Regional Outlook : U.S. Shield Over Tokyo Turns Rusty in Post-Cold War World : What’s a 1951 military pact worth in 1992? Both sides are mulling whether to expand it--or abandon it.

Hiroomi Kurisu has his own ideas about the future of the U.S. naval base at Yokosuka, which has served for more than four decades as one of the main American military installations in Japan.

“Japan does not have a history of hosting foreign bases,” he says. “We should change the system and allow the stationing of American troops (in Japan) only in times of emergency,” with Japan leasing Yokosuka and other facilities to the United States in quieter times.

What is remarkable about this statement is that Kurisu is not a pacifist who has spent his career trying to get Americans out of his country. On the contrary, he is a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces--the type of person who for decades would have wanted the U.S. bases to stay.

His views illustrate the fundamental re-evaluation now under way in both Tokyo and Washington about the future of the military alliance between Japan and the United States.

With the Soviet threat a fading memory and America’s budget problems a growing impediment, searching questions are being asked on both sides of the Pacific about the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, a 1951 pact that serves as the linchpin of ties between the two countries.

Should the military alliance be preserved? Should it be strengthened and extended to make the alliance global in scope? Should it be rewritten to correct economic and military imbalances created by the existing treaty? Or should the alliance simply be abandoned?

“We have to give new meaning to the treaty now that the Cold War is over and the treaty is needed more than ever,” asserts Seiki Nishihiro, former vice director of the Japan Defense Agency.

The Bush Administration has strongly favored a “global partnership” with Tokyo. In Manila this summer, then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III called the close relationship between the United States and Japan “one of the major forces for stability in this area.”

Yet, as recently as July, U.S. Ambassador Michael H. Armacost told a Japanese audience that “more and more (Americans) are asking questions about (the treaty’s) value in the post-Cold War world. . . . Fewer Americans now regard Japan as a close ally. More are skeptical about the benefits of the security treaty. And there is a greater tendency to think of Japan as a future rival to America.”

Critics say the present treaty contains contradictions. It obliges Japan to house and pay for foreign troops on its soil in peacetime. It obliges the United States to help protect its strongest economic rival, thus reducing that rival’s defense budget.

Virtually no one in Japan wants to scrap the treaty, which has no expiration date but which either side may revoke after a year’s notice. The pact with the United States is seen as the best possible guarantee against foreign threats. Moreover, many Japanese believe it reassures Asian neighbors that Japan will uphold its pledge not to become a military giant.

“We desperately need a continuation of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty,” says Atsuyuki Sassa, former director of the Office of Security Planning under the prime minister’s office. “If the U.S. forces stay in Japan, it will appease, or relax, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia.”

Even members of the Japanese Socialist Party, which for decades crusaded against the treaty, have come to accept it.

“There is not a single person (in Japan) who desires a complete disruption of U.S.-Japan relations,” says Kenji Yoshioka, a Socialist member of Parliament.

So the focus in Japan these days is on figuring out how to fix the alliance in a way that will enable it to endure.

Noting that the security treaty limits America’s use of its bases in Japan to actions involving “the Far East,” Masashi Nishihara, of Japan’s National Defense Academy, last spring urged Washington and Tokyo to “globalize” the pact. Doing so, he said, would allow Japan to “participate in the creation of a new world order.”

Even without U.S. bases in Japan, Kurisu would like to see Japan playing a bigger role in the alliance--for instance, by joining U.S. naval patrols into the Indian Ocean and assuming reciprocal obligations.

Sassa urged a worldwide division of labor that combines U.S. military might and Japanese economic power, saying: “If the U.N. is a world government, your job is to be the ministry of defense. Our job is to be the ministry of health or environment or trade and industry. You (Americans) do the police job. We’ll do the welfare.”

Particularly after the closing of U.S. bases in the Philippines, the Pentagon is eager to preserve its bases in Japan as a symbol of the U.S. commitment to the region and as a staging area for military operations in Asia and the Middle East.

Indeed, some analysts in other countries say the U.S. alliance with Japan is now working remarkably well. “An alliance doesn’t mean love. It means businesslike cooperation. And U.S.-Japanese cooperation is among the strongest in the world,” observes Mikhail G. Nossov, one of Russia’s top Asia scholars at the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada in Moscow.

But American critics complain that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is an anachronism that unfairly favors Japan in both economic and military terms.

“The U.S. security role not only imposes costs on the U.S., but it also has an economic value to Japan in terms of reduced defense expenditure and protection from the direct and indirect effects of military conflicts,” says David Arase, a Japan specialist at Pomona College. “Thus, the paradox is that the U.S. is, in effect, taxing itself to subsidize the success of its major economic rival.”

Moreover, critics say, in military terms, the 1951 treaty requires the United States to protect Japan, but it does not require Japan to defend the United States.

Responding to repeated U.S. complaints of unfairness, Japan in June passed historic legislation authorizing noncombat troops to take part in peacekeeping missions overseas. Just last week, the first Japanese troops set sail for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Cambodia.

It is not clear, however, whether the June legislation will be sufficient to satisfy U.S. complaints about burden sharing.

American political attacks on the current alliance would become particularly intense in the event of a conflict in, say, the Middle East or Korea in which Americans were put at risk while Japanese were not.

“We aren’t going to send troops even under such conditions,” says Yukio Sato, director of the North American division of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. “Two things are clear: Our constitution prohibits troops from being deployed for combat overseas, and the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty does not expect a Japanese military role beyond our borders.”

While the current arrangement may be out of balance, Sato says the United States gains both political influence and military flexibility from it. “America can reach the Indian Ocean more quickly from here (Japan) than from the West Coast (of the United States),” he says.

Both Japanese and U.S. officials point to one other benefit: The current setup acts as a restraint on Japan’s military. Still, such arguments don’t satisfy Americans who believe the end of the Cold War should enable the United States to radically change the system of alliances against what was the Soviet Union.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian group, recently criticized what it called America’s “expensive and outdated Cold War-era military alliances,” such as the one with Japan. The Center for Defense Information, a group devoted to challenging the Pentagon’s spending, has said it is “time for U.S. troops in Japan to come home.”

During his brief presidential campaign this year, billionaire businessman Ross Perot offered another approach: The United States could leave its troops in Japan, he said, but ask Tokyo to pay $50 billion a year more for the cost of U.S. protection.

Beyond post-Cold War politics and economic frictions, other recent developments could further strain the alliance. For example, the closing of U.S. bases in the Philippines has left the United States more dependent than ever on its bases in Japan.

Another potential source of tension is the growing bill Japan will be required to pay over the next few years as “host-nation support” for the costs of the 47,000 U.S. troops now stationed in Japan.

Last year, Japan paid about 40% of these costs--not including U.S. military salaries. But by 1995, the Japanese portion of the bill will go up to more than 70%. The Pentagon estimates that over the next five years, Japan will pay the equivalent of $17 billion, more host support than any other nation.

“I think that’s humiliating for Americans. Some Japanese say they are treating the Americans like a watchdog and the important thing is to pat them on the head,” says Eiichi Katahara, a visiting Japanese scholar at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at UC San Diego. “It’s also embarrassing for us (Japanese). . . . The maintenance of U.S. troops (in Japan) is a manifestation of the derogation of Japanese sovereignty.”

The Treaty’s Main Provisions

The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty allows the United States to maintain armed forces in and around Japan. Here are some of the main provisions of the 1951 pact: * Economic cooperation: Japan and the United States will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration.

* Outside threats: The parties will consult at the request of either party whenever the security of Japan or international peace in the Far East is threatened.

* Common danger: Each party recognizes that an armed attack against either party in the territories under Japan’s administration would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.

* U.S. bases: For the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East, the United States is granted the use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas of Japan.

* Terminating the treaty: After the treaty has been in force for 10 years, either party may give notice to the other party of its intention to terminate the treaty, in which case the treaty shall terminate one year after such notice has been given.

Defense Sacrifices

The debate over the U.S. role in Japan’s defense is shaped in part by the economics of the last 30 years. Carrying a low military burden of 0.9% of its gross national product, Japan has enjoyed impressive rises in productivity as American forces subsidize its military protection:

Figures from 1960-1988

Military Expenditures

percent of GNP

Japan: 0.9%

U.S.: 6.4 %

Manufacturing Productivity

Annual rate of growth

Japan: 7.8%

U.S.: 2.8%

Source: World Military and Social Expenditures, 1991