A recent collision off the Izu Peninsula of
“I wish to express my deepest condolences for the deaths of the seven sailors and to their families, as well as respect to the crew members who quickly and appropriately responded to the severe damage to the ship and guided it back to port,” said Maritime Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Yutaka Murakawa at a press conference on the afternoon of June 27.
Murakawa grieved the victims while also praising the sailors who managed to prevent the ship from sinking, despite serious damage, and return it to the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. The base had held a memorial service attended by relatives of the victims and senior U.S. Navy officials that morning.
The Fitzgerald belongs to Destroyer Squadron 15 of the U.S. 7th Fleet, which is based in Yokosuka. Since being deployed to Yokosuka in 2004, the ship has served for 13 years as part of three carrier strike groups that have been surrounding each of the aircraft — the USS Kitty Hawk, the USS George Washington and now the USS Ronald Reagan.
The Fitzgerald possesses extremely high combat capabilities. It has an Aegis system with high-powered radar as its core equipment that can simultaneously manage multiple targets. It also carries ballistic missile defense (BMD) capability with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor missiles that can strike enemy ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere.
The Fitzgerald has, on multiple occasions, been deployed to the sea around Japan and other areas in response to North Korean ballistic missiles, and it has participated in numerous Japan-U.S. joint training exercises and drills. At the end of April, the ship participated in a training exercise for ballistic missile response with an Aegis destroyer of the MSDF in the Sea of Japan. At the beginning of June, it participated in a joint training exercise with the Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces in the area stretching from the Sea of Japan to the waters east of Okinawa Island.
“The U.S. Navy’s best ships in terms of defending Japan, maintaining stability of the situation in Asia, and the U.S. global strategy are deployed to the Yokosuka base,” said Yoji Koda, a former commander in chief of the Self-Defense Fleet. “The Fitzgerald is of great value to the United States as a main force of the 7th Fleet tasked with those missions.”
Diplomatic analyst Yukio Okamoto said of the accident, “U.S. Aegis destroyers are moving around Japan like that on a daily basis. The United States is demonstrating to surrounding countries that it is committed to defending Japan.”
As China and North Korea continue to expand their military power, the presence of the U.S. Navy in Japan — including the Fitzgerald, together with U.S. Air Force and other units based here, is growing increasingly important as a deterrent.
The Fitzgerald participated in the U.S. Military’s Operation Tomodachi after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, engaging in relief efforts from off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture. Donations were raised from crew members on the ship, and toiletries and clothing were provided to Sendai residents. The achievements of the ship from defense to disaster response illustrate the deepening of the U.S.-Japan alliance across many fields.
The loss of one of the 11 BMD-capable Aegis destroyers of Japan and the United States — seven in the U.S. 7th Fleet and four in the MSDF — for some time to come is by no means insignificant. As for its vigilance and surveillance duties, former MSDF Chief of Staff Tomohisa Takei suggests that “the loss of the Fitzgerald seems to be a blow to the U.S. Navy as it is highly possible that defenses in the South China Sea [where China is militarizing artificial islands] will become weak.”
The Japanese government is already working toward introducing a land-based Aegis system in the future to strengthen BMD capability. If the Self-Defense Forces increase their own missile interception capabilities, the burden on the U.S. military could be reduced.
Japan should strengthen its own defense capabilities in light of this accident and contribute to regional peace and stability by dividing up roles with the United States.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 28, 2017)Speech
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