution would be as far reaching for Japan, as what happened in the United States in the immediate post World War II era, the creation of a national security state.  And we think that that s where Japan was headed.  Whether or not it will get there is a question open for debate now.  </P> <P>But beyond all of that, we had a structuring concept and this is where I ll wind up my remarks.  A structuring concept for this report, as we thought about the future of the alliance, which was to say that the work that s done at the Japanese defense and foreign ministries, the work done at DOD and State here, the work done between the Kantei and the White House, all deal, of course, with the thorny daily questions of responding to alliance needs, alliance problems, maintaining credibility, maintaining capability and slowly increasing them.  </P> <P>What we argued for, and argue for in the report, is that the alliance as it passes it s half-century mark, as it deals with all of these changes that are unfinished and are still open questions that will continue to deal with them, nonetheless, needs to move up to an even higher plane of setting and overall, overarching strategic vision for the role of the alliance in Asia.</P> <P>What should that role be?  Our belief is that the alliance, as we ve indicated in the title, is there to help secure freedom in Asia.  That it needs to be an explicit recognition of the alliance that as it protects Japan, as it seeks stability in Asia, it, at the same, needs to strengthen and promote liberal systems in Asia, needs to work with emerging democracies, with stable democracies, help those states that are looking to become democracies, to use its political and, yes, its military capabilities in maintaining stability in the region precisely to promote a freer and more stable Asia.  And that that should be a guiding principle that it should occupy the strategic thinking of principles in both countries, as well to the degree possible of alliance managers.</P> <P>And so, I m going to leave it there on my end and turn it over to Chris, who will talk about where we bored down into the report on the issues of credibility, of alliance joint operations, and the way in which in order to do these broader things, this broader vision of being a force for promoting democracy, strengthening democracy in Asia, that the alliance has to respond to the changes in Asia today and be the most credible tool on the part of both countries to maintain stability.</P> <P>Christopher Griffin:  Well, good afternoon.  Thank you, of course, Misha, for the kind introduction, for framing remarks on the strategy underlying a part of that report, for organizing this discussion as an opportunity to host and to discuss this report and, of course, for being my co-author, which was -- working with you was a tremendous pleasure.  Moreover, I think it s fair to say that it s humbling to think that these gentlemen have joined us today to comment on this report.  It s somewhat frightening to know that they will.  I m looking forward very much to the critiques we have to receive this afternoon.</P> <P>The important caveat for me that must precede my remarks, I want to be very clear about this is that I m speaking today in a strictly personal capacity.  I work for Senator Lieberman.  This is work that I conducted in American Enterprise Institute before leaving this summer to join his office.  And once again to be clear, strictly personal views, any I express are my own.  For any journalist in the room, feel free to get an extra cup of coffee, take a break, relax.</P> <P>Just to follow up on Misha s introduction, the report and the strategic thinking underlying it, I m responsible for delving into some of the specific recommendations that we have come up with for security cooperation between the United States and Japan.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I think it s worth pointing out that it s been a couple of months since we sent this off to the shop, and so, I had the opportunity to reread it, to bring myself back up to speed.  And one of the consequences of that is that being able to have as fresh a pair of eyes as I could have, looking at it and no longer being simply just a proud and necessarily protective parent, which I think, has been one of the consequences of the process of writing these things.</P> <P>In the report, we recommend four particular areas in which we think the United States and Japan should expand up their capacity for cooperation: missile defense, maintenance of air superiority, maritime security and strike operations.  We ll discuss each of these areas at some length later on, but I want to first address the underlying question of why.  Why should the United States and Japan prioritize these areas for greater cooperation above others or at all?</P> <P>In his remarks, Misha has already done much to address this fundamental question.  But to add a thought or two from a sort of strictly security perspective, looking from the United States, the U.S.-Japan alliance have been a tremendous success for the past 50 years because it s provided extended deterrence through allied Japan, for American military bases and other national interests in Asia and by fostering a growing community of liberal and ever more prosperous countries in the region.  We contend in this report that the emergence of new threats in Asia, as well as military capabilities now possessed by potential adversaries, is upsetting the balance of power that has long permitted the United States and Japan to sustain a credible commitment under the alliance, as well as the extended deterrents this commitment has provided.  We briefly summarized this, if you look in the report, that specific elements of these new threats, new capabilities, weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles as a means of delivery, advanced combat aircraft, increasingly capable submarine forces, I think this is fairly well-known.</P> <P>The emergence of these new threats and capabilities creates a conundrum for our two countries and other allies in the region.  The United States and Japan may wish to reassert the primacy of our alliance and to further secure the benefits that it provides but find that facts on the ground challenge our ability to do so, as best typified by the North Korean missile tests and nuclear detonation in 2006.  These and other developments demonstrate an effort by adversaries to exploit capability gaps within the U.S.-Japanese alliance and among their other alliances in Asia.  The only means by which the United States, Japan and other allies may effectively respond to these new developments, we argue, is to better pool and collaboratively develop our own capabilities which, by the contingencies of history, are now largely stove-piped between our two nations within the alliance and barely integrated at all among the various alliances and security partners in the region.</P> <P>We ve identified four areas in the report which, we believe, will allow us to achieve this goal; to better integrate these capabilities.  To repeat them: missile defense, air superiority, maritime security and strike operations.  In each of these areas, we put forward a couple of specific proposals, which once again, please feel free to look at the reports and see how those were laid out.</P> <P>But just to, very quickly, touch on the thoughts underlying all of those; question on missile defense.  Obviously, the United States and Japan have invested tremendous resources in recent years to develop this capability.  And we ve seen progress on those.  The capability of radars that are in place in Japan, Aegis destroyers which we both know operate, PAC-3, the close-in area defenders now in Japan.  It s worth pointing out, I think, seems that the news issue yesterday that came up was that there was not a successful test firing.  You probably saw it from the Japanese missile defense destroyer.  At the end of the day, we d say this is a technical problem.  It has a technical solution.  We have individuals and both of our militaries and both of our industries will address it.  That s why you have test fires.  The greater problem, the greater concern, is establishing a legal framework and a command and control structure that, as these capabilities come online and as they refine, will allow them to be used effectively.  </P> <P>Likewise, the context of air superiority, we obviously face a quantitative challenge in Asia, that in time is becoming a more qualitative challenge in Asia.  Sorry, the emphasis didn t work out there and why I repeated the word.  As we watch this develop in Asia, there s a fairly simple principle that the United States and Japanese air forces should keep in mind.  I think a rule that the United States military and those who supply it try to think of, is that we never want to put our forces into a fair fight.  And whenever we look at the capabilities that the United States Air Force, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces and that other forces, required in their region, the key question becomes, How do you maintain the qualitative superiority that the United States and its allies have enjoyed in region in years?   We recommend some specific elements as to how to achieve that.</P> <P>Maritime security, once again, we face a new array of submarine threats.  We know how to do these.  It requires resources, requires integration of a command and control to do so.  We d suggest that perhaps the most controversial recommendation that we d have is that, if there is any controversy to any of our recommendations, it would have to do with the question of strike operations which derives from a fairly particular tabletop scenario game that we did back in March, looking at the possibility that an adversary could use a limited strike against Japan, against U.S. bases, to try to drive a wedge between our relative capabilities and commitments to respond to a limited attack.  </P> <P>It was an interesting scenario but I don t think that there s any particular joy in running a scenario that has Cassandra-like conclusions, that predicting a horrible fate that we re going to do very little to avoid.  I don t believe, in the context of writing this report, that either Misha or myself saw any particular value to advocating an independent strike capability on the part of Japan. Nonetheless, to use the old clich� of the spear and the shield to describe the U.S.-Japanese alliance, there s no point to create any gap between the two that allows one to strike, let alone incentives from one partner or the other to toss away the spear at the end of the day.</P> <P>A topic that we ve, somewhat woefully, unaddressed in these comments or, at least, I have woefully unaddressed in these comments that is delved into greater detail in the report, is the question of where is U.S.-Japanese cooperation beyond the confines of Asia?  This is a topic that s addressed in the report.  Once again, I ask you to read it and hopefully, see what our conclusions are there.  The quick passing comment would be that the experiences that we ve had since 2001, which I think Misha nails on the head, was a pivotal moment in the development of this relationship, have overall provided us with new experience and pointed in the direction of the new capabilities our two countries require.</P> <P>Two caveats that -- this is the advantage of having to reread this report after a couple of months.  A term that we used a couple of times within the report to describe the report is that it s ambitious.  It lays out a fairly broad and ambitious agenda, that the United States and Japan should cooperate on to achieve.  I think that s still the case.  I think an important caveat to that is actually, in a way, it s not that ambitious.  We have stated in the report, These are things that we need to do and to be able to do.   That the qualification that goes there, is that we do not get into the specifics of creating political will, a point that I know that Misha wanted to work on even more than we did.  We did not get into the specific financial implications, into some of the hard choices.  So, that alone, based on all three of these gentlemen have greater experience with this than us, and look forward to their comments based upon that experience.</P> <P>Second to the last point, something of a short apology.  I think it s necessary to point out that many of our recommendations say, For the alliance to work successfully, there are institutions, there are restrictions that will principally fall on the Japanese side to change.   That in the capacity as a think-tanker and certainly in any other capacity, that it s inopportune, whenever you step on that what is really the internal affairs of another country and begin making any type of comment to that effect.  Nonetheless, I, once again, think the Misha put this perfectly.  If we don t describe a vision, we re not going to describe the steps required to get there, and I hope that s what we ve done.</P> <P>Very last comment, just to return to the framing question for my short remarks here today -- why?  We d like to reassert a point that Misha has made today and that is, actually, helpfully raised in the first section of the report.  The U.S.-Japanese alliance has been a success for the past 50 years because it has never had to fight a war in Asia.  That is to say, because of the joint effect that it has brought to the region.  The proposals in this report are designed to guarantee that if the alliance ever has to fight, that it will do so effectively.  But the true measure of success, 50 years from now, will not be how we fought but whether the alliance provided the stabilizing rule in Asia to prevent it from ever having to.  I hope the recommendations in the report make some small measure as to how we could attain and hopefully repeat such a success.  Thank you.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Thank you, Chris, very much.  I d like to turn to our distinguished commentators now and ask Rich if he would first start off.</P> <P>Richard Lawless:  Thank you.  I think the first order of business on behalf of the discussants and indeed on behalf of everyone here in the room today is to really thank the two authors and AEI for pulling this together because I think all of us believe it s a very worthwhile effort.  It s a timely effort.  And from all indications, it s a very comprehensive effort.  So, again, we truly anticipated this report for sometime and have not been disappointed.</P> <P>I had promised that any comments that I would make or any criticisms that I have would be prescriptive.  I ll attempt to keep these prescriptive critical comments to very short order and I think I can do that.  But I would like to make my comments fairly brief because I know that the real value in a meeting like this is interaction with the audience.  So I have always looked forward to that and frankly, I ve always felt I had done a lot better that way than just making comments on a report.  With that said, let me wade into the report.</P> <P>I perceive this document as really having two components.  The first is a fairly detailed narrative on how we got to where we are today in the alliance.  By and large, I concur with the thrust of that, the balance of it.  There is one criticism I have which I would have liked to have seen, and this is from a personal perspective, of course, a little bit more detail on how we got to where we are today in 2008, that is the experience from 2002 to 2008.  The reason, I believe, that a more detailed coverage of that area is useful is because, it not only allows us to appreciate and understand better what those who have gone before us went through in constructing this alliance and keeping it in place.  Because let me tell you, it s a lot of hard work.  But it also is very useful for those who will go after us.  Particularly as the new administration comes in, this report is going to inform those people as to how they manage this relationship going forward.  And I believe if one does not have a clear understanding of where we ve been in the recent past, we re going to lose some time and momentum and direction as to what we re able to accomplish in the coming years.  And the coming years will be a very big challenge for all of us, everyone involved in managing this alliance.</P> <P>With regard to the 2002-2007 period, a period with which I am intimately, perhaps too intimately familiar, what I think the report does not substantially convey or sufficiently convey, is the amount of work that was required to structure the interaction and drive the process between the two parties.  What we decided very early on, I think, particularly from 2001 forward was, in the midst of the global war on terror, in the midst of our reaction to 9/11, it was going to be pretty easy to lose track of the U.S.-Japan alliance, as the entire Pentagon and the entire national security establishment of the United States, scrambled to address 9/11 and the global war on terror.  And one thing we did not want to happen is that the alliance would somehow get lost in the process.</P> <P>Secondly, we wanted to take full advantage of the opportunities created by 9/11 and the so-called global posture realignment to look at the alliance and see where we could advance a lot of things that many of us had wanted to do for many years.  </P> <P>Lastly, the alliance, unattended, often slips into what I want to call a default position, where we end up talking about such things as how many flights there are at the air base, whether we re going to get the nuclear aircraft carrier into Yukosuka on time and really, tactical alliance maintenance issues and its fine for the alliance to do that if it has its own way forward and knows where it s going.  </P> <P>So, what we attempted to do with the process that we call defray the defense initiative that we had was to turn that basing issue on its head and say, We ll talk about basing and we ll talk about the tactical issues in their own order.  Let us first make absolutely sure that we re right about where the alliance is headed.   And we did that through a staged process.  A stair step process where the first thing we did is reach agreement with them on a combined intelligence assessment of what the threat environment was in the region and how it was changing.  We move from that to a discussion of roles, missions and capabilities and then to a discussion of shared common objectives and strategic objectives and how we might best address them.  And every step along the way, it wasn t just, I think, the amount of work it took on the U.S. side to keep things organized and moving forward.  It was really -- what was really interesting was what it took on the Japanese side.  And here, there were a lot of really dedicated people that over time fought their own positions, fought their own areas of combat and arrived at consensus positions within the Japanese Government.</P> <P>Most importantly in this process, or very importantly in the process, the report assigns attention to the so-called Araki Report Again, a consensus building mechanism, taken at the initiative of the Prime Minister but a process that they delivered a reference document that we, as policy makers, as policy planners, could reference in the Japanese system.  So there was a terrific amount of effort that took place not only on the U.S. side, but on the Japanese side to make these changes and these things possible.</P> <P>This is not a criticism of the report because I think the report reflects where we ve arrived at.  What I m suggesting rather, is if there was some way in this process, as you go forward, to take apart that five or six-year period and look at the particular issues, personalities and the way that the constructs were reached that allowed us to create the consensus that we created, it would be very useful, not from a historical perspective but from the perspective of people that are going to have to repeat this process in the coming years.</P> <P>I think the second part of the report is a very good, comprehensive description of where we have arrived at and where the alliance sits today.  The major issue there I think beyond the -- again, very ambitious goals that you set going forward --  I would say that there s a very reasonable goal going forward and that s for the Japanese and the Americans to, together, execute on the agreements they ve already reached.  We can t go forward and indeed the very unpredictable and uncertain nature of Japanese political process, means that all too often what happens is that when a new administration comes in, a new group comes in and I think we had seven Ministers of Defense in the first four years I was there, at least the five years I was there, there is a tendency to stray away from whatever agreements have been reached.  By holding ourselves, both sides, to the agreements that we ve reached, I think it really makes it a lot easier for the political process in Japan to succeed itself and carry forward.</P> <P>With regard to the ambitions that this report sets for itself, I particularly like that part of the report that characterizes the current relationship, current bilateral aspect of the relationship as a bilateral operation, which basically undertakes from distributed or distinct roles and missions, with the responsibility to execute those roles and missions independently in the context of shared goals.  That is an accurate description of where the alliance sits today.  Obviously, the changes that have happened and that continue to happen in the region are not going to allow that construct to apply in the future.  It just simply takes too much time to bring things together with such an organization.  That is a process that we have attempted to work our way around.  </P> <P>Orville Wright sitting here at the table is probably one of the individuals most impacted by this type of an organization or this type of relationship where we re basically planning separately and executing separately against commonly held goals, however ambiguous those goals might be.  And we simply have to do a better job.  We simply have to do a different kind of job and be organized differently going forward.  </P> <P>Therefore, I think that while the report is quite ambitious and probably asks most of the questions that need to be asked, I would actually say that apart from the lofty ambitions and lofty goals created by the report, I think sometimes what we need to do is keep our eyes and stay focused on some more mundane executable near-term issues and those particularly relate to the agreements that we ve already reached.  And here, I m not necessarily talking about basing agreements, I m talking actually about the commitments that we ve made to one another, to plan together, to train together, to base together, to operate together and to just function together the way an alliance, a true bilateral alliance should function.  We re not there yet.  Many of the agreements and commitments we ve made to one another in the last few years should allow us to do that if they re executed.  And I think that is a worthwhile, laudable near-term goal that all of us can work for.</P> <P>With that, I ll conclude my comments.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Richard, thank you very much.  General Wright, may I ask you.</P> <P>Bruce Wright:  First, for Misha and Chris, great work!  You represent, along with this audience here today, a very elite group, not elitist but elite in a sense that you get it.  And what you get is that East Asia and the Pacific include an environment that defines a very dangerous part of the world.  And what you all understand is this relatively small group, sometimes unfortunately, you understand that if the East Asia Pacific part of the world, the Sea of Japan goes hot, so to speak, we ve got big problems worldwide, and that s the reality.  And there are various reasons for that, historical, there are building militaries and military capabilities in the region and that exacerbate the situation.  And everyday, you all, and not necessarily as wide a group as it needs to be, but you all read the papers and look for those undeniable indicators that indeed East Asia and Pacific Region can be problematic and dangerous.  </P> <P>So what you also understand and what s replayed, restated, reinforced in Chris and Misha s report is we need to pay attention to this alliance and we certainly need to pay attention to -- within the U.S.-Japan Alliance, from a military strategist view, an ever strengthening level of interoperability between our two militaries and the capability to respond across the spectrum of military operations, from earthquake to conflict.  And with that interoperability in the commitment that s framed by the hard work that Richard described, within that framework and within that interoperability between two militaries, we build with the short-term and long-term level of credible deterrence that again, you all know, is much needed in that part of the world.</P> <P>I agree with both Misha s and Chris s lofty goals and the reality of what Richard offered, it s hard work to keep these all going.  The goals need to be stated, I think, as Misha and Chris did because you got to get people s attention.  People that have not looked at this alliance before are not experts like most of you are.  And lofty goals are not all bad because in my experience, people won t take pot shots at them.  And hopefully, that s an educational process and then if you start to dig into the 02- 08 time frame, where Richard led the hard work he described, there s some real progress and out of that progress, I think , you can find future progress.  </P> <P>The initiative turned into a road map.  In fact, they quit using the words DPRI and quit talking about Security Consultative Committee meetings and said, Look, we have a road map and a path -- a road we need to stay on.   There are things that are not well-known but the fact is, across six Japan Air Self-Defense Force Bases, we operate now with U.S. Forces there, routinely.  We take F-15s and F-16s and F-18s into bases like Tsuiki and Nyutabaru and we operate together.  These are young maintenance personnel, maintenance professionals, young pilots, all getting to know each other at a very personal and professional level and guess what they grow up to be?  Admirals and generals!  </P> <P>And so we re on a road -- on a path -- a road map if you will, where the future leaders of the two countries, the future s security leaders in the two militaries, are getting to know each other maybe better than they have ever known each other.  And by the way, how many of you know that Japan Air Self-Defense Force Lieutenants go to pilot training at U.S. Air Force Bases in the United States, Columbus, Mississippi, for example?  Really, just raise, show hands.  How many know that Japan Air Self-Defense Force pilots go to pilot training in the United States of America?  So there s a -- I guess, a further reinforcement of both Richard s points and Misha s and Chris s points.</P> <P>I d like to talk more about ballistic missile defense, air superiority priority, all those things from a military strategist prospective but again, thanks for the opportunity to be here today and thanks for all of you for being here.  Again, I -- an elite group that understands, not just security requirements, the realities of security challenges in the East Asia Pacific Region but what that means to civilians around the world.  Thanks.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Well then, thank you very much.  Sak, I turn it over to you.</P> <P>Sak Sakoda:  I m struck by the humility or the humble demeanor that you both have at the table as you described your efforts in pulling all these together and your work and I m struck by that because I know you, Misha.  And I ve read your report and although you may have a humble demeanor at the table, as you said, this is a very ambitious report and it merits real close looking into.  As you rattled off the four main areas and I read them in the introduction part of the report and when I got to this strike part, my eyes really got big and I said that might be good.  It will be really hard but, again, read the report because it goes into some of the details of what they mean.  And I think it is lofty but a good ambitious thing to be thinking about in the context that you all presented it in.  </P> <P>So I congratulate you because I think, this is a good report.  It s a good report, as Richard says, because it tells a lot of how we got to where we are now and that s important.  And the other part of it is, this kind of thinking, this kind of work is not done enough.  And so it s good that you did this.  It s good that you got smart people to get together and put this on paper.  But it s not done enough, thinking about the value of the alliance and where this alliance should be going.</P> <P>The other thing I recognize is that this is a report that focuses on the U.S.-Japan alliance but it should fit into the context of overall regional strategy.  And that s what is missing.  No criticism of your report because your intention is clearly U.S.-Japan.  But what we need is an update of a regional strategy that s about 10 years old now.  And this thinking should fit into what is our big picture goal when it comes to the U.S. interest in Asia?  What do we want?  How do we connect up with Japan and as we connect up with Japan in the alliance, how does that fit into the overall strategic picture of what our interest and our goals are?  And of course, in the context of the alliance, they should overlap, and that s what makes this all successful.</P> <P>There s a mood in Japan and that mood is also in the U.S. when it comes to security strategy in Asia.  And the mood is, as Misha and Chris appropriately point out, the rise of China, the difficulty in dealing with the nuclear armed North Korea and the mood is how do we connect up with China?  Maybe the value of the U.S.-Japan alliance isn t that great because China is becoming stronger.  And to those that have that thinking or that mood, I would like to steer them to the reason why we make security policy to begin with.  </P> <P>And the reason why we make security policy is to protect and advance our own selfish interests.  It s not because we have a fascination for a great economic rise in another area, that s a part of it.  It s an important part of the landscape and what our strategic thinking should be in the region.  But the value of the alliance is different.  The value of the alliance is much more comprehensive.  Their interest, Japan s interest and our interest overlap to a very broad significant degree.  And we need to stay in constant touch with Japan.  The dialogue needs to be reached and, in my view, cannot be reached enough because we have to stay coordinated in what direction we want to go in.  A part of that coordination needs to be, what are the differences?  What are the areas that we don t have, mutual national interest?  And we should recognize those and deal with those then from that point of departure.</P> <P>But I see the coordination getting wobbly.  And you can see that when you look at six-party talks.  The whole purpose of six-party talks was to get coordinated.  It was to provide a framework so that we could all stay coordinated and move forward.  And that s starting to get wobbly.  The mood that I referred to about what do you with this alliance and the rise of China also needs to think about what is the touchstone?  What is the basis of the alliance?  And so to those folks that have this thinking about questioning the value of the alliance, the whole purpose is, it serves both of our national interests.</P> <P>There s a reference in the report about the Hub and Spoke framework or arrangement of U.S. security alliance, bilateral alliances in the region.  And there s this thinking or dialogue going on now of where are the multilateral arrangements when it comes to a U.S. framework for security strategy in Asia.  And with regard to that, I go back to what is the importance of a security relationship.  And the importance of that security relationship and security policies, are to protect and advance, national interest.  We can do that best when we have relationships where those things overlap.  And from that point of departure, I believe that our bilateral security relationships are the most functional ones, the most effective ones.  And where we can use multilateral relationships in the framework, we ought to.</P> <P>As in the six-parties, where there s an issue where we can get mutual interest on a topic to move forward, we should get together and use that multilateral arrangement.  But the base, the foundation of our security strategy approach to East Asia should be our bilateral relationships, I believe.  A lot of the report touched on Japan s prohibition on collective self-defense.  And I believe that Japan s prohibition on collective self-defense is an obstacle.  It s a constraint to alliance cooperation.  And anything that gets in the way of alliance cooperation and strengthening the alliance, I don t like.  But I think it s not as simple as wanting it away and just pushing it out of the alliance.  And I know that your thinking is much more sophisticated than that.  But we need to stay away from, I think, the idea that the U.S. tells Japan, Do this and have it be done.   It s not publicly supported in Japan.</P> <P>Every year, Yomiuri does a survey around Constitution Day on what the public thinks about where Japan should be going when it comes to its constitution and constitutional revision.  And if you look at the trend line of that annual report, support for changing is coming down, reached a peak in 06.  A lot of it has to do with activities in North Korea.  So for that, we should thank North Korea, I guess.  </P> <P>But Japan needs to come to that decision on its own.  And in coming to that decision, the dialogue is important.  The dialogue where the U.S. says, This is the cost.  We respect your position.  We respect the constitution, your policy but this is the cost.   And make Japan aware that with this policy, with this position, this is the cost to the alliance.  And we ll deal with it.  But it needs to come from the Japan s side; this change, this desire to change Japan s prohibition on collective self-defense needs to come from the Japan side.  On top of all of that, I think it is changing.  I think the defense guideline revision that we worked on in 96- 97 clarified and brought greater areas of cooperation.  And so I think that s changing.</P> <P>Missile defense is an important area.  Not just for the purpose of missile defense itself, but it changes Japan s thinking when it comes to things like these self-imposed constraints on security policy.  It brought the exception of armaments cooperation and its export control principles.  It s bringing a change in thinking or reexamination of how collective self-defense or the prohibition of it affects missile defenses and the report speaks of the Yanai Commission.  And so, again, the bottom line is, we need to stay in touch with Japan to make sure that both sides understand the cost of the self-imposed constraints and that Japan should -- the momentum or the desire to change those things should come from the Japan side.  And with that, let me turn it back over to you.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Sak, thank you very much.  Yes, please.</P> <P>Richard Lawless:  Just picking up on something that Sak just mentioned.  And again, it goes to the heart of this report.  I really do believe that we are all respectful of the timeline on which Japan evolves its own policies.  And we are necessarily respectful because we re in an alliance of equals.  But that said, the price of inaction and the inability to evolve policies within Japan, I think will have repercussions for this simple reason that things are just moving too quickly, capabilities, other issues within the region.  I think the report gets at that issue but perhaps does not appreciate the seriousness of this issue going forward.</P> <P>I don t know how many of you saw the op-ed piece this past Sunday by Doi in the Washington Post.  That was to be a perspective of where the Japanese look at us with the incoming Obama Administration.  But the theme or the subtext that ran through that op-ed piece was that there is increasing disenchantment and disappointment within Japan about where we where in our overall relationship.  It wasn t aimed at the alliance per se.  But the undertones in that article were significant.  I think they re valid within Japan, at least my experience in being there recently.  And, again, Japan will move at it s own pace.  But issues like collective self-defense and other issues must evolve or otherwise, I think, the fundamental basis of the alliance is going to be challenged by regional events.</P> <P>And with that, I hope that that seriousness or that sense of urgency in near and middle term is captured by where you guys are going with the report.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Richard, thank you.  And thank you to all of our commentators.  I want to open it up for questions in just a second.  Let me make just one or two quick comments.  Chris and I both hope, of course, that our audiences, those of you who are here today as well as readers, understand that we understand the complexities of the issue.  What I mean is we talked a lot about the degree to which there are very competing points of view out there.  And I think that s entirely legitimate.  We did not approach this report, we did not approach the research trips we made, the conferences we held, the meetings we had, all of that out of an unthinking or as I actually referred to earlier, reflexive belief that there s really no other way to go.  We have to do this alliance and therefore there aren t other options that need to be considered.  </P> <P>Rather, we grappled with that at every stage and we do believe in the values argument, as far as it goes.  We do believe that history does have some important lessons on why states choose to act together, choose to identify or self-identify interests.  We do believe that there are overarching, worthwhile goals so which we tried to talk about the securing freedom part that, given all the alternatives, are best served by this alliance.</P> <P>When you try to move from that level, that sort of conceptual level down into what the world that all the commentators were, in making it work on the ground and not even coming up with grand strategist statements like the 96 joint declaration but down to the hardcore, where does this go and when does it move?  And who s paying for it?  We know there is a vast gap and that s why there is so much effort but the effort, we believe, is duly and justly rewarded by the results, not only over the past 50 years but I think, as Chris quite eloquently put, that the record should be in the next 50 years that we haven t use this alliance for its ultimate purposes and that s where we came from in trying to write this.  And so, we really do appreciate your thoughts and comments as we go forward on this project.</P> <P>Let me now, if I can, open it up to comments and questions. Obviously the room is filled with experts and those who have dealt with this for a long time.  We have a couple of microphones.  I d like you to ask -- to wait after I call on you for the microphone to come, if you would please identify yourself and do ask a brief question, so that we can get as many of those in, as possible.  So with that -- yes in the back, please.</P> <P>Moushi Kunori:  My name is Moushi Kunori and I am with the Sun [inaudible] and I have two questions that I d like to ask the panel.  One is with regard to U.S.-Japanese joint missile defense.  Report and panelists all featured that particular aspect of the alliance more prominently and, I believe, it s justifiable.  But yet, there are some concerns in Japan that the Obama administration may not feel the same way about promoting this missile defense, perhaps in general.  And this, you can look at the report on the discrepancy that derived from the telephone conversation that Mr. Obama had with the Polish president, the issue of a missile defense.  And Mr. Obama has been (indiscernible) somewhat as a skeptic if not opponent of the missile defense in general.  So, Mr. Lawless, who talked about the trouble deriving from the Japanese political succession on the part of the defense leadership, but I think there are some of us in Japan that are concerned about the American political succession with regard to missile defense.</P> <P>Next question is the subsidy [audio glitch] Japanese person brings a lot as he ends up getting past.  So, I would only refer to the statement made by American official.  And one of our -- Mr. Harris is a former colleague, recently in Japan, spoke on the record, in open a forum about the newly devote (sounds like) U.S. and Japan to discuss the -- Japan s nuclear armament as an option then this in conjunction -- by the way this is, of course, in administering the U.S.-Japan Alliance in missile and then the prospect where North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons.  So, this question I would like to pose to the authors of the report that the real process of dealing with both specialists and the experts in both countries.  Have you ever run into or encountered these aspects of the issue, I mean the alliance?</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Thank you.  We actually didn t discuss the Q&A sort of protocols since we have authors of the report and commentators.  Maybe what we could do is have Chris and I take a first stab at answering some questions particularly as they relate to the report and then have our panel also respond as they see fit.  Chris, do you want to jump in on BMD?</P> <P>Christopher Griffin:  Just one quick comment on BMD that it probably makes sense that there should be a diversity of views on any matter that costs billions of dollars.  And there will a debate among these views and I don t think it has anything to do with any administration but everything is debated on these matters and it s very expensive and something that will be discussed in Washington.  Thank you.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Very Capitol Hill answer, I appreciate that.  I ll -- I won t take it up any -- necessarily in any greater detail other than to say that I think it does bare repeating what Richard said and actually both Orville and Sak.  We don t -- none of this is happening in a vacuum to the degree that we talk about it.  Things are moving on the ground, obviously, that s why we re engaged.  And so, the debates that we want to have, you can have debates over effectiveness, over cost-effectiveness.  Obviously, we had a failure yesterday, but the fact is that conditions in the region are not going to go backwards.  I mean, if anything, what precipitated these types of responses are only going to intensify.  Obviously, it s much easier to install missiles to have a missile capability than a defensive capability.  But if the concerns over those capabilities were legitimate in the first place and we can have a debate over that but if those concerns were legitimate over the first place, those aren t going to go away, those are not going to reverse.  They are going to simply continue and expand and spread potentially.  </P> <P>So, I think that Chris is right to that degree that any U.S. president whether he or she believes that missile defense is effective, will nonetheless have to respond to the regional changes, the environmental changes.  And there is no other response but to try to come up with some policy that mitigates the growth and deployment of those weapons.  I mean, I think our belief in the report is very clear.  We ve spent an extraordinary amount of money on this already, we ve have some signals successes.  We have a deepening community of knowledge between us on how to this and what we want to do.  And we believe that that should go forward.  But I would invite the panel to make any comments that they would as well.</P> <P>Richard Lawless:  I d like a brief comment on the missile defense issue.  First of all, I think it s very important once you embrace the technology and embrace the particular strategy as Japan has embraced ballistic missile defense, that you follow through and you execute it in a way that you really have a credible ballistic missile defense.  If you re just going to say that you re going to do it and do it a little bit and that suffices for the political will, a demonstration of political will.  That may solve part of the issue, perhaps the issue of deterrents on a somewhat abstract level.  But on a real level, one of the things we were challenged to do both on the policy side and on the operational side, is make the integrated ballistic missile defense real.  It means that you have enough launchers, you have enough systems, you have enough missiles, and everybody talks to everybody else, and the system actually works.</P> <P>The second component of that is you have to make sure that your political leadership and the general public have an accurate understanding of what exists and what doesn t exist.  All too often we found that people thought a given capability, an inter-operative capability existed when it did not.  They thought that we could respond in a coherent, combined way very quickly when in fact we could not.  We were not wired to do that, and we did not have the relationships to do that.  So, I guess what I m saying is, ballistic missile defense brought this issue home to us.  </P> <P>Lastly, it brought home the issue of time.  Always before in this relationship, we had lots of time to figure out in most cases what we were going to do in a given contingency.  Now it s down to minutes.  And when you bring a contingency down from two days or four days as you watch a given problem develop to a matter of making decisions, bilaterally, sometimes at national command level authorities, at the presidential and prime ministerial level, you don t have the time to go back and figure out how to do it.  Everything has got to be in place, the networks got to be wired together, the contingencies have to have been discussed.  And frankly, that s some of the pioneering work that Orville did on the ground in Japan, once the political process were set to do that.</P> <P>We re a little bit of the way there.  We re far from having the capabilities to make it all real and substantial and multi-layered and, frankly, credible.  So on ballistic missile defense, the right political decisions have been made but we got to follow through.  Otherwise, both of our public -- the body politic is going to be deeply disappointed when we can t execute.  </P> <P>The reason I mentioned the Doi article was an acknowledgment coming back to your other question that there are -- there do seem to be different perceptions of what an administration change God, I almost said regime change, excuse me -- I m thinking of North Korea again, sorry.  That administrative change in the midst of, as Sak Sakoda described, our North Korean policy is being somewhat uneven at this point and somewhat of a disappointment, a great disappointment to many Japanese.  There is heightened concern about where are the new administration is going to take our relationship with Japan, particularly our security relationship.  I respect the fact that those issues are very present in Japan.  </P> <P>One of the comments I was making is we better find the way in this report for it to really be relevant to the next administration, to capture that sense of unease because if the body politic in Japan isn t satisfied, they re going to elect politicians who take Japan in a different direction.  And I m not sure that any of us necessarily want that to happen.  But that will happen if we don t plan sufficiently and keep the alliance functioning as it should.</P> <P>Sak Sakoda:  I agree with everything that Richard said that the -- he said that the policy was to make it real during his time, I guess between 02 and 08.  When I was in the Pentagon from 94 to 99, the policy goal was to have a bilateral, co-developed, co-produced, and co-employed - co-employment of missile defense which graduated to make it real.  And this is where I think the report is right on.  The report says it s not enough.  And I agree with that completely and that -- missile defense, as it stands today and as I understand in the intention at anytime in the near-future, does not provide for coverage of U.S. bases in Japan, some of the significant industrial points as nuclear power generation plants.  And I think the first priority is the population centers.  So those are the three areas that are in the report but I m in full agreement with the direction that you laid out in that report.</P> <P>Since I have the mic, and in the wake of Richard s comments in response to mine on prohibition on collective self-defense, I agree with you.  I am not patient about Japan s approach to adjusting the prohibition on collective self-defense and it can t happen fast enough. My point though is it needs to come from their side, with our help being, we need to tell them what the costs are and the consequences.  </P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Other questions?  Yes, up in the front here please. </P> <P>Male voice:  Hi, [inaudible] from the French embassy.  I wanted to hear you about the pressure that the relationship with China may exert on the alliance with Japan.  Did you see circumstances under the new administration in the coming years where the U.S. would have to choose between the development of partnership with China and their alliance with Japan?  Thank you.  </P> <P>Michael Auslin:  That s not something we addressed explicitly in the report and, of course, we re not here to talk about what the Obama administration might be doing and quite frankly, we don t know.  I would say, as a general rule, both our interests and our policy dictate that we not make a choice.  And I don t think that there s anything in the way we ve approached issues in the region to indicate that we feel we need to make a choice.  </P> <P>We have two different types of relationships, and we re balancing interests in both of those relationships along with domestic interest and as Sak said at the end of the day you know, I read the other day that Oliver Stone is going to be remaking Wall Street or updating Wall Street.  And so we maybe hearing the Greed is good line coming back and at the end of day your national policy, your national self interest is what ultimately determines where you move; in essence, a Greed is good type of concept, to hopefully get policies that are the most realistic and the most rational.  So I don t think that that s anything we should even be -- a question we should be entertaining because I think it moves you away from the more fundamental questions of the big thing about where we want to go and how we re going to be working with all countries in the region to get there.  But the toolbox, so to speak, that you use has different tools and you use them differently with different countries based on that relationship.  So it s not something that I particularly worry about, and I think, its part of that national debate that we need to be having.  </P> <P>Our panelists would like to jump in and we can move on, Chris?  No?  Okay, thank you though.  Other questions?</P> <P>Richard Lawless:  It was almost too good of a question to ask because we re talking about missile defense.  As Sak Sakoda mentioned, in the first instance, this discussion has to take place in Japan.  And frankly, Japan has been reluctant to undertake that kind of a discussion domestically.  It s way past time.  We cannot be in a situation where we re asking Japan to do something that it is not willing to do or does not reach its own consensus on what it has to do.  </P> <P>A few years ago, there was a ballistic missile defense international conference in Kyoto, Japan.  In my presentation to that conference I was going to mention -- surprise, surprise -- not only the ballistic missile threat of North Korea but also, the ballistic missile threat of China.  Prior to my making those remarks, a committee of five Japanese came to me and said, Would you please not mention China in your presentation.   And I said, Well, how can I not mention China?   And they said, Well just say that you were asked not to mention it.   So throughout the speech -- it s no lie -- throughout the presentation I talked about the country that I m not allowed to mention in the speech.  But you all know who it is -- wink, wink.  Afterwards about fifteen Japanese came up to me and said, Why didn t you mention China?   And I said, Because your organizers of this conference here didn t want me to.   The point being, that somehow, this can t be a dialogue with the mute.  There has to be some really hard dialogue take place within Japan and then Japan has to be prepared to come to us and talk.  And if this report advances that agenda alone in Japan, it will be a terrific success.</P> <P>Bruce Wright:  I think it s also important that though, again, on what Richard and Sak said and then don t know what the report says is, what s implied throughout the report is that, within this alliance, we share values.  And we, sort of, take for granted that we have two democratic countries committed to representative governments working together, in a part of the world that does not universally include representative governments and democracies or any history thereof.  So I ll use sort of a practical example of the need for both nations to get China policy squared away.  And my practical example includes many trips back and forth between Narita, Chicago, Dulles sitting by an American businessman or -woman who is very taken with the money they just made visiting Beijing and other cities in China.  So there s a great practical economic value for the United States in visiting -- dealing with China.  After a bit longer discussion on a long flight, I eventually, as you can tell already, got around to shared values, democracy, freedom, ideals that include all created equal.  And which country in that region comes most closely to sharing those values?  Which alliance, by the way?   And certainly, this U.S.-Japan alliance we re talking about shares those values: freedom, democracy, a vision for the future that includes better opportunities for more human beings.  So you have to consider that, recognize the goodness in this alliance, because we share those values and go back to how important it is to found our engagement around the world and certainly in East Asia Pacific on an alliance with shared values and ideals.  </P> <P>Christopher Griffin:  The difficulty of having a panel where everyone likes to talk is that we all keep on jumping in and then answering everything, and I want to take this just to an earlier point that both Mr. Sakoda and Mr. Lawless raised I think was very helpful with regard to the collective self defense question.  It came completely out of left base but something that whenever Sak mentioned the ENI report which is something that we refer to in the context of our document, I think it s just worth reiterating.  If you don t have time to read our report, look at the ENI Report.  Which is not the world s best self-advertisement but I think it s a very important way of thinking about the fact that you re absolutely right.  This isn t a debate that the United States can force on Japan.  But to the point that it s a debate that is occurring within Japan in various ways and is a document that for a variety of reasons couldn t have been written by an American and, I think, provides some very useful insight into these particular questions.  </P> <P>Michael Auslin:  Thanks, and I d say we both, if you could.  Yes, we have time for probably just one or two more questions if we have one.  Yes, in the middle here?     </P> <P>Sato Shogawa [phonetic]:  I am Sato Shogawa with the [inaudible] and my question is about U.S. force in Japan realignment especially Marine Corps realignment to Guam -- relocation to Guam.  United States government pointed out that primary location is precondition of Guam -- relocation to Guam -- Marine Corps relocation to Guam.  But Japanese government -- but that primary location might be a delay because of the Japanese lack of Japanese political leadership.  I understand Marine Corps itself, doesn t want to locate it -- relocate to Guam.  And so my question is how do you estimate the possible influence of bases and government condition -- government change to the Marine Corp relocation to Guam?</P> <P>Richard Lawless:  Yes, first of all, the ability to relocate to, out of Futenma to the new facility is the keystone of a lot of the agreements but all of the agreements are interrelated.  So everything related to all the things that Japan wants in Okinawa, which includes the return of a lot of land, and other priorities that Japan has long had -- not only with regard to Okinawa but in other areas.  Every single element is interrelated so I cannot imagine a situation where the failure to execute on one component of that would see us continue with the other components.  It s just inconceivable because they are all interrelated and it s stated as such in the agreement.  </P> <P>Secondly and very briefly, we all have undertaken obligations; both sides have undertaken them.  I think we re doing a great job of executing against everything we agreed to not just the Futenma issue, whether it s the pro-basing, whether it s training together and issues related to Iwakuni or other facilities in Japan, ballistic missile defense, so none of these things can be pulled apart.  And if they re pulled apart I think we risk a great amount of disappointment.  Not only in our government, in the administration side of the executive branch of government, but also in Congress because Congress has asked us repeatedly, Is Japan going to execute against this project or are we going to fail again, yet again, to execute on an agreement that we ve reached?   So there s a lot riding on the successful execution of these projects, and I have every confidence that they will continue.</P> <P>Sak Sakoda:  Richard has initial statements or remarks that talked about the difficulty.  How hard it is to do alliance management, and went through the three SCC statements and gave the logic going forward.  I agree with you but I like to look at it in the other way -- the backwards.  If you look at the road map for realignment, this is what you have to do.  It s what that document is all about.  The roles, missions and capabilities document that preceded it, that s a description of what are the things that we have to do with regard to operations and military capabilities.  </P> <P>But the roadmap -- the third SCC document is a document on how do we make that better?  So you go back to the first document.  First document says, this is the strategic rationale for why we re doing all of this.  And what it boils down to is it puts us in a better position when it comes to U.S. Forces in Japan.  And most people look at that as just simply bases but it s much more complicated than that.  But it s to improve the situation of U.S Force presence in Japan, that s the whole objective of it and as Richard said, This is a political decision.   It s been made and when it comes to your question about the Marines.  If I were a marine, I don t think I d like it either but it doesn t matter, it s a political decision and we re going to do what the political decision is.  So I m firmly convinced there is a commitment to do this and although there are Marines that may have expressed their disinterest or not liking it, I would not like it either but that s not the way it works.</P> <P>Bruce Wright:  I would just reinforce from military experience that for many years working closely with the Japanese government and, in fact, very closely with the Okinawan Prefectural Government leadership, we tried very hard to clearly state the military requirement for a Futenma replacement.  That s been documented over and over.  We need to replace Futenma with an airfield further to the north and what s great about that is it reduces the impact on Okinawan civilians.  It opens up more living space if we close Futenma once we replaced that military capability; that much needed security capability, defense of Japan capability with a new airfield complex in Henoko.  </P> <P>So we worked very hard on that and given that the military capability is clear, we ve also, as Richard stated, made many inter-related security and basing enhancements over the years, from the Misawa to Yukoska to Yukoda, Iwakuni, we worked -- Iwakuni is a great example where we built an entirely new runway to reduce the impact on Japanese civilians.  So we ve really tried hard from the military perspective to do our job, maintain military capability while reducing -- working hard on the negative impacts to Japanese civilians, our neighbors around those bases from Okinawa to Southern Japan and Northern Japan.</P> <P>Michael Auslin:  We re at the end of our time.  I just want to wrap up very, very briefly.  I think one word that kept coming up over and over is the word "commitment", we heard that and it has various meanings.  And each of us has our own expertise and interests in what "commitment" means.  I think at the ultimate level, it is that big and indefinable question of countries committing to each other and then having that seep into the body politic or political process, a political discussion because the alternatives to what we have now and what we have committed to are extraordinarily uncertain at the very best.  And most of us and folks here who spent their lives in uniform upholding those commitments, know that the very best is not only not all that good.  It could turn into the very worst pretty quickly.  </P> <P>So this is by no means the end of this discussion, obviously, for Chris and me, it s the end of a phase of working together which has been a pleasure of talking with so many of you and being educated by so many of you folks who are in the audience, folks who are not.  </P> <P>People in Japan were extraordinarily generous with their time, materials, willingness to talk and give their point of view.  And we could not have done this report without them, without the people here at Defense, State, NSC, the intelligence community, other scholars at AEI and other think-tanks.</P> <P>[Audio Gap]</P> <P>And once again, great thanks to the folks on our panel today, Richard and Orville and Sak, who have lived most of this for a good chunk of their lives and were kind enough to comment on it today.  So thank you gentlemen and thank you all.</P> <P>[End of File]</P> <P>[End of Transcript]</P></body></html>