Okinawa may have temporarily receded from the headlines, but the contradictions and conflicts that have roiled it for most of the post-War era, in acute form now for 17 years, have not been resolved. Rival forces steadily mobilize for a perhaps decisive phase in the contest over whether or not US military design should continue to be the prefecture's raison d’être. The standoff may not last much longer in its current form, but how it will be resolved is far from clear.

I write as a resident of Kushi district, the site for the planned construction of a Futenma Replacement Facility (the projected Henoko base). Ever since it first surfaced I have been struggling against the plan for construction of a base that would foreclose the future of the children of the district. I am joint representative of the “Association of the 10 Districts North of Futami Who Do Not Want a Base” (formed by the residents of those 10 districts in October 1997) and General Secretary of the “Association of Women Supporting the Inamine City Government” (commonly known as “Iinagu Association”) formed in April 2010. As an investigator for the project to compile Nago City's History, I have been involved in an oral history project into the nature-rooted daily life and history and culture of this region, in particular of the Kushi district. I am also a member of the “Northern Limits Dugong Investigation Team” and I participate in the Okinawa Citizen's Biodiversity Network.

After the Vietnam War, the US Department of Defence considered withdrawing the Marine Corps from Okinawa to the mainland US. However, the Japanese government, unable to stand alone in terms of defence policy, intervened to stop it. Observing this, the US State Department thought that it could use the Marine Corps as a lever in its policy towards Japan.

These historical facts become clear from documents in the Australian Archives discovered by Nozoe Fumiaki, lecturer at Okinawa International University. Preserved in the Australian Archives are reports from Australian diplomats on what they had heard from State Department officials.

US military bases south of Kadena are slated to be returned to Okinawa, although that is only to happen at various times up to “2028 or later,” and their environmental restoration is an important local issue. Article IV (1) of the US-Japan SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) is understood to exempt the polluter, namely the US Government, from the responsibility for environmental restoration. Although the US-ROK SOFA includes the same article, both the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) Governments understand that the US Government bears some measure of responsibility for environmental restoration. This paper examines this difference between Japan and Korea in the interpretation of SOFA and makes some recommendations, based on the Korean experience, for environmental restoration of US military bases in Okinawa.

In June 2013, construction workers unearthed more than 20 rusty barrels from beneath a soccer pitch in Okinawa City. The land had once been part of Kadena Air Base - the Pentagon's largest installation in the Pacific region - but was returned to civilian usage in 1987. Tests revealed that the barrels contained two ingredients of military defoliants used in the Vietnam War - the herbicide 2,4,5-T and 2,3,7,8-TCDD dioxin. Levels of the highly toxic TCDD in nearby water measured 280 times safe limits.

This essay provides a critical analysis of the aesthetic ideology of “Gomanism” in the manga of Kobayashi Yoshinori (b. 1953), particularly Yasukuniron (On Yasukuni, 2005) and Tennoron (On the Emperor, 2009), in order to flesh out the implications of the author's “revisionist” approach to Japanese religion, politics and history.