This is John Batcher, conversation about Japan,

Japan integrating with the United States into a joint command structure

in the face of the People's Republic of China's PLA Navy aggression in the Senkaku Islands off of Japan,

in the South China Sea against the Philippines.

This is Lance Gatling, a principal in Nexial research in Tokyo, commenting on the

thinking about a joint command between the U.S. and Japan. Already there is a mutual defense

pact. But what about integrating the U.S. Navy with the Japanese

self-defense forces? Here's Lance Gatling.

That's the direction in which the primary thrust of the talks have been going for sometime now.

And it goes to that the matters of efficiency and

coordinating the activities of a huge range of forces to integrate the Japanese

into a logical unified force that is capable of defending Japan and projecting force as far as

you know the southwest islands close to the Taiwan Strait and perhaps even into the South China Sea to work with the United

States and the Filipinos for the protection of the Philippines.

There are people who don't want this to happen.

They think that those responsibilities should in fact remain at Indopaycom.

Right now, the three-star Air Force General at Dakota who is

Tich He was he is the commander of US Forces Japan really only commands the fifth

Air Force the The Army Navy assets respond back to

Indopacom and essentially they would be used primarily in operations under the control of Interpecom. This changes that and as

a US bureaucrat noted in the 1940s, where you sit is where you stand.

It tends to have smart people at the top level sit in a position like that.

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