AP Photo

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the U.S.-Japan alliance, but the Obama administration seems sincerely flummoxed as to whether to bemoan or commemorate the occasion.

On the one hand, U.S. officials have reacted with considerable discomfort to the more independent and assertive policies of the new Japanese government. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called Tokyo’s desire to reopen debate about the location of U.S. bases in Okinawa “counterproductive” and the alternatives to current plans “politically untenable and operationally unworkable.”