Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will attend the memorial service on Iwo Jima in late March with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.. This will be the first occasion for top officials from both countries to commemorate the battle of 1945 jointly, demonstrating Tokyo’s commitment to its security alliance with Washington.
The event will serve as a somber commemorative occasion, but Hegseth is likely to use it to urge Japan to take on more responsibility for its defense.
“Probably the focus will be on what Japan should be doing rather than what the United States will do to enhance security cooperation,” said Michael Cucek, a politics instructor at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.
While it is likely that Japanese officials will extol U.S. military technology such as the F-35s and radar systems, Cucek said that perhaps those commitments would be constrained significantly. Make sure that Japan understands that it indeed needs to increase its defense capabilities-moving this message forward-is something that Hegseth will definitely do and that his superiors very much support.
Ishiba’s visit came at a sensitive time for the US, which was at that point imposing a 25 percent levy on Japanese steel and aluminum imports. Tariffs on Japanese vehicles were also expected to come in next month. Cucek said remembrance, Hegseth that Ishiba could raise such concerns with respect to how tensions between Japan and the U.S. have slightly affected security ties between the two nations- while most definitely being wary not to rile things up for Hegseth and thus for the Trump administration.
The service on March 29 will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the five-week battle on Iwo Jima, one of the bloodiest confrontations in the Pacific War. The battle claimed the lives of over 18,000 Japanese soldiers, who defended the tiny island, while the U.S. forces suffered over 6,800 casualties.
Ishiba, Hegseth, and Nakatani are expected to tour the key historic sites on the island, including the landing beaches and Mount Suribachi, the volcano that played a strategic role in the battle. They are also expected to stop at the U.S. memorial near the summit, the site of the famous 1945 photograph of U.S. Marines raising the American flag.
A government official of Japan told the Asahi that joint tribute signifies this ongoing strong defense cooperation between two nations that were once enemies and are now fast friends.
If media reports are to be believed, this will be the first visit by a sitting Japanese prime minister since Shinzo Abe’s visit in April 2013; a cabinet source was reported by Fuji Television as saying Ishiba feels strongly about commemorating the 80th anniversary since the end of the war.
After the memorial service, Hegseth will hold meetings with Japanese officials in Tokyo to pursue measures to strengthen military cooperation improvements in bilateral command-and-control systems. The U.S. expects to press Japan to go beyond its planned commitment to raising defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027. The Trump administration urged all allies to spend a minimum of 3% of GDP on defense, warning that this demand will be taken seriously regarding U.S. military support.
