Gates, due to arrive in Tokyo on Tuesday, is the first member of President Barack Obama's cabinet to visit Japan since a center-left government came to power last month, ending a half-century of nearly unbroken conservative rule.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has already signaled a new approach to Washington, announcing Japan would no longer carry out a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Hatoyama's party, which has spoken out against abetting "American wars", had long opposed the mission and the premier has suggested Tokyo will find other non-military means to contribute to the NATO-led effort.

While US officials expected the move, the 47,000-strong US military presence in Japan -- which dates back to America's post-World War II occupation -- could prove more contentious.

The premier has called for a review of the 2006 agreement that calls for closing the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base in Okinawa and replacing it with a coastal site to be built by 2014.

Hatoyama has in the past said he wants the replacement facility to be built outside Okinawa or even outside Japan, a proposal favoured by two minor parties whose support he needs in the upper house of the Diet legislature.

With Obama due to visit on November 12-13, the US administration has shown no sign it is ready to reopen negotiations on the forces' agreement.

US defense officials warned against any attempt to revise the elaborate agreement hammered out over a more than a decade.

"It's been in the works 15 years. It's highly complex and complicated," one official told reporters.

"You start to pull on one thread, and you run the risk of the whole thing unravelling."

The Futenma base is located in a crowded urban area where residents have long complained of aircraft noise, the danger of accidents and occasional friction with service members.

In Washington's view, revising the agreement would undermine "strategic" provisions that call for bolstering cooperation between US and Japanese forces.

The accord was "not just a matter of moving troops in barracks but a strategic realignment of US and Japanese forces," another defense official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

If Japan refused to carry out aspects of the agreement, that would "be a blow to confidence on both sides," he said.

In his meetings in Tokyo and in a visit to South Korea on Thursday, Gates was also expected to address the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The administration has sought to reassure both countries of Washington's military commitment and to discourage South Korea and Japan from moving to develop their own nuclear arsenal to counter the threat from the North, the defense official said.

After North Korea's missile launches in May, "we had a very high level delegation travel to Tokyo and then Seoul to talk to our allies about this very thing," said the official.

The United States wanted to "make sure our allies are left in absolutely no doubt about our full-throated commitment to their security, in all aspects to include extended deterrence," the official said, referring to US nuclear weapons.

Gates' trip comes after the North in recent weeks made conciliatory gestures both to Washington and Seoul after months of fiery rhetoric and rising military tensions.

With his South Korean counterpart, Gates was expected to discuss US military ties with Seoul, which also are entering a new phase as the country prepares to take over war-time operational control of its forces by April 2012.

South Korea's military looks on track for the transfer of authority and will be ready by the deadline, US officials said.

The US military, which has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, has had a large presence in the country since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, but troop numbers have been steadily scaled back as the force shifts to more of a back-up role.

After South Korea, Gates is scheduled to fly to Slovakia on Thursday for a meeting of NATO defense ministers on Friday. The meeting comes against the backdrop of a pivotal US strategy review of the NATO-led war in Afghanistan.

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