In the 24 years since U.S. troops wrested Okinawa from Japan at a cost of 12,500 American lives, the 60-mile-long island in the East China Sea has been built up as the Pentagon's "Keystone of the Pacific," its most vital staging area for operations from Korea to Viet Nam. A bustling bastion just 500 miles southeast of Shanghai, it is honeycombed with 91 military installations accommodating 45,000 U.S. troops, It is also, however, a growing threat to harmonious U.S.-Japanese relations. A quarter-century after the war, the continued rule of 1,000,000 citizens of Okinawa and the 140 other islands of...
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