I have to wonder if the timing of this reduction of Air Force assets has anything to do with the recent election of a left wing government in Japan?:

U.S. and Japanese officials have discussed the possibility of withdrawing U.S. fighter jets from Japan, U.S. military officials confirmed Monday.But officials from both countries declined to provide further details, saying the conversation was part of ongoing discussions between the two nations about a variety of issues.

“At this point, there’s not much to say on it,” said U.S. Forces Japan spokesman Maj. Joseph Macri. “It’s a discussion.”

Macri and David Marks, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, referred questions to the Pentagon.

“We, the U.S. government, we talk to them on a wide variety of issues,” Marks said. “But not to the press.”

Kyodo News Agency reported over the weekend that the U.S. government had broached the subject of removing all F-16s from Misawa Air Base in mainland Japan and some of its F-15s from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

“Japan and the United States have engaged in talks over the structure of U.S. forces in Japan on [a] routine basis,” a spokeswoman for Japan’s International Relations of Ministry of Defense told Stars and Stripes on Monday.

Still, the news report was enough to prompt senior Misawa city officials to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday, according to the Daily Tohoku newspaper.  [Stars & Stripes]

Since the election of the left wing government there have been comments made of re-looking the SOFA as well as existing military agreements between the US and Japan to relocate 8,000 Marines off of Okinawa to Guam.  The Japanese government had originally pledged to a cost sharing agreement to move the Marines as well as build a new naval air station on Okinawa in a rural area away from population centers on the island.

Threatening to remove these air assets may be a sign that the US is not going to accept the new government just unilaterally deciding to scrap these agreements.