As the morning sun rose slowly over the shores of Okinawa, I shook off the jet lag that comes from 24 hours of travel and began a one-week public diplomacy tour of Japan for the U.S. State Department. The warm shore breezes were almost as wonderful as those I had left at home in Stonington just hours before.

My job was to speak to local journalists and officials on America s new national security strategy and the importance of the U.S.-Japanese alliance.  A sometimes tough sell in Okinawa, where 100,000 citizens came out last month to politely ask the U.S. military to move its bases off their islands. A squadron of American fighter jets screaming over the harbor reminded me of one of the reasons locals have complaints.

Minutes before my talk, word came that the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Hatoyama, has just tearfully resigned office, primarily on his inability to deliver a deal that would reduce the U.S. base presence in Okinawa.

While Hatoyama and many people in Okinawa do not care for the U.S. military presence in Japan, there are many others that do.  Fifty years ago the U.S. and Japan signed a Mutual Defense Treaty that is still in force. In it, we pledge to cooperate to defend one another against outside aggression. I avoided comment on the toppled Prime Minister, and my Japanese friends were too polite to ask.

It is easy to take such things such as peace in the Pacific for granted, or to wonder why we should care about such far away lands. However in my own mother's lifetime, we were at war with Japan, a conflict that cost the lives of many young men from southeastern Connecticut. To have peace prevail between our peoples for more than two generations is a great blessing, and to have a close relationship between the worlds number one and two economies is important for our prosperity.

In this age when North Korea rattles its saber threatening neighbors, and the rise of China brings with it uncertain consequences, it is important for peace and stability to keep the U.S.-Japan alliance strong.

Tomorow is Tokyo, and I will work with 400 university students and young leaders from across Japan on how to strengthen our partnership to take on the shared challenges of terrorism, climate change and energy independence in the years ahead. As the world seems to shrink, and we have more problems than we do dollars, we will need all the friends we can get to tackle the problems of the 21st century.