from CNS News.com<excerpt>
US, Japan to Seek Greater Military Cooperation
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
December 22, 2004Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - A joint U.S.-Japanese security document to be released in February will call for greater cooperation between the two countries' armed forces to face regional threats, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday.
The agreement will spell out how U.S. troops based in Japan and Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) will address threats including those relating to the war on terrorism, North Korea's nuclear and military ambitions and the dispute between China and Taiwan, according to the report in Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's leading financial paper.
U.S.-Japan defense guidelines were drawn up in the late 1990s, covering joint activities in an event of an emergency in areas surrounding Japan in the post-Cold War era.
The new document, to be hammered out at talks between defense and foreign affairs cabinet members from the two countries, will facilitate the proposed realignment of U.S. forces in Japan and re-establish common security goals, the paper said.
As part of a global defense posture review, the Pentagon plans to restructure forces and command structures in Asia and improve capabilities to face new challenges such as terrorism. The U.S. has some 45,000 troops based in Japan, many of them on the southern island of Okinawa, where their presence is politically-sensitive.