Sea Control - Sea Control 574: Diplomacy for Better Stand-in Force Access in Japan with Daniel Hough

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Links1. "Diplomacy for Better Stand-In Force Access in Japan," by Daniel Hough, Proceedings, September 2024.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. All right, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. I'm your co-host, Brian Kerg, and my guest today is Lieutenant Colonel Dan Huff of the United States Marine Corps. We'll be discussing his recent article, Diplomacy for Better Stand-in Force Access to Japan, which appeared in the September 2024 edition of the United States Naval Institute's Proceedings Magazine. As a reminder, all views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any other organization with which we are affiliated. Dan, welcome aboard. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional

background? Sure. Thanks for having me, Brian. Really appreciate it. I guess as the saying goes, I'm a first-time caller, but a long-time listener. So a little bit about my background. I was an enlisted 0351 in the Marine Corps for several years, like right after 9-11. I'm one of those guys that wanted to join and serve while I was enlisted. I got an undergraduate degree in international relations with a minor in Middle Eastern studies from Grand Valley State University. I got commissioned in 2007 and became a 1302 combat engineer officer. In my first tour, I had a couple of combat deployments, one to Iraq as a counter IED cell watch officer with TUMF Forward in 2009. And then as an engineer officer and a platoon commander for BLT-38 on the 26MU.

We floated, but then completed that deployment with about four months in Afghanistan in 2011. Another deployment to Iraq in Operation Inherent Resolve in 2015 and 2016. This time as a more senior company grade officer, I was an engineer advisor to the Iraqi Army's 7th Division. Field grade time, I was the CEO of the Engineering Equipment School on Fort Leonard Wood for three years. And then from there, I transitioned to a couple of years of PME. I did Marine Corps Command and Staff, followed by the School of Advanced Warfighting. And from there, I'm on my payback tour from SAW out here at 3MEF on Okinawa. I've spent three years. Well, I'm in my third year and I've spent all three years so far in the future

operations branch, 3MF's G35. The first couple of years I was an exercise planner, but now I'm the plans and integration branch head. That kind of sums up my background. That's quite a background and it speaks to your expertise that led you to write the article, which we'll get to. But before we do that, I understand many of the listeners have probably spent some time stationed in Okinawa in the past, especially if they're U.S. Marines, and perhaps some time in mainland Japan, especially if they're in the United States Navy. So from your perspective, how do things look out there right now, you know, from the perspective of not just yourself, but that of a Marine family or a military family in Okinawa, Japan? So families seem to really thrive out here,

just based on everything I've observed and also personal experience of, you know, myself and my family out here. It's a great environment for families, really safe environment for kids. There's low crime. I'd say it's almost non-existent crime. Lots of activities, things to do. There are some pretty good school options, both with the military, the DoDEA school program, but then also a lot of international school options too. So cost of living is pretty decent out here for families. You're relatively close in the region to fly to other places. It's pretty inexpensive to fly up to mainland Japan. Lots of stuff to do up on mainland as well. we enjoy it so much out here we would have extended if the right jobs you know in my primary MOS had come down but it doesn't look like that happened so probably leaving next summer overshadowing all that though there's the obvious concern about the the impact of families that are living in you know the the ways as we as they say so how we would address and deal with taking care

of our families getting them out that's that's gonna overshadows some of the goodness of being out here. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, certainly. So truth in advertising, I was out there myself not too recently working just downstairs from where you did as well. So I'll say the positive first. I went out there kicking and screaming, but I also came to love Okinawa. People are great. The culture is fantastic. The food is phenomenal. It's safe, plenty to do. It's remarkable. But yeah, there's definitely some concerns when you've got all the security challenges that are in the news all the time, kind of overshadowing that experience. So a bit of a mixed bag, but hey, I'd go back myself. So, okay, let's pivot a little bit. Let's get to

your article. So I understand that this particular article, it was the subject of the Future of Naval Warfare Essay Contest. And that put you as an essay entrant. It challenged you to write within the context of what the United States Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine called the War of 2026 scenario. Can you paint that picture for the audience? What is or what was the War of 2026 scenario? And what are you expected to write about in general for this contest? Sure. So the SA contest started under the American Sea Power Project that Naval Institute started. I believe they started in 2021 with the idea being that they would explore the role of sea power as a critical element of U.S. national power. So the American Sea Power Project intended

to explore the spectrum of the ends, ways, and means of sea power. So think of this in terms of the authors, like the essay entrance, being able to explore the space, everything from strategy down to tactics, individual weapon systems, perhaps even talking about the application of experimental weapon systems. But then specifically the War of 2026 scenario kicked off in the December 2023 issue of Proceedings. It was the third, I think it was the third and the final phase of the American Sea Power Project. And to quote directly from proceedings in the War of 2026 scenario, they said, this phase addresses the means portion of the ends, ways, and means paradigm. Its goal is to generate expert domain-based assessments of naval power,

areas of advantage to be exploited, areas in which the United States is at a disadvantage, and a sense of how best to apply resources in the context of a challenging great power war scenario. So just more specifically, the War of 2026 scenario challenges writers to grapple with future great power conflict in a maritime context and gives the authors a chance to identify potential gaps and seams within the domains of the Naval Service or across all domains of warfare in a primarily maritime conflict. In September's proceedings, Bill Hamlet, the editor-in-chief, he highlighted that although his team at proceedings anticipated that the authors would dive into tactics, weapons, platforms, etc., that kind of thing, he noted that all of the contest winners pulled the debate, the discussion back up to dealing with operational and strategic level concerns and issues. Yeah, that provides a really good background for the listener. And so knowing the scenario and the writing challenge presented to you, and you yourself as somebody who kind of pulled it up to a diplomatic area, tell us about the article. We'll get to details in a minute, but can you walk us through maybe the big blue arrows of what your article's core thesis was? Absolutely. So I opened the article by citing one of the December 2023 Issues of Proceedings articles that was opening up the War of 2026 scenario. This article argued for the need for 3MEF to be put in a dispersed posture to be equipped with resilient C2 capabilities and

be able to persist under fire from the deep magazines of the PLA's weapons. And essentially, the dispersed MEF would allow the joint force and allied force and the allied force to respond to and defeat PRC aggression. So I then highlighted to the readers basically what I'm calling the crux of my article. And that is that the main obstacle preventing 3MEF from getting into this fighting stance is that it requires Japanese approval. And this obstacle, the need for Japanese approval to disperse, it doesn't just affect 3MEF. It affects all of the stand-in forces across the joint force, and also the Japanese or the Japan Self-Defense Force as well. They are even restricted by some of these same lengthy and challenging approval processes and

obstacles to approval. So this approval is essential for 3MEF and for the stand-in forces, again, to include our closest Japan Ground Self-Defense Force partner, which is the Western Army, to demonstrate the ability to disperse. And so what I attempted to do then is link the idea of the importance of obtaining a diplomatic solution to speed up this process to reduce the complex administrative barriers as part of deterrence. If we can demonstrate our ability to rapidly deploy to key terrain and then disperse from that terrain into relevant fighting positions, that will serve as a deterrent and it would be utilized by a combatant commander or a joint task force commander as a military flexible deterrent option to help deter the PRC

from wanting to transition from a competition into a crisis or conflict. That element of dispersal sounds absolutely critically important, especially when we talk about or consider the precision strike regime, anti-access area denial capability, just how many munitions and with what precision the PLA could potentially lob at, say, 3MF or Western Army targets. So let's go back on that. Both the Western Army and 3MF, they both need to disperse their capabilities, their critical capabilities, right, to retain maritime terrain and to deny in a conflict with the PRC, to deny the People's Liberation Army Navy or the PLAN freedom of action in the East China Sea and the Philippine Seas near Taiwan.

So obtaining timely approval to get into that dispersed fighting position or those positions, that fighting stance, as you described it, that could mean the difference between success and failure. And as you noted, as you indicate in the article, approval authority resides with both Japan's national and prefectural governments. So prefecture is basically a state for us, right? consider it that based on complex legal constraints put in place since the end of World War II. And so to overcome that obstacle, the United States, they've got to work with Japan to find a diplomatic

solution that ensures the early access needed for standing forces to position for projected conflict. And forgive me, I was quoting directly from your article right there. So first, talk us through those legal constraints, notably the 2-4-Bravo requests. These might be a bit hard to understand, but they are the central obstacle that you're addressing. So it's essential that the audience understands them too. Can you explain these requests and their significance? Absolutely. So going back to the tail end of World War II, the goal of Douglas MacArthur and the other administrators was that Japan would not be able to rise again as a belligerent, you know, militant power and do the things that had just happened over the previous few years.

And it almost looks like they did a really good job, too good of a job, and that now there are so many administrative barriers in place that it's difficult to get Japan's acquiescence or involvement and participation in setting a more defensive posture. But specifically, to your point, the 24B request is the term that we use out here at 3MF to describe the requirements of the Status of Forces Agreement, SOFA, under Article 6 of the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation, 24B. 24B essentially is Article 2, Paragraph 4, Section B of the SOFA, which requires a negotiated agreement for U.S. forces to obtain limited use of facilities outside of those facilities that the government of Japan has already given us on a permanent basis. So for

permanent facilities, think U.S. facilities that we live, operate on, Kadena Air Base, where I'm currently living and where I'm speaking from right now, Marine Corps Base Camp Butler, all the Marine Corps camps across Okinawa, Yokota Air Base up on mainland Japan, et cetera. These are those permanent bases. And so outside of these bases, there's a complex process to be able to utilize other facilities, whether they're Japanese government, public, private. So while these facilities that the government of Japan has given the US under the SOFA agreement, these are important for steady state garrison type activities of US forces. It's where we all live, we operate from, they're not suitable for a mobile combat force to conduct sustained combat operations from.

So they're administrative in nature. They're not hardened in most cases, and they're easily targetable. They're known. You can guarantee that the PLAN, the People's Liberation Army, Air Force, Rocket Force, they've got grid coordinates on all these locations. So it makes them not ideal to fight from. So the 24B request, it contains a list of requirements. Anytime that we're going to go and submit a request to access another facility, we have to list purpose, duration of use, the forces and equipment involved, public safety considerations, maintenance responsibilities, et cetera. Not that these details are a problem. It's not a problem that I have to account for, what I want to use it for, what forces are going to be on it. That's

not a problem. It is the follow-on process. It's the complex, time-consuming routing process that the 24B request has to go through as it moves through the layers of bureaucracy within the government of Japan, the ministries of defense, ministry of foreign affairs. But those bureaucratic obstacles also include the local governments. And what's unique here is that the local governments can disapprove of the access request. And then the national government is bound to honor that local government decision. You remember this from your time out here. There are certain places that are key terrain that we keep planning and making an assumption that, you know, hey, we're probably going to be able to be there. But we have actually never set foot on there for training purposes or

any other, because the local leadership on that location, the specific one all site would be the island of Miyako. They've always said no. And the government of Japan has never come in hard and said, no, you're actually going to let them do it this time. We're going to overrule you. So the local governments tend to be very pacifistic in nature. And maybe this again goes back to how well we demilitarized Japan following World War II, and they're just not predisposed to welcome a military presence, a U.S. presence, or even a Japan Self-Defense Force presence. Even the Japanese forces are largely contained to their known existing garrison bases, and they're largely restricted from doing a significant amount of activities

off of those bases. The last thing I'll mention is one of the most critical parts for establishing deterrence. My article cited the lengthy timelines that are normally associated with the 24B request process. So even if we get the government of Japan to say yes, and even if they will, even if in the rare instance that they override the local government and push us to have access, it normally takes 45 days to gain approval to deploy for training to public land, and it takes about 160 days to obtain access to private land. That's if we even get it. And so when we talk about rapidly deploying and dispersing forces in the context of a PRC threat, those timelines are not going to cut it. Reminded of that scene in the movie Heartbreak Ridge, where Clint Eastwood,

he's with that recon platoon right in his marine amphibious unit the maw at the time they get that alert to to mobilize and they're they get all their kit and they're trying to form up they're trying to get their ammo distributed and get on the birds and they can't get the ammo distributed and the operations officer is sitting there refusing to distribute whatever the i thought it was ammo but whatever the equipment is because the forms aren't in triplicate and of course the the clock's ticking they got to go right the threat's coming but the administrative piece is an obstacle to their ability to actually accomplish their mission now in that scene that you know it just turned out to be a drill which is great but you are preparing a force and

forces for things that would presumably not be a drill and be much more grave and immediate given the threat environment that you just described so so that's pretty remarkable i definitely appreciate your description of uh of some of those those obstacles let's dig down a little bit more deeply, and I think you already provided a good example, and that's great, but you noted some of the several levels of approval needed for the 24B requests for the U.S. forces and the equipment to operate on Japanese land, including, as you discussed, the approval from local governments before it moves up to the national government. So, noting you just talked about it a little bit, can you first compare or contrast that to, say, our system, the U.S. system, for approving exercises

for U.S. forces within the U.S., and second, identify how that might have caused disruptions to 2.4b approval in the past. So I haven't personally dealt, at least especially not recently, with gaining access to private or public land in the U.S. for training purposes. I recall doing it years and years ago as a company grade, but I got pulled off of that assignment and did one of my Iraq deployments, and so I didn't get to see that through. But in most of my Marine Corps experience, there's been adequate government and military land specifically designed for training. I do know and I don't know how complex or time consuming it would be, but I know the U.S. will use like eminent domain if it needs to seize land that it believes it urgently needs. But again, I'm not aware of how timely that might be. But I think the difference here is that the U.S. isn't under the same threat conditions that the Japanese face from the PRC. You know, we in the continental United States, we're geographically well positioned. We get two big oceans that protect us. And we also have friendly neighbors to the north and south. So we have not had to address the same critical operational threat environment that I think the Japanese are continually persisting in.

And what I tried to bring out in the article is that the planners at 3MEF, they're trying to work through this process, which it might be a reasonable process during a peacetime environment where we would just be negotiating for a training area. But the difference now is that we need to be able to rehearse real world scenarios that simulate a conflict that threatens Japan's survival. And we must explore how we can find a mechanism that we can expedite those timelines. And you'll hear me say it a lot throughout any discussion on this topic. Japan's survival, I bring that point out over and over again. And that's what the U.S., the diplomatic level, military level need to keep beating the drum is that we have this treaty obligation to Japan. and this is not something that the U.S. is doing to be aggressive in the region and to specifically target the PRC, but this is something that we need to do in the context of a defense of Japan. We need the Japanese to think in terms of their own defense of their own sovereign territory. Back to the current experience here in Japan. So we're talking about small areas of key terrain,

That's key maritime terrain, you know, located in a very vast sea space. And the Japanese military is relegated to small bases and facilities on these small islands. And again, these are oriented toward providing garrison facilities. They don't support large training areas or large training exercises due to their size. And they certainly make forces vulnerable due to a lack of dispersion and then the lack of resilient structures. So whether it is the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force or it's the U.S. Joint Force, to include us here at 3MEF, dispersing and occupying defensive positions, having primary, alternate, and maybe even tertiary positions established for dispersed command and control, fighting positions, maybe positions for air and or maritime sensing, It requires us to be able to move off of the Japanese installations or the U.S. installations that the Japanese government provided to then establish positions in and occupy survivable, dispersed, resilient, and redundant locations that we can actually conduct combat operations from. I think you raise a very important point. You noted before with how easy it is to find where, say, U.S. forces are stationed, but also where those Japanese forces are stationed based off of the construct that were taken as a design, especially noting those buildings and those fortifications, that garrison infrastructure, it was built under a different security environment.

But now you or I or any PLA intelligence analyst could just go onto Google and probably look at Google Maps and literally see the exact building and get an exact grid coordinate of where any of those things are. I think another important point that you highlighted, it's just worth double tapping, is there's a risk of a perception, and the PLA or the PRC will certainly emphasize this, that all of the different things that the United States is trying to do within the region, that it's some form of aggression. When in fact, this is, you nailed it. You knocked out of the park. It's an obligation for mutual defense treaty obligations. And if you want to be able to defend, then you need to account for the current threat. So our posture and our shared U.S. and Japanese posture within the sovereign territory of our ally, with which we have an ironclad alliance, needs to adjust accordingly. So very well said. Thank you for that. Back to the article and to segue into some of the real nuances of the Japanese legal framework. It talks about that for security situations, that there are three most applicable security situations, one being anticipated armed attack situation, survival threatening situation and armed attack situation. Can you walk us through each security situation and explain the significance? Absolutely. And yes, this is the Japanese legal framework.

It is the template that they apply to all of these real-world training exercises and scenarios that I've been involved in, numerous ones like bilateral ground force war game, seen it there, multiple iterations of Resolute Dragon, Keen Edge, Northwest PAC. So every time we have Japanese forces doing a bilateral exercise with us or even trilateral in the case of Keen Edge, this is the lens that you have to view everything through because the Japanese do not have the willingness to budge from this framework. So I'll start with survival threatening situation or STS. So in this situation, the government of Japan, they may declare STS when a close ally or

partner is attacked. And the government of Japan then perceives that there is a threat to Japan too. A good example here would be Taiwan. If Taiwan would be attacked, clearly that would meet the criteria for the government of Japan to say, hey, we have a close partner here that has been attacked, that has implications for the region, it is critical for Japan's own security. So under STS, the government of Japan, they may, not that they will, they may grant rapid access to Japan's self-defense force facilities for the U.S. Joint Force, and the government of Japan may also request access for U.S. forces to civilian facilities, but they only request it. This is where the local prefectural government in the Okinawa Prefecture can say, no, we decline. You will not be at such and such a location. The next situation, anticipated armed attack situation, or AAAS, as we often call it. And here, the government of Japan believes an armed attack against Japan could occur. The government of Japan may then rapidly give U.S. forces access to JSDF facilities. And then the government of Japan may expedite the 24B process to provide access to civilian facilities.

But we're still talking the process that takes 45 days, maybe 160 days. So that sums up AAAS. Then we get to armed attack situation or AAAS. And here the government of Japan will declare AAAS if an armed attack has occurred against Japan or if the government of Japan believes that such an attack is imminent. The key here is that only when the government of Japan declares AAS can they waive the 24B process altogether and order Japanese civilians to make their facilities and property accessible to the U.S. joint force.

This sounds kind of like what I would call eminent domain. The challenge here, as my article points out, is that by the time the government of Japan declares AAS, they've been attacked, or they believe they're just hours, minutes, days away from an attack. At that point, it's too late to deploy forces and disperse forces as a means of deterrence. And also, deterrence has failed because an attack has happened. But even to posture forces to defend Japan, now you're talking about doing that in a highly contested environment. Whereas before, if you could move in when you have indications and warnings that you need to move, you can do that while you're still in an environment of competition. But at that point, in an armed attack situation, I would argue that it's too late to posture credible combat forces.

And again, in the defense of Japan's sovereign territory. So it puts the discussion back into the context of our mutual defense treaty. At that point, it's too late for us as a U.S. joint force to deploy to the key locations from which we can enable the Japanese, the government of Japan, to defend their sovereign territory. So a really great roll-up. And in conversations talking about deterrence and when it fails or should it fail, a term of art you see thrown around frequently is first mover advantage. And the legal framework you've just described, it almost seems as though, not by design, that's not the intent, that's not a fair way to describe it, but in effect, it does in fact cede the entirety of first mover advantage in a conflict with China scenario to the People's Republic of China. So that's harrowing. So in your assessment as a plans officer, under the current construct, if we saw, say, indications and warnings that the People's Liberation Army was preparing for some sort of attack, whether on Japan, Taiwan, or another contingency effect in Japan that might trigger one of those security situations you just described, And I'm cognizant of the fact that we have to be careful of how we're framing things.

We might have to be kind of dodgy in terms of classification because we're being mindful of what we can and can't say here. How long would you estimate it to take for U.S. forces to get into position in each of those above security situations? And I'd ask, is that fast enough? But you've already communicated, no, it's not. But how long do you think it would take? and so again yeah like you said classification will definitely frame how i how much i can talk about this but i have seen this play out in numerous exercises uh that i mentioned earlier like operations activities and investments oais as we call them over the past a little over two two years so just suffice to say 3mef plans for and rehearses to the greatest extent possible

our ability to deploy credible combat power to key maritime terrain and do this rapidly enough to operate within what the intel community establishes as like the indications and warnings. And we believe we can put forces on key maritime terrain within that time frame and which would allow us to do it rapidly enough to have forces positioned to be a deterrent. The U.S. Joint Force does not anticipate that the government of Japan will authorize troop movements until they hit that AAAS, that anticipated armed attack situation. But even then, in AAAS, which would allow us to move forces in before an attack occurs, best estimates from the smart people in the intel community, we would only be authorized to deploy forces to the Japanese garrisons. So here, we've taken a good step. We've moved, we've deployed forces, we've gotten them onto key locations. But at this point, we're all targeted. We're easily targeted. We're bunched up on Japanese facilities. We're in a garrison-like posture. And we would likely not be authorized to deploy critical, I think lethal capabilities like critical munitions in AAAS. So that's another challenge for us to work through and that we have to work through with the government of Japan.

Those forces may be given permission to move in in AAAS, but because of the desire to not seem aggressive, there might be critical capabilities that we don't take with us during that part of the framework. Dispersal, though, from the Japanese bases into resilient, survivable, redundant fighting positions will not be authorized until AAAS, and that's the challenge. Until we, if AAS isn't declared until the government of Japan has been struck, or they believe they're about to be struck, it leaves those forces easily targetable. And it doesn't allow the time that is required to then get off of a Japanese garrison and get into a jungle fighting position, a hardened position that you've, you know, reconnoitered ahead of time that you've established that you've built into a concept of operations. And so in short, 3MF has the ability to posture forces rapidly enough to deter, or if need be, to get into a position to defend against regional aggression that specifically threatens Japanese soil and under our treaty obligation. But what we man-train and equip ourselves to do in a matter of days is abrogated, I believe, and that's the point I tried to make in the article, by the months that it takes for the Japanese to approve our needed access. And this goes beyond deploying and dispersing. The other challenge here is how do we sustain that force? we think in terms of trying to find ways to cheat forward, do forward stage, critical classes of

supplies, et cetera. And we've made progress there in some areas, but then again, we're still woefully lacking when it comes to lethal capabilities. It's a really great summary of the problem. And so when you see other articles discussing this or other folks thinking through this problem, the focus tends to be on where things should go or how much we need, how many munitions we need and where we need them and it's really about like putting the the pieces on the chessboard and they just need to be in the right spot and be good but what i think is incredibly useful and powerful about your piece is that you highlight the chief obstacle that was really being faced is this diplomatic dilemma that prevents the movement of those chess pieces in the first

place so if you don't solve that obstacle if you don't solve that problem then everything else is moot. So that's great. So your article, then it goes into some core recommendations on how to speed that up, because really what you're doing is you're fighting for time. So the way you described it, you talked about how long all that takes. So then it becomes not just a dilemma problem. The diplomatic problem, excuse me, becomes a problem with time. So how do we speed that up? How do we get U.S. forces into position faster? One of your recommendations involves the two plus two talks. So before we get to the solution, can you discuss the two plus two talks, what those are and how the most recent two plus two talks went down?

Absolutely. One of the things that I've found myself saying several times out here recently is that if the military was going to find a solution to this, and when I say military, I'm using the collective, the US military and the Japanese military. If we could find a military solution, I think we would have done so. And so that drives me to point at the need for a diplomatic solution. And two plus two talks is where I believe, and I wrote in the article, that this is where that should take place. So two plus two talks, it's the name that commonly used to describe the Security Consultative Committee, the SCC. The SCC consists of the U.S. Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense. So the diplomatic and military counterparts, both the U.S. and the government of Japan.

This is the highest level governmental interaction that I'm aware of between U.S. and Japan, apart from meetings of the heads of state and government themselves. So I originally wrote this article highlighting the success of the 2 plus 2 talks that occurred in January of 2023. At the time, the most recent round of 2 plus 2 talks had not occurred. The most recent 2 plus 2 talks took place after proceedings had notified me that my article was being published. So in fact, proceedings editors reached out to me and said, hey, 2 plus 2 just happened again. Do you need to revise the article before we go back to publishing? And so I looked at the 2 plus 2 outputs and I said, I don't think they've touched anything that I thought they should. It's all goodness. Great progress is being made every time 2 plus 2 happens. But I didn't see anything in the immediate outputs that were available on public source, open source media that indicated that they had addressed or negotiated any of the fundamental access problems that I highlighted in the paper. So I told proceedings, I recommend you leave it. I'm going to leave it unchanged.

I recommend you publish as is. So I still maintain that 2 plus 2, the SCC, it is a critical diplomatic mechanism for resolving these access issues. We just need high-level officials at this ministerial level, cabinet level, to take up the issue and really push for the needed change. Again, like I said earlier, if there was a military solution to this problem, I think the military side, both on the U.S. and amongst the Japan Self-Defense Force, we would have found it. We would have moved the ball down the field a lot farther than it is right now. And that leads to the so what or the way ahead. In your article, you make some really sound recommendations. recommendations. And just quoting your recommendations verbatim, they are use the two plus two talks to reinvigorate a whole of government approach to the problem, urge Japan

to establish a more accommodating agreement, and urge Japan to capitalize on trends in Japanese public opinion favorable to increasing defensive capability. So could you talk us through each of those? How can the U.S. and Japan improve their situation in those areas? Absolutely. So So it does sound a little bit aspirational. But I think if you get down into some of the basics of what those things entail, as I listed in the article, it makes a little more sense. And it does give a potential way ahead. So two plus two talks, the point I tried to make is that two plus two talks, they have borne fruit, and they have been very valuable in expanding the US-Japan alliance and our partnering efforts. So I'll highlight some of those things. So in the 2023 talks that I looked at when I wrote this article, Japan committed to increasing its defense budget, committed to reinforce its defensive capabilities, and that would include a counter-strike capability. The U.S. committed to and Japan agreed to support optimizing our Pacific posture with more capable forward deployed forces. So thank DPRI, some refinements to some old DPRI decisions, I believe is what this is oriented on, because specifically highlighted here, 3rd Marine Division and 12th Marine Regiment at the time, 12th MLR, now would remain on Okinawa. That is keeping combat power where it needs to be located instead of, you know, moving it off of Japanese soil as would have originally been an option under DPRI. Also, the 2 plus 2 talks in 2023 agreed to explore more effective C2 command relationships and alliance coordination to enhance interoperability and responsiveness.

They agreed to expand partnerships to include Australia. And I've already seen this personally through exercises like the Keen series, Keen Edge, especially, and the Pacific series, Pacific Century, typically exercises that were bilateral, US-Japan, US-Australia. Now they're becoming trilateral. So as we increase, hopefully we see more than just like an Australian response cell or Australian observers participating in a U.S.-Japan exercise when they become truly trilateral. So huge, huge progress here. But with the two plus two talks, so at the combatant command level, I think U.S. Indo-Pacific Command could leverage their channels through the U.S. Secretary of Defense and really raise awareness of the challenges that we have in access. and then leverage that influence and that relationship with the Secretary of Defense to get the Secretary to push for an ease on the restrictions of access when two plus two talks occur. And then when negotiating with their Japanese counterparts, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defense, it'll be critical that the US Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State define access in terms of Japan's defense. This is talking about the U.S.

ability to fulfill its treaty obligations and to help defend Japanese sovereign territory and Japanese interests. A major regional crisis or conflict, even if it didn't involve striking Japanese soil with a cruise missile of some sort, it is going to be very destabilizing to a maritime-based economy like Japan's for there to be massive upheaval in sea lines of communication, supply chains. You can only imagine how even if no kinetic strike occurs on Japanese soil, the Japanese have got to be made aware of the fact that this has huge implications to things that are of national interest to Japan. The point I made on urging Japan to establish a more accommodating agreement. So the 1960 Mutual Defense Treaty, it allows for an amendment

to clarify access and shorten the timeline associated with approval. What this amendment could do is that it could modify, it could remove the crippling delays of the 24B process. So in the context of a legal framework that we discussed previously, the government of Japan could move the trigger for waiving or for shortening the approval of dispersal. They could move that from armed attack situation to anticipated armed attack situation. And so the trigger can happen, the forces can disperse earlier rather than waiting to be attacked to then allow forces to adequately get in a defensive posture and be able to defend Japanese soil. And then the last point here is that the government of Japan must become more willing to override local

prefectural governments in the interest of national defense. So the last thing that I highlighted was the favorable trend in Japanese public opinion. The example that I gave in the paper is that a poll that had been taken, it cited that nearly 65% of the Japanese in the survey believe that Japan should possess the ability to strike enemy bases. And so what we have seen in recent years is that the government of Japan, it's already begun to capitalize on this sentiment and did it to increase their own defense spending. And so I think what needs to happen, and this is what I brought out in the article, is that the government of Japan needs to reinvest this political capital to better its own position and that of the U.S. forces and be able to

put military capabilities where they need to be to defend the Japanese homeland. They're all really great, sound recommendations. What I actually heard was we need to send Dan Huff to the Japan desk at either OSD policy, the Department of State, or the National Security Council so you can start influencing at the right levels. But we'll see. From my time at 3MEF, and you would know the same people that I'm talking about, I could list a handful of people that are far more japan experts than i am that would that would actually be the person that should go up their policy level and i mean these are these people these experts are sprinkled throughout the g5 and the g35 lots of good people at the mef and i've learned a lot

from them you know over you know the past couple years and uh that collective knowledge is what i tried to express here in this paper really is a place full of incredibly talented people who work, I don't want to say way too hard, but as hard as the problem requires and as hard as human capacity allows. So, all right, thank you for that. So in your article, you referenced, and as we've been talking here, you referenced some other bilateral exercises that occur between the U.S. and Japan each year. And in your role in the 3MFG35, you are a key planner for and participant in those exercises, or you have in your previous roles. So can you share a bit more about those, like their scope, their outcomes, and what it has done for deterrence and for the

alliance? Sure. I can name a couple of those and point out maybe some of the things that they've accomplished. The first one I'll mention would be the one that I had probably the most involvement in. Keen Edge 2024, it was a command post exercise. I happened to come in at the right time where I essentially, I saw that exercise as the lead exercise planner for 3MF. I took that thing from cradle to grave, essentially. So, you know, concept development conference, the early on planning events with U.S. Indo-PACOM, all the way through, you know, after actions, post-index. So it was an Indo-PACOM level exercise. What it really addressed is bilateral com rel with the U.S. and Japan, especially as it gets Japan to consider how it revises and aligns its own forces.

We work through alliance coordination mechanisms because these are, again, a parallel command structure. It's not a combined force like we have with other key allies of ours. And so, as Japan tries to think about how it can think in terms of a JTF rather than having these stovepipes of various, you know, component level, that is what Indopaycom, the strides they tried to make is in refining that bilateral com rel. At the lower echelons, things that concern 3MF, like we got after bilateral fires coordination processes, communications, sensing and shooting, and then how to bilaterally share information to enable the best position shooter to take the shot, essentially. It's, you know, personnel, I observed it this way, personnel turnover, and you're going to be dealing with a new set of Japanese, you're going to have a new set of Americans. the the on the american side we can get each other on the same page i think more more rapidly but when we when we get the japanese you know past some of some of their risk aversion to doing certain things in the fires and sensing domain like would they have confidence in in shooting a track that we have sensed and passed to them that they're not actually tracking themselves it's a couple

steps forward and a couple steps back, it seems like sometimes, because if we get them to reduce their timelines that it takes to take a shot in a maritime environment, then get new planners in on the Japanese side and you have to walk them back through, get them to regain that confidence in being past a track and being able to shoot a track. And then another challenge that we dealt with is in sustaining the bilateral force because Keen Edge took place in a scenario where we actually were, we were actually in armed conflict. We, all of logistics happened in a contested environment. And so like, how do we do that? How do we plan that bilaterally down at the tactical level? How can we support each other? If we are conducting multi-domain maneuver, can we bring

the japanese alongside keen edge was a was a really critical exercise in beginning to expose the japanese to what three mef and the the joint force is beginning to understand multi-domain maneuver like how do you how do you assure your ability to maneuver in a highly contested environment you know taking advantage of available joint force pulses how can you move episodically And getting the Japanese to rapidly plan that with us and being able to capitalize on what it takes to bring the joint force together across all domains to ensure your ability to move forces, reinforcements into a contested environment and then extract your wounded, things like that. So a lot of progress was made there during Keen Edge. I guess I'll highlight one more here, the Resolute Dragon Series. This is a 3MEF and a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, particularly the Western Army. This is one of our bilateral exercises, so higher headquarters participation is replicated in these. But here we refined or attempted to enhance our bilateral coordination, again, in the bilateral planning processes. But we were able to take this down and really get down kneecap to kneecap with the Japanese through the bilateral ground operations coordination center that we established with the Western Army.

And then 3MF used these to, again, improve our forward staging posture on key terrain. I don't have the details at my fingertips, but we've actually begun in the Resolute Dragon series, and we're going to keep doing this in potentially the upcoming Keen Sword exercise next month, where we actually are increasing forward staging of certain classes of supply, where it needs to be located in a conflict or in a crisis scenario on key terrain. You know, typically right now we're associating this with a humanitarian assistance disaster relief type of scenario, because again, there's that Japanese reticence to think in terms of forward staging class five munitions. And then all of these had, they have tie-ins, all these exercises have tie-ins to the plans of record that just enable the joint and bilateral improvement and refinement to, you know, think of like off-the-shelf plans and concepts so that, you know, we have a ready playbook built that we can take off the shelf and use if the scenario, the situation warrants it. a really great rundown and sounds like there's a lot of promising developments as a result of the exercises that are really chasing after some of the problems we've discussed and throughout this episode so uh dan i've got one more like substantive question for you not pertaining to the article but pertaining to who you are and what you do professionally right now so you are currently serving in the 3MF G35 as a as a plans officer which is a key position within a core

level headquarters. So depending on your service, you know, think of this as analogous to a numbered fleet headquarters for Navy listeners, a numbered Air Force for Air Force listeners, or a numbered Corps for Army listeners. Do you have any advice that you'd offer to other staff officers coming out to headquarters like yours, especially one overseas in a place like Japan? Yeah, I could leave a few tips, I think, for anyone coming out to an area like this, especially in terms of, you know, the context of coming out to 3MF, first thing I would say is be prepared to grind. Like the pace, the work environment, and the operational tempo is incredibly high. Definitely worked the hardest I've ever worked for the last couple of years. The work is very

rewarding, but just mentally be prepared for what you're getting into. For anyone that's coming out here, I would say just a pro tip, hey, take leave before you get here. You're not guaranteed to get it upon arrival. And depending on the operational environment at any given time, you could jump, you could get your family checked in and you're almost immediately, you know, your wheels up, you're going TAD somewhere, you're going to go to a planning conference, you're going to go support an exercise. That's been the experience of a number of us that have come out here. I'd say read up on some of the emerging capabilities, concepts and formations. If you're not familiar, this is something I wish I would have known more about and done more of

before I came out here a couple of years ago. If you're not familiar with the Marine Littoral Regiment or the Army's Multi-Domain Task Force, there's lots of stuff on open source. Go read up on them. Get smart on EABO, the Navy's, I think they've got the new distributed maritime operations concept. So get spun up on the Marine and Navy overarching driving operational concepts. So that'll help you out coming out here. Have a working knowledge of joint doctrine. When I went through the rundown of some of the exercises I've been in, I mentioned endopacom. So a lot of times you're not just doing Marine Corps stuff, Marine Corps planning process. You need to understand joint planning processes and be able to be a role player as a Marine in a joint

environment. You don't have to memorize joint doctrine. That's impossible, but have some critical pubs handy, have them tabbed out, know how to use them. And then I would say understand the Japan Self-Defense Force. So every year there's a Defense of Japan annual white paper that the Japanese Ministry of Defense sends out. You can find this on Google. I think if you just type in Defense of Japan 2024, the latest version will pop up. It is a monster. So you definitely need it as a reference. You're not going to read that whole thing. There's a Reader's Digest version as well that is a little bit shorter, but have that thing at your fingertips. You can do a quick search there, locate some of the pages that depict the various Japanese formations,

how their armed forces, the Japan Self-Defense Force is organized, and that'll help you a lot so that you're not like me coming out here and like, I have no idea how the Japanese are, how do they organize themselves, you give yourself a leg up. Hope that'd be helpful, Brian. Yeah, Dan, that's all pure gold, pure gold. And just to reveal a bit to the listeners, hey, I've lived part of that life as well as a planner out there in 3MF. And the one thing I do is I double tap what you already highlighted as far as going into those planning conferences with the physical pub tabbed out. I assure you, you work in spaces where you don't have a terminal you don't have you can't google anything so your

options are either physically leave the very arcane complex and the skiff and like the third level of a sub basement that you're at which will take you 30 minutes to get in and 30 minutes to get back out to look for the one thing or you can be a hero when you've got you're the one guy or gal with the physical pub that actually has the ops terms and graphics and the actual definitions of the tactical tasks so that you and the rest of the OPT aren't getting into a food fight about what the differences are between, say, screen, guard, and cover, among other things. So physical, old school, tabbed out with you in the building, absolute gold. Finally, Dan, where can listeners find you online and what else are you working on or what are you working on next? So honestly,

I'm not doing a lot outside of the work environment right now. So I don't have a very strong online presence and I'm probably going to keep it that way. I do enjoy the things that we've just done. So as opportunities present themselves, I would consider tackling another writing project. But right now, literally I'm knee deep in all things 3MF G3, 3MF G357, more specifically as the plans and integration desk. We've done a little bit of internal reorganization and so i'm trying to wrap my mind and wrap my arms around a larger team here i'm trying to bring a couple more people on board and we're getting after a lot of things that are critical for 3mef how 3mef thinks of itself how we um what our concept is for how we're going to

operate out here in a contested environment and then also i'm i'm uh right now i'm spearheading the effort between 3mef and seventh fleet to increase naval integration that was um very important on the, you know, the commandant's recent update. He doubled down on naval integration. And so, you know, obviously Lieutenant General Turner, that's a priority of his too. So that trickles down to me and the team here. So that's, that's, that's kind of what I'm working on right now. Gotcha. Sounds like, you know, as we alluded to, the requirements out there are just squeezing your drive every last drop, but not without due cause as you've highlighted due to all the the burning dilemmas out there so hey dan thanks again for joining us good luck with the rest of

your time as a planner and three meth fair winds and following seas thank you bravo zulu for tuning in and we'll see you next time Help me, Bob-I, pull in the alley. Way, hey, pull in the alley. Help me, Bob-I, pull in the alley. Pull it out of the shimbo now. A porter of a porter gin, oh. Way, hey, pull in the alley.

A porter of wine, both white and red, oh. Pull it out of the shimbo now. So help me, Bob-I, pull in the alley. © transcript Emily Beynon