US, Japan eye warfighting capabilities through alliance upgrade

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washington — The realignment of the United States armed forces in Japan, announced on the heels of the latest U.S.-Japan security talks, will focus on developing warfighting capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region, former U.S. military officials and experts say.

During a meeting of the Japan-U.S. Security Consultative Committee in Tokyo on Sunday, the two nations agreed to upgrade the command and control of the U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), converting the current USFJ structure into a joint force headquarters.

The new headquarters will be given “expanded missions and operational responsibilities,” according to a statement released after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with their Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Minoru Kihara.

Jerry Martinez, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who served as the USFJ commander from 2016 to 2019, said this move is “a gigantic step forward” for the United States, Japan and the alliance at large.

“This action signals the high regard in which both countries view the alliance, as well as the need to ensure Japan is always ready to withstand any threats in the region,” Martinez told VOA Korean via email on Wednesday.

“It sends a strong signal to potential threats that Japan as a whole is trained, prepared and operationally ready to meet any challenges,” he said.

Harry Harris, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea during the Trump administration, told VOA Korean in an email on Tuesday that the USFJ headquarters will take on more operational command responsibilities.

“It greatly expands the heretofore limited role of the existing USFJ,” said Harris, who was also commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command from 2015 to 2018.

“USFJ was not responsible for joint war planning,” he said, adding that the move to set up a new headquarters recognizes “the importance in Japan of effective joint planning between the U.S. and Japan.”

The reconstitution of American forces stationed in Japan, scheduled for March 2025, is widely seen as the most substantial transformation since its establishment in 1957.

“This will be the most significant change to U.S. Forces Japan since its creation and one of the strongest improvements in our military ties with Japan in 70 years,” Austin said in a press conference Sunday in Tokyo.

According to experts in Washington, the changes are aimed at giving USFJ an actual warfighting command, which has, up to now, been largely assumed by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, headquartered in Hawaii.

“It was more of a command that focused on kind of day-to-day management of resources in Japan,” Robert Peters, research fellow for nuclear deterrence and missile defense at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA Korean by phone on Wednesday.

“USFJ is going to have more responsibilities and more capabilities, so they’re going to be able to make their own decisions when a war breaks out,” he said.

Peters, who served as a special adviser in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Obama administration, said the new USFJ will be “more relevant to the warfighting.”

James Przystup, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Japan Chair, told VOA Korean via email on Tuesday that the focus of the new joint command will be the closer operational integration of U.S. military assets, which encompass elements of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.

“USFJ as it stands today serves an administrative function,” Przystup said. “Establishing a joint force headquarters provides for the closer operational integration of U.S. forces deployed in Japan.”

According to the joint statement of the Security Consultative Committee on Sunday, the new U.S. joint force headquarters will serve as a counterpart to Japan’s Joint Operations Command, facilitating deeper interoperability and cooperation on joint bilateral operations.

The USFJ’s cooperation with the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) is expected to take a form different from the Combined Forces Command in South Korea, a joint warfighting headquarters consisting of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and the South Korean military.

Retired U.S. Army General Robert Abrams, who served as the commander of the USFK from 2018 to 2021, told VOA Korean in an email on Wednesday that the USFJ and JSDF are completely separate.

“There is no mention of the newly converted USFJ headquarters becoming a combined command or implying that this USFJ headquarters would have operational control of Japanese Self-Defense Forces,” Abrams said. “Japan’s minister of defense made clear that there was no plan to put JSDF under U.S. command.”

Przystup said the new USFJ Joint Forces Command, along with Japan’s own Joint Operations Command, will facilitate closer U.S.-Japan defense cooperation in dealing with security challenges posed by China as well as North Korea, “in particular with respect to operational integration of Japan’s counterstrike capability within the alliance, thus enhancing alliance-based deterrence.”

While Austin stressed during the Sunday press conference that “our decision to move in this direction is not based upon any threat from China,” the U.S. and Japan made it clear that China’s external stance and military actions pose a serious concern.

In response to an inquiry from VOA Korean, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Tuesday that China is not a threat to global stability and peace.

“The so-called ‘China threat theory’ is groundless and should not be used as an excuse for military expansion,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a written statement via email. “U.S.-Japan relations should not target other countries, harm their interests or undermine regional peace and stability.”
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Historic prisoner swap frees Americans imprisoned in Russia

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Americans Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and others are freed from Russian prisons in a deal involving 16 political prisoners exchanged for eight individuals requested by the Kremlin. With Liam Scott and Cristina Caicedo Smit, Jessica Jerreat reports. Patsy Widakuswara contributed. Cameras: Martin Bubenik, Krystof Maixner, Hoshang Fahim.
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How Russia swap happened: Secret talks, a hitman and Biden’s fateful call

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washington — The historic prisoner swap with Russia that freed U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich and 15 other Westerners was the fruit of painstaking, secret talks — and one crucial phone call from President Joe Biden an hour before he dropped his reelection bid.

Biden welcomed the families of the three U.S. citizens and one U.S. resident to the White House on Thursday, just as the release was taking place in Ankara.

After placing an emotional phone call to their loved ones from the Oval Office, they appeared with the president in front of journalists.

Asked what he’d told the newly liberated Americans, Biden answered: “I said, ‘Welcome almost home.’ ”

But the smiles hid the pain of waiting during long months of feverish negotiations.

The White House had worked desperately — and largely out of public view — to free Wall Street Journal reporter Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter Alsu Kurmasheva and U.S. green card holder Vladimir Kara-Murza, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kurmasheva is a Prague-based editor on the Tatar-Bashkir Service of VOA sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

This meant high-level talks with Russia at a time when East-West relations are in open conflict over the Ukraine war.

But it also meant, say U.S. officials, leaning hard on European allies reluctant to give in to Moscow’s demands for getting back a string of Russian citizens imprisoned in the West for serious crimes.

In the end, Biden secured the key piece of the puzzle on July 21 — the very day that the 81-year-old Democrat stunned the world by announcing that he would no longer stand in November’s election.

Holed up in his Delaware beach home with COVID-19, he was about to release his shock statement. Yet before that, he had one more bit of work on the prisoner deal to do.

“I’m not making this up — literally an hour before he released that statement, he was on the phone with his Slovenian counterpart, urging them to make the final arrangements and to get this deal over the finish line,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.

Slovenia later freed two of the Russians, who had been convicted by a court of spying.

But no one knew for certain that the deal would go through until the very end.

In a sign of the strain on negotiators and families alike, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan choked up on the White House podium as he welcomed what he called a “good day.”

“We held our breath and crossed our fingers until just a couple of hours ago,” he said.

The process leading to Thursday’s news began all the way back in 2018 when Whelan was arrested and Donald Trump was U.S. president.

Not only was Whelan not freed, but then Gershkovich was arrested while reporting in Yekaterinburg in March 2023. Suddenly, “these efforts were obviously made more complicated,” Sullivan said.

In what critics describe as state-sponsored hostage-taking, Moscow’s biggest condition was the release of Vadim Krasikov, a Russian jailed in Germany for assassinating a former Chechen rebel commander in Berlin in 2019.

Germany balked at giving up a hitman who had carried out such a brazen murder on its soil.

To persuade Berlin, Sullivan said, “required extensive diplomatic engagement with our German counterparts, starting at the top with the president.”

Then in February this year, the tense diplomatic to-and-fro took another dark turn when Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny — who Sullivan revealed Thursday had also been on the U.S. wish list for release — died in a Russian prison.

“The team felt like the wind had been taken out of our sails,” the senior U.S. official added.

By coincidence, Gershkovich’s mother and father were meeting with Sullivan at the White House that same day. It’s “going to be a little bit more of a rocky path,” he told them.

The breakthrough came during Oval Office talks between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Biden in April.

“Chancellor Scholz responded to the president saying, ‘For you, I will do this,’ ” added the U.S. official.

Biden on Thursday thanked Scholz, praising the “bold and brave” decisions by allies.

And once the deal was outlined, a careful choreography ensued.

Russia fast-tracked a trial for Gershkovich, which ended with him receiving a 16-year jail sentence — but which behind the scenes indicated that Russia was preparing for the swap.

Finally, the White House ceremony on Thursday brought this diplomatic and intensely personal journey to a head.

Noting that it was the 13th birthday of Kurmasheva’s daughter, Miriam Butorin, Biden asked the assembled family members and journalists to sing “Happy Birthday” — perhaps the happiest possible.
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Young fencer shows NY grit on Paris 2024 stage

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EAUBONNE, France — Growing up in cutthroat New York gave Lauren Scruggs the competitive mindset needed to claim an unexpected fencing silver medal on her Olympic debut in Paris.

The 21-year-old Queens native shared the podium with fellow American Lee Kiefer, who retained her Olympic title in the women’s individual foil event gold medal bout on Sunday.

“I’ve grown up in New York my whole life. It can be kind of rough sometimes,” Scruggs, the first Black American fencer to win an Olympic medal in a women’s individual event, told Reuters.

“You develop a hard shell, and in terms of how that translates to my fencing, I think it came out, that energy and that toughness.”

When Scruggs found herself neck-and-neck with then world No. 2 Arriana Errigo in the quarterfinals, she managed to score the last touch, knocking out the Italian 15-14.

“I think that was my toughest bout of the day in terms of energy, and going past my limits, and I have definitely New York to thank for that,” said Scruggs, one of the rare Black fencers at the highest level.

“Fencing is predominantly white, I think for a multitude of reasons, it’s just the history of the sport, and the lack of representation and encouragement,” she explained.

“To have this accomplishment is a big deal for me, because when I was younger I only had a few people to look up to in the sport, so to be someone that little kids now can look up to is very special to me.”

They can draw inspiration from her impressive grit, which coach Sean McClain described in the U.S. training venue in Eaubonne, in the outskirts of Paris, saying that since she was eight, Scruggs only cared about winning medals.

“And she’s maintained that distaste for losing her entire career,” he said. “I really think in an event like the Olympics, it’s more about how you compete.”

Expensive sport

Born in the U.S. to Jamaican immigrants, Scruggs grew up in Queens with her mother and grandmother.

“I was in a single-parent household early on, so my family had to basically cut some corners around here and there to support us,” said Scruggs, whose brother was the first to get into fencing and inspired her to take up the sport.

Now a college student at Harvard, where she trains every day, Scruggs had to fight to make it into a “pretty expensive” sport.

“It was not easy growing up, trying to fence while being from where I’m from, just income-wise,” she said.

“If you have the funds, it makes it a lot easier to pursue the sport and feel comfortable asking that from your family.

“But if you’re coming from a lower-income background, it might push you harder. And I think it’s what happened with me. I just wanted it more than my peers.”

On paper, Scruggs did not have a big medal chance, but she showed her mettle at the Grand Palais arena.

“Fencing skill wise, Lauren is on par with the better fencers in the world, but she’s not better than them. What made the difference was that competitiveness,” said McClain, who has also become Scruggs’ stepfather.

“That comes from my wife,” he added. “I knew it was possible, but I didn’t really think Lauren was going to win a medal in her first Olympics. But my wife did. She was like, she’d better win a medal. So that’s where it comes from — that’s the fiery spirit!”

With Kiefer and alongside teammates Jackie Dubrovich and Maia Weintraub, Scruggs will represent the U.S. against China on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the women’s foil team event.

Scruggs is aiming for gold this time and is dreaming already of qualifying for the next Games, which will take place in Los Angeles in four years’ time.

“I can’t imagine myself not fencing,” she said. “It’s not even love, it’s just a part of me. It’s connected to who I am,” she said. 
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