The World : If War Comes to Korea, Japan May Not Back U.S.

If war comes to the Korean peninsula as a result of Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, the United States will have to defend South Korea by defeating com munist North Korea. But these twin goals will not be achievable without heavy use of U.S. bases in Japan, and probably those of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. And therein lies the rub: Can the United States rely on the Japanese to provide the kind of total support critical to stopping North Korean aggression?

Such need is beyond doubt. If North Korea suddenly thrust across the 38th Parallel and headed toward Seoul, the United States would have to commit every locally based U.S. jet fighter to immediate battle, if only to cover the expected retreat of U.S. and South Korean forces in the face of superior numbers.

U.S. fighters based in Japan would be flying round-the-clock missions. Almost overnight, vast air bridges would have to be created between U.S. bases in Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific. The greater the pressure on U.S. forces in South Korea, the greater would be the importance of U.S. forward bases in Japan.

Gearing up for a potential Korea War II will, furthermore, take time. The invasion of Iraq took months to prepare. One consequence should be obvious. During the early days of any struggle in Korea, the United States would rapidly become totally dependent on the Japanese for jet fuel, spare parts and mechanical backup. Unqualified use of Japanese airspace would be required. Would we get it? Have we even asked for it?

Washington’s grocery list for Tokyo could suddenly become long and awkward. Within days of an outbreak of war, Washington may need to ask the Japanese to suspend regular passenger flights in and out of such key civilian airports as Sapporo (because defendable), Niigata (because it borders on the Sea of Japan), and Tokyo’s Narita (because U.S. civilian pilots know it) in order to land hundreds of troop planes and thousands of tons of vital supplies from the States.

More dramatic still, the mere suggestion that tens of thousands of American service men and women might be overrun by North Korean forces would force President Bill Clinton to think the unthinkable--and deploy tactical nuclear weapons. Even if Washington did not seek to introduce these weapons onto Japanese soil, such a move would strip away the thin veil of official pretense that has obscured the facts about U.S. nuclear defenses in the Japanese theater of operations. U.S. need for military action would clash with Japan’s nuclear allergy.

War plays havoc with predictions, but it is possible that many of these U.S. military needs would press hard on the constraints of Japan’s “peace” constitution and its postwar pacifist consensus. But a firm Japanese “no” could strain the U.S.-Japan alliance to the breaking point.

Of course, the U.S. force of 38,000 troops in South Korea and the South Korean army may be able to contain the North’s invasion. For that matter, the invasion may never come. The last 18 months of nuclear tension may be no more than a North Korean bluff. But luck forms only part of the equation.

Throughout the past year and a half of debate over Korean nuclear threat, it has constantly been assumed that war falls within the range of U.S. policy options. The complications of U.S. military dependence on Japan call this into doubt. It is not a question of whether Washington should talk softly but carry a big stick in Korea, but whether it can swing its stick with peace-winning effectiveness.

Without an unprecedented degree of Japanese support, the United States cannot fight and win a war in Korea. If war is not an option, even in extremis, then the entire U.S. approach to the Korean question must be rethought. There is no point in asking thousands of Americans to sweat, bleed and die to defend South Korean independence if the battle is all but unwinnable from the outset.

Quite simply, Washington must know now whether or not Japan will stand with the Administration in South Korea if things turn nasty there. This is a matter of Japanese public will and judgment. No amount of secret deals or official winks and nods prevented the crisis in U.S.-Japan relations provoked by the Gulf War. That conflict demonstrated that neither politicians nor the media nor the general public in Japan is willing, or able, to wrestle with the kinds of high-risk military decisions that a sudden wartime emergency demands.

At the same time, it is also manifestly the case that American politicians, much of the U.S. media and the American public neither understand nor are prepared to endure the consequences of Japanese paralysis in a crisis. North Korea could present just such a test. A clear Japanese response is mandatory--ambivalence and ambiguity will not do.

Because so much is at stake in Korea, the time to ask hard questions is now. Already, news reports indicate that Japan is reluctant to go along with the Administration’s plan to impose global sanctions on North Korea. If shooting starts and U.S. soldiers cannot do the job they are in South Korea to do because the Japanese are unwilling to give them the kind of support needed to carry out their mission, then these hostages to fortune, our countrymen, must be brought home. It is they, not nuclear weapons, that stand at the obscured heart of the current crisis on the Korean peninsula.