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Is there any other reason to keep the Marines on

Okinawa?  The Marines, not surprisingly, respond yes.

National animosities, territorial disputes, ethnic ten-

sions, and poverty still bedevil the region.  Among the

potential dangers the Marine Corps points to are trade

imbalances, bank failures, and currency devaluations.

Stability could be at risk, with potential chaos in

Indonesia, enmity between India and Pakistan, and so on.

And air and naval power is not enough, argued one Marine

Corps officer, as "stability is often provided by simple

combat power in the region.  You don't get much stability

with air or naval power.  You can't occupy territory."62

So what?  If one wanted to catalog conflicts in which

the United States should not intervene, and certainly not

with ground forces, the examples cited by the Marines

would be at the top of the list.  What if the successor

regime to Indonesia's corrupt Suharto dictatorship totters?

Let it go.  What if Filipino and Chinese ships exchange

shots over the Spratly Islands?  Stay out of it.  What if

Japan and South Korea engage in more bitter sparring over

the Tokdu, or Takeshima, Islands?  Tell both countries to

grow up and settle their differences like mature democra-

cies.  What if India and Pakistan move toward war over

Kashmir?  Stay as far away from the conflict as possible.

There is no need for Washington to treat every problem in

the world as its own.

Grasping at Straws: Noncombat Missions

Next, the Marines point to new, non-war-fighting

tasks.  They state, "Our missions span the operation con-

tinuum from disaster relief and humanitarian assistance

through non-combat evacuation and peacekeeping."63   Some of

those tasks are of dubious benefit--especially American

involvement in UN peacekeeping or nation building.64

Others may diminish the Marine Corps' ability to carry out

its most important task (humanitarian operations, for exam-

ple, tend to degrade war-fighting capabilities).  Even

those tasks with value--rescuing American civilians from an

imploding country, for instance--do not warrant the cost,

to both the United States and Okinawa, of the existing

force and base structure.

The American presence on the island during the Cold

War could at least be defended as serving a serious end:

the defense of East Asia against a hegemonic totalitarian

threat.  Being ready to help Japan in the event of another

Kobe-magnitude earthquake, which the Marines point to as

an example of a worthwhile noncombat mission, or to