Japan Collective Self-Defense Hailed as "Enormously Helpful"

Washington, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government's decision to lift a self-imposed ban on the exercise of the right to collective self-defense "would be enormously helpful," Lt. Gen. Burton Field of the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday. "Once you're able to actually work together to integrate those forces (the U.S. military and Japan's Self-Defense Forces) for a common goal, you can create synergy that you don't have without that," said Field, former commander of U.S. forces in Japan. Field was speaking in an event held at the Japanese embassy in Washington to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the SDF. The decision "allows you now to really do much more thorough planning, organization for a potential crisis," said Scott Buskirk, a retired Navy lieutenant general who led the Seventh Fleet, based in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. Both Field and Buskirk underlined the importance of close and constant communication between the SDF and the U.S. military, looking back on the U.S. military's "Operation Tomodachi," a relief initiative for people affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. The two were involved in the initiative, which was named after the Japanese word for friend. Speaking to reporters later, Field welcomed a Japanese government decision to send a member of the Air SDF to the U.S. military command in Germany as a liaison officer to help curb the spread of Ebola. With such collaboration, the U.S. military and the SDF "get stronger as a team, as a unit, and all of that will be helpful in the future," he said. END