TO understand the new U.S.-Japan defense is to draw an analogy with the 1991 Gulf War.
Japan plays the role of Saudi Arabia.
In this scenario, the United States continues to provide the attack muscle, operating from bases in South Korea and on Japanese soil. Such a scenario has long been implied in the security partnership. Today, about 47,000 U.S. forces are deployed at Japanese bases, most of them concentrated on the island of Okinawa. Nevertheless, all cooperative defense planning has focused exclusively on repelling a direct invasion of Japan by Russia. Most analysts think that this contingency has all but evaporated with the breakup of the Soviet Union, yet the potential for other major crises in Northeast Asia is still great.