Marines Reducing Okinawa Forces Far Behind Schedule

Negotiations started decades ago to remove U.S. Marines from Japan's Okinawa island, but the first movement appears to have not started until just before Christmas 2024, when a contingent of 105 troops that were to have been sent there were redirected to Guam.

A deal signed 12 years ago as a result of negotiations that started in 1995 after three U.S. servicemen raped an Okinawa schoolgirl was to have led to the redeployment of 9,000 Marines from the island, reports The New York Times Tuesday.

But the redirection of the Marines in December was the first movement in a mass departure that remains two decades behind schedule, with the full removal of Marines from the island bases not expected to happen for more than a decade, as replacement bases on territories like Guam remain incomplete.

The rape incident resulted in mass protests that led the U.S. and Japan to agree to pull back on the American bases, which were built after the United States stormed the island during World War II in 1945.

The first part of the deal was reached in 1996, calling for the burden to be reduced within five to seven years with the construction of an air base on the northern end of Okinawa at Camp Schwab to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, located in the crowded city of Ginowan.

There is work underway at Camp Schwab, with barges creating a landfill said to be five times larger than the Pentagon. The base one day will host Osprey rotating-rotor airplanes and helicopters relocated from the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

But Japan's defense minister said in December that the airfield won't be ready until at least 2036.

The governments of the United States and Japan, though, appear to want to keep the Marines in place on the island because of the growing threat of China.

Last week alone, the Japanese Defense Ministry said it tracked four Chinese warships that were sailing between Okinawa and another island.

Denny Tamaki, the island's current governor, has often opposed the bases but has also slowed the processes to remove them by seeking court orders to stop the construction of the new airfield and by refusing permits.

Tamaki, whose father was a U.S. Marine, said that keeping the bases puts an "excessive burden" on the people of the island through crime, noise, and accidents.

Japan's Supreme Court has rejected Tamaki's latest lawsuit, however, which will clear the way for construction to proceed.

Meanwhile, if there is conflict in Taiwan, Japan would be on the front-lines, as that nation is within sight of the Okinawan chain's most southern island. A Chinese military exercise in 2022 dropped missiles into the ocean near Japan.

But even with China gaining power and doubts, American officials say the plan to move the Marines remains the preferred option.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said last week, during a meeting with President Donald Trump, that he remains committed to removing the Marines from Okinawa and said that Japanese forces or joint bases could fill the gap needed for defense.

Still, he said that Japan "must continue to secure the United States' regional commitments."

Meanwhile, Camp Foster, in the southern half of Okinawa, is seeing new construction of headquarters offices, schools, and housing to concentrate Americans at that base while closing others.

Eventually, about two-thirds of the U.S. bases in the southern part of Okinawa will be vacated, but the Marines have declined to provide a timetable.

The reconstruction is also costly. Japan is spending about $1.5 billion a year, in addition to the $2.8 billion it spent on Camp Blaz, a new base on Guam expected to house about half the Marines leaving Okinawa.