In Asia trip, Gates to offer assurances

Defense Secretary Robert Gates heads to Asia this week to try to reassure allies on North Korea and discuss concerns over plans for the biggest U.S. military shifts in the region in almost 50 years.

Gates is scheduled to visit Tokyo and Seoul after a stop in Hawaii tomorrow for a ceremony at Hickam Air Force Base that marks Admiral Robert Willard taking over as U.S. Pacific commander from retiring Admiral Timothy Keating.

In Japan and South Korea, Gates, 66, will emphasize that the Obama administration will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, and he will look for ways to strengthen joint defenses, a U.S. defense official said on condition of anonymity. Missile defense is one area where the U.S. can make progress in the region, the official told reporters during a briefing in advance of the trip.



Plans negotiated in recent years to overhaul military alliances with Japan and South Korea also will take center stage. The projects include handing over wartime operation control of combined defense to South Korea by 2012, and moving U.S. marines to Guam from Okinawa, Japan, as part of a base realignment agreement.

Gates` visit to Tokyo will mark the first by a Cabinet- level U.S. official since the government of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama took office last month calling for "frank" discussion between the two allies. The two countries are working with South Korea, China and Russia to try to persuade North Korea to resume talks to end its nuclear program.



Obama trip



The stops in Tokyo and Seoul also will lay groundwork for a visit by President Barack Obama to Asia next month, as the allies prepare for next year`s commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War and the 50th anniversary of the signing of a security treaty with Japan.

"The main issue when Gates comes to the region will be North Korea," said Victor Cha, who holds the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and served as Asia director at the White House under President George W. Bush.

The focus will be on ways to bolster deterrence to dissuade North Korea from going forward with its atomic development efforts and improvements in joint mechanisms to prevent the spread of its weapons technology.

Japan is probably "one of the closest U.S. partners in missile defense in the world right now," Cha said. "They`re doing joint operations. It`s very integrated."



South Korea plans



South Korea, which has not traditionally worked with the Americans on such defenses, announced plans recently to boost its own protections in response to North Korea`s periodic rocket launches this year.

Defense cooperation among vessels from the three countries in the Sea of Japan has been encouraging, the U.S. official said.

Joint defenses are aimed at reassuring Japan and South Korea that they are protected and preventing a potential arms race if the two countries decide to pursue their own weapons systems to counter North Korea.

U.S. officials, including Willard, have talked of the potential of a "limited" arms race.

North Korea is pursuing a "multidimensional" strategy of "provocative military actions and aggressive rhetoric," Willard told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing in July.

The actions include a failed ballistic-missile launch in April, a test nuclear blast in May and short-range missile launches since then. The U.S. worked with Asian nations in July to force North Korea to turn back one of its ships suspected of carrying illicit weapons technology.



Delay sought



The North Korean threats have prompted some South Koreans to demand that the government of President Lee Myung Bak delay the planned 2012 transfer by the U.S. of wartime operational command for combined defenses.

The United States has no concern that South Korea will not have the conditions and military capabilities to take over control in 2012 as planned, the defense official said.

A different kind of security realignment will be on the agenda in Japan.

Hatoyama has said he will end the dispatch of Japanese naval refueling vessels to the Indian Ocean to aid the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. The U.S. is urging Japan to maintain its support of Afghanistan in some other way should refueling stop, the defense official said.

The winning Democratic Party of Japan also proposed revising an agreement that includes moving the Futenma U.S. military base to a less-populated area on the island of Okinawa and lowering the amount the country agreed to pay to help the U.S. transfer about 8,000 Marines to the island of Guam, a U.S. territory.

Even one adjustment in a series of agreements negotiated over 15 years would likely prompt a cascade of changes, said the U.S. official who briefed reporters on the trip. While a failure to implement the agreements would be a blow, on both sides, the U.S. believes Japan will follow through, the official said.

From Asia, Gates will travel on to Bratislava, Slovakia, for an Oct. 23 meeting with his counterparts in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Bloomberg)