Military Estates
border control | military bases by nick sowers
rules interface military bases encroachement fracture lines
exact edges
I step off the train in a western Tokyo suburb at 8 am. A few minutes’ walk past the mini-marts and four-story apartment blocks brings me to Camp Zama, headquarters of the United States Army in Japan. I approach the pedestrian gate where a Japanese guard stands, automatic shotgun at the ready. I show him my American passport and proceed to a call box, where I phone ahead to my contact, Fukaya-san. He is a Japanese civilian who works for the Army’s Installations Management Division. While I am waiting for my escort, under observation by the guard, I study the base edge. A column of 12-storey apartment buildings springs up from the sprawling city and looms over the base like towers over Central Park. The barbed-wire fences and weathered ‘No Trespassing’ signs hold this piece of land at bay from the city’s appetite. It is astonishing that sixty- four years after the surrender, Tokyo still has American troops occupying its corners. While the Soviet threat – for four decades the principle justification for continued US occupation – has passed, North Korea, China and a 9/11 repeat are among the perceived threats which perpetuate the US presence in Japan. Whether or not the bases are necessary, I am here to study what impact they have on the surrounding civilian fabric. As cities develop around military bases once laid out far from city limits, the noise complaints, zoning conflicts, and repossession of military land begin to chew away at the operative capabilities of the base. The proper military term for this is ‘urban encroachment,’ something important enough that the RAND Corporation recently produced a study on it entitled The Thin Green Line (2007). Many bases in urban areas have set aside staff to seek out ways to mitigate encroachment. What ensues is a pitched battle between the encroachment team and the denizens of the base edge. Fukaya-san, Camp Zama’s encroachment expert, pulls up in a minivan. We exchange business cards per the Japanese custom, and then after filling out some paperwork at the checkpoint we head off on a tour of the base perimeter. In the van are two more Japanese civilian employees of Camp Zama: Awada-san and Oguro-san. No one explains to me the purpose of their attendance, but I begin to feel like a visiting diplomat. After all, I am a United States citizen and my country has signed a treaty with Japan called a Status of Forces Agreement, permitting the occupation of Japanese territory in exchange for augmenting their defence forces. I am here to observe the spatial negotiations of this treaty as they are manifest at the base edge.
20 On Site review 22: WAR
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