The US and Japan yesterday agreed to implementation details for the realignment of US and Japanese forces set out last fall. In a statement, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said, “Completion of these realignment initiatives is essential to strengthen the foundation of alliance transformation” and confirmed that US and Japanese officials were committed to the “timely and thorough implementation of the plan.” Key to the plan is movement of a large US Marine presence from the Japanese island of Okinawa—“to reduce the burden on local [Japanese] communities,” said Rice—to the US territorial island of Guam, home to Andersen Air Force Base.
After years of describing to lawmakers and Pentagon leaders the nature of that threat and the key role spacepower plays in deterring conflict in the domain and enabling the rest of the joint force, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters during AFA’s Warfare Symposium here that the message appears to…