Japan is number five

In the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's (SIPRI) 2008 yearbook, released earlier this month, Japan ranked fifth in military expenditures (valued at $43.6 billion in market exchange rate terms and amounting to 4% of total world military expenditures), behind the USA, the UK, China, and France.

But it turns out that Japan also ranked fifth in Vision of Humanity's Global Peace Index, behind Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and New Zealand. Looking at the top five, it seems obvious that homogeneity helps. (Wikipedia has more on the index here.)

A look at the index's methodology shows that Vision of Humanity is measuring not just international peacefulness, but "societal safety and security."

Japan's gross military expenditures didn't hurt its rank because the index considered military expenditures as a percentage of GDP, not total spending. Incidentally, according to Vision of Humanity, Japan's defense spending is 1.295% of GDP, not less than 1%, reflecting the fact that Japan hides some military expenditures in other ministries and agencies. (VoH uses the following definition for military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: "Cash outlays of central or federal government to meet the costs of national armed forces - including strategic, land, naval, air, command, administration and support forces as well as paramilitary forces, customs forces and border guards if these are trained and equipped as a military force.")

Meanwhile, the Economist, which played a role in organizing the index, has acknowledged that the index is distorted somewhat because many countries may score well on the index because they are protected by the US, enabling them to lower their military expenditures. This certainly must be kept in mind — were the US-Japan alliance to loosen or dissolve, Japan's rank would probably rise over time. Nevertheless, given the range of variables used to determine the ranking, the alliance with the US doesn't explain all or most of the result. As I argued in this post, Japan has built an extraordinary society in the sixty years since the war ended, an island of peace, stability, and prosperity in a region and world that is often anything but.

It seems that the Japanese people should be proud of this achievement, and their leaders should not be so quick to discard it.

(Hat tip to The Strategist for the survey.)

The LDP and DPJ cooperate on space

The House of Councillors has, as expected, passed a new space basic law on the back of cooperation between the LDP, Komeito, and the DPJ.

As noted previously, the law ends the 1969 ban on the use of space for military purposes, permitting the government to deploy high-resolution spy satellites. The law also calls for the creation of a cabinet-level space agency.

This effort was backed by an alliance of LDP boei zoku, industrial concerns, and defense ministry bureaucrats interested in promoting a "space vision for the national defense."

I wonder what the US government makes of Japan's pursuit of higher quality spy satellites and a more active space posture, in light of Ambassador Schieffer's remarks this week. Does this program meet the ambassador's approval? As this Mainichi article notes, there are fears among Japan's defense establishment that in the event of a crisis it would take too long to get information on missile launches from the US. It seems reasonable to me that Japan would want more autonomous intelligence-gathering capabilities. I suspect that this aspect of the basic law helped bring the DPJ on board, considering that the DPJ's hawks tend to emphasize more independence from the US than their LDP counterparts.

While the law's advocates stressed the importance of military satellites to aide the JSDF's expeditionary capabilities, this is basic law is about defending the Japanese homeland. This is a prime example of Japan's pursuit of a "hedgehog" defense policy. As Machimura Nobutaka said at a press conference Wednesday, the idea of Japan using this law for aggressive ends is absurd.

As Ross pointed out here, the US must recognize that "a more capable Japan is a more independent Japan."

Schieffer bemoans Japan's (lack of) defense spending

On Tuesday, J. Thomas Schieffer, US ambassador to Japan, spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, where he called on Japan to spend more on defense.

Judging from the coverage in the foreign and domestic press, it appears that the ambassador spoke bluntly, declaring, "I think the Japanese are getting a bargain in the (US-Japan) alliance on what we bring on the table." The Japanese press seems to have emphasized his remarks on the Asian arms race; both Yomiuri and Sankei note little on the remarks other than that the ambassador called attention to rising defense expenditures in China, Russia, and South Korea at the same time that Japan's have continued to drop. (AP and Bloomberg also focus mostly on the regional dimensions of his remarks.)

The problem is not the message but the messenger. The US government has been urging Japan to spend more on its defense for decades (a half-century of remorse for giving Japan Article 9). What will these remarks achieve that decades of prodding haven't? Does the US have a solution to Japan's fiscal crisis that will give Japan the budget room to spend more on defense? What good is accomplished by telling the Japanese government to spend more on defense at the same time that it's trying to pay down the national debt and overhaul the welfare state?

How about some creative solutions for getting more out of what Japan is already spending on defense? Laudably, Ambassador Schieffer called attention to Japan's woefully corrupt defense procurement process. But what he didn't do is look at the US role in encouraging Japan to free or cheap ride on US defense expenditures. It is hard for the US government to complain about Japanese cheap-riding with some 40,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan. Japan has had no incentive to change its behavior thanks to the US security guarantee. As such, I would be more impressed if the ambassador spoke on what the US can do to change the incentives. For example, the US government could offer to renegotiate the 2006 realignment agreement and free Japan from paying for the relocation, which would both free up money for the Japanese government and hasten the realignment process (which should in turn force the Japanese government to reassess its defense policy in light of the III MEF moving 1500 miles eastward).

Ambassador Schieffer's remarks are probably harmless — it's easy enough for Tokyo to ignore them. But is this any way to run the alliance? Given that the budgetary (and legal) constraints on Japanese foreign and defense policy are unlikely to change in the short and medium terms, it would be better for the US and Japan to discuss how to make the most of existing capabilities and determine why exactly the alliance exists in the twenty-first century, a discussion that's been delayed (at least at senior levels) for too long.

Deflating the F-22

Over at Wired's Danger Room blog, covering defense technology, Noah Shachtman writes of the long, weird history of the development of the F-22, noting that as the price of the F-22 went up, the US Air Force had to derive new roles for what was originally intended as solely an air superiority fighter.

In discussing the efficacy of the F-22, Shachtman cites a revealing remark by USAF General Ronald Keys on where the F-22 can be deployed: "If war breaks out, I'm sending the F-22...But not for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. I didn't buy the F-22 for Iraq. We're looking for what can sop up intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance [ISR] in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is the investment [of sending the F-22] worth it? Is it a good idea or just an attractive idea? Will it complicate the air component commander's problems for no gain?"

As such, concerns about Japanese interest in purchasing the F-22 for the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force — such as the three articles published by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo (found here, here, and here) — are, for the moment, vastly overblown. Given the natural reluctance to use a fighter aircraft with a $300 million price tag when another plane might do the job, one has to wonder if Japan would go through with the purchase of a fleet of F-22s when what it needs is a durable workhorse, not a fighter so advanced that it nearly crashed when its systems failed while crossing the international dateline.

The future of the Japanese RMA

The Yomiuri Shimbun reported today on the release of a report by the Japanese Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute providing a medium- to long-term technology estimate, essentially outlining the future of the Japanese variant of the revolution in military affairs.

The question is, essentially, how will technology impact Japanese force structure and doctrine.

I have only skimmed the executive brief, but several things jumped out at me.

First, the Defense Ministry expects that restricted defense budgets will continue into the future, even as the security environment changes and the JSDF undertakes more peacekeeping and humanitarian missions abroad, in accordance with "overseas activities" becoming one of the primary missions of the JSDF late last year (at the same time the JDA was elevated to ministry status).

Second, there is a heavy emphasis on robotics and unmanned vehicles (not just aerial drones).

Third, the emphasis is on technology that will strengthen Japanese defensive capabilities, especially against unconventional threats.

As such, the shape of the Japanese RMA, rather than facilitating Japan's becoming a more independent military power, will support military cooperation in the US-Japan alliance. The Defense Ministry is not planning on the development of technology that will undergird an independent Japanese deterrent (conventional or nuclear). Instead, there is a heavy emphasis on advanced sensors and other technologies that will create "systems of systems" among units in a given battlespace.

In any case, it's worth a look.

Japan's unchanging defense budget

Courtesy of Japan Probe, I came across this summary of Abe's interview with the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have focused more on defense matters than the Washington Post/Newsweek interview.

Abe apparently told the WSJ that Japan does not plan to raise its defense spending to match China's growing defense expenditures, which, the article reports, have actually been falling in Japan for the past five years. This is yet another reminder that for Japan, normalization is a legal process, not a rearmament process -- changing the software of Japanese security policy, not necessarily the hardware.

Accordingly, I wonder how Japan's defense budget will accommodate the purchase of F-22s (which are not even for sale yet) to replace the ASDF's aging fighter fleet. All the more reason for Japan to desire a readjustment of its contributions to the relocation of US Marines to Guam.

But all in all, Abe's remarks serve as a reminder that Japan -- with or without the US -- is hardly prepared to balance against China. "Coopetition" will remain the watchword of the regional security environment for decades to come.