The containment rationale for Okinawa bases now rests on weaker threats

Evidence

As long as the United States has had bases in Okinawa and Japan, the primary justification for their existence has been that they ensure security for the United States, Japan, and the region. Initially, it was said that the bases helped contain and deter Soviet expansionist desires. Since the end of the Cold War, many have simply substituted China and North Korea for the USSR in the containment/deterrence framework. But North Korea is a small, impoverished nation, possibly on the verge of collapse. And while China’s military power has grown in recent years, it doesn’t approach that of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. What’s more, placing bases and troops on another country’s doorstep can be seen as an aggression in its own right, triggering exactly the kind of military response the strategy is supposedly designed to prevent. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 881

Categorization

• XREF: The self-defeating-basing argument echoes the security dilemma logic and bears directly on the book’s core harm claim.