After the launch

In the wake of North Korea's Unha-2 launch Sunday, the Japanese establishment and public have uniformly reacted with a sense of outrage and a desire for an vigorous Japanese and international response to the test.

With substantial public support — 78% of respondents in a Yomiuri poll — the government is investigating tightening sanctions and plans to secure a cabinet decision authorizing further sanctions on 10 April. The Aso government is also working with the US and South Korean governments to secure a new UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's actions over Chinese and Russian doubts. Sankei reports that in its work to assemble a coalition in support of the resolution, the foreign ministry is not looking for new sanctions to be included in the UN resolution, as a means of making the resolution more attractive to China and Russia.

Other Japanese are thinking beyond sanctions and resolutions. Nakagawa Shoichi, the disgraced former finance minister and leading conservative in the LDP, responded to the launch on Sunday by once again calling for a debate on acquiring nuclear weapons. (He most recently did so after the October 2006 nuclear test, when he was head of the LDP's policy research council — at which time Aso Taro, then foreign minister, joined him in calling for a debate on acquiring a nuclear arsenal.) To my knowledge, Jiji is the only news outlet that reported on Nakagawa's comments. The Tokyo Shimbun reports that he spoke only of a debate about how Japan can defend itself, and suggesting that it should consider acquiring the ability to strike at "enemy bases." I'm inclined to believe that Jiji's report is correct: why would Nakagawa be any more discreet now than he was when he had an official position? No longer a leader of the LDP's conservatives, his words carry less weight, but he still provides insight into how Japan's conservatives think about the region. After all, Nakagawa's remarks echo what Tamogami Toshio, former ASDF chief of staff and the new darling of the right, has said about nuclear weapons. In an interview with Sankei last November, Tamogami spoke of the deterrent effect of even publicly considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons — and suggested that ruling out the acquisition of nuclear weapons from the start weakens deterrence. More recently, in a conversation with defense affairs commentator Ushio Masato (a former ASDF airman, trustee of Sakurai Yoshiko's think tank the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, and regular in the pages of Sapio, Seiron, and Shokun!) published as the book「自衛隊はどこまで強いのか」(To what extent is the JSDF strong?), Tamogami calls for the acquisition of ballistic missiles as the best way to negotiate with North Korea and says that "the most effective way for Japan to become an independent country is to be nuclear-armed."

The conservative argument has little to do with North Korea's test, which was once again a failure, albeit less of a failure than July 2006, when its Taepodong-2 dropped into the Sea of Japan within a minute of launch. This time it managed to drop the first stage before the second and third fell into the Pacific. (Geoffrey Forden considers North Korea's progress in missile development here.) Despite no tangible change in US deterrent capabilities or the US commitment to Japan's defense — by all accounts US-Japan cooperation went smoothly in anticipation of the launch — the conservatives are agitating about Japan's vulnerabilties. For example, Sankei, in a news article that reads more like an article in a conservative opinion magazine, writes of the "possibility that data collected by the US military will not be adequately transferred" to Japan. As Tamogami's remarks above suggest, the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not about — or not only about — their deterrent value. Nor it is about the nature of the North Korean threat, which has gotten no worse as a result of the latest launch. (And, MTC suggests, the missile threat may be less worrisome than the ability of North Korean agents to cause havoc on Japanese soil.)

It is be about Japan's being able to defend itself without having to worry about the reliability of the US-Japan alliance. Conservatives like Nakagawa and Tamogami would be calling for more robust military capabilities even if the rocket launch had failed immediately after liftoff as in 2006. (We should be thankful that Tamogami is so open with his thoughts.)

All that has changed is that for the moment the eyes of the news media and the Japanese people are on North Korea.

Nevertheless, the conservative position has little public support. A new Shin-Hodo 2001 poll found 19.4% of respondents in favor of Japan's going nuclear and 72.8% opposed. (By comparison, a Hodo 2001 poll released on 15 October 2006, after the nuclear test, found 82.6% opposed to Japan's going nuclear and only 13.8% in favor: A slight shift, but for now probably not a significant shift.)

But will the legal and economic measures favored by the government and the public make any difference? What can Japan and the other participants in the six-party talks realistically do in response to North Korea's launch, other than protest?

As Mainichi reports, further sanctions will have little effect due to earlier sanctions on trade between Japan and North Korea. Economic sanctions on North Korea strikes me as the economic equivalent of "making the rubble bounce." The same holds true, even more so, for further US sanctions or even a reversion to a hardline on North Korea. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, has insisted that if the UN does nothing in response to a clear violation of UNSC Resolution 1718 it will weaken the six-party talks, which may or may not be true but shows that the Obama administration will likely press on with talks, although Yomiuri claims to see evidence of a US shift to a harder line.

Joshua Stanton suggests that there are a number of tools at the Obama administration's disposal, including a number of financial measures that could choke off the regime's access to hard currency from abroad. Maybe so, but at what cost? As Fred Kaplan argues at Slate, the US has no good options for dealing with the DPRK. The six-party talks will not result in denuclearization, not any time soon at least. Ignoring North Korea raises the prospect that North Korea will up the ante in its bid for attention. Boxing in the regime, as recommended by Stanton, presumably raises the risk of the regime lashing out in desperation — or, worse yet, that the regime will collapse for the US and its neighbors are prepared to deal with the consequences of regime collapse (a contingency that the US and North Korea's neighbors, China especially, should be devoting considerable energy to preparing for). There is no good option available to the US, Japan, and South Korea in the absence of more Chinese pressure, which may not be as viable an option as Kaplan suggests it is.

The only course of action may be getting a token resolution out of the Security Council and delaying a bit before resuming the six-party talks, and preparing for the possibility of regime collapse, in the meantime doing whatever possible to coax North Korea open in the hope of making collapse marginally less dangerous for North Korea's neighbors and less jarring for the downtrodden people of the DPRK.

And as for Japan, it ought to be less worried about its deterrent capabilities than about fixing the defense ministry, which over the weekend once again revealed its problems with handling information.

Rocket launched; Japan breathes again

The Aso government got its wish: North Korea launched its rocket, with the first stage said to have landed off the coast of Akita prefecture and the second said to have landed in the Pacific Ocean.

After weeks of posturing, there was no attempt to intercept the debris.

It is unclear whether North Korea successfully delivered a satellite into orbit, as it said it would.

The US, Japan, and South Korea will now go to the UN Security Council as planned, citing the launch as a violation of UNSC resolution 1718. There will be some question of whether China will join the others in condemning the launch. China and Russia expressed reluctance to declare North Korea in violation of res. 1718 because it had followed procedures — notifying the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization of its impending launch — and gave indictations that it was "just" a satellite launch, even though the implications of a successful launch have obvious implications for North Korea's missile arsenal. (As an aside, I suspect that Japanese conservatives are happy with a successful launch, thinking that it will render the US as vulnerable to North Korea missile strikes as Japan, narrowing the distance between the US and Japan on North Korea.)

China always walks a fine line in its relationship with North Korea, and this case will be no different. China will likely stop short of supporting a new resolution condemning North Korea or supporting new sanctions — both Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were cool to the urgings of Prime Minister Aso and Foreign Minister Nakasone on the sidelines of the G20 in London — but I wouldn't be surprised if Beijing used one of its own back channels with Pyongyang to express its displeasure.

The DPJ pushes on all fronts

In the midst of chaos in the LDP, the DPJ has been working to press its advantage on all fronts in anticipation of an early election for the House of Representatives. At the grass roots, the party leadership has directed young members to return to their districts to campaign — and bear the message of the need for a quick general election, regardless of who the next prime minister is. Mr. Ozawa has in fact signaled that in mid-October he is set to undertake another trip around the country, ostensibly to thank voters in rural prefectures for their support in the Upper House election but also to bolster the DPJ's support in advance of another election upon which Mr. Ozawa is "staking his political life."

Meanwhile, on the legislative front, the DPJ made clear in Upper House budget hearings this week that it intends to trim the pork from the budget, while bureaucrats signaled that they would perform the necessary nemawashi with the DPJ, working with DPJ legislators to formulate the budget and related policies. (It's not like the ministries have much of a choice.)

Finally, on the foreign policy front, the DPJ has dismissed the UNSC resolution that included a line thanking Japan for its support in the Indian Ocean, with Mr. Hatoyama once again condemning the government's lobbying for the expression of thanks as "deplorable" and "shameful."

At the same time, Sankei's Komori Yoshihisa has responded to the DPJ's "UN-centered foreign policy" with a broadside that asks whether the "UN can defend Japan" or "prevent war." Now, I don't disagree. In fact, I've criticized the DPJ for the same — a UN-centered security policy is not a security policy, it is the absence of a security policy. But should the alternative be remaining dependent on the US? Komori's own basis for criticizing the UN is the lack of support Japan has received from the UN on the abductions issue. Fine, but the US hasn't exactly been sticking its neck out on the issue either. In other words, Japan's foreign policy should not and dare I say will not be all or nothing at all. It should use the UN when it suits its purposes, it should maintain a healthy relationship with the US (in which Japan is free to disagree with the US without fearing for its security), and it should develop a panoply of relationships within the region to maximize its flexibility as an actor in the Asia-Pacific. It is useless to spend one's energy tearing down the UN — or, for that matter, the US-Japan alliance. As an increasingly middling power in a region of giants, Japan will be best served by expanding its options, which will mean embracing any and every tool and mechanism that enables Japan to wield influence in the region and globally. (And given that the region will not be neatly divided along clear battle lines, this approach is well suited to Asia in the twenty-first century.)

I think the DPJ is groping in the direction of a Japanese foreign policy that would follow these lines; it just needs to do a better job articulating it.

Thanks Japan!

The UN Security Council has passed its latest resolution authorizing the activities of the ISAF in Afghanistan, and, as I discussed yesterday, took care to thank Japan for its contribution to Operating Enduring Freedom.

There's very little of note regarding this resolution, except that for the first time it did not pass unanimously — Russia decided to abstain, arguing that OEF is beyond what the UN is capable of supporting.

Will this latest resolution make any difference in the debate in Japan? If the previous resolutions passed by the Security Council authorizing coalition activities in Afghanistan were not enough for Mr. Ozawa, I doubt that this latest measure, with its cloying attempt to coax Japan's continuing involvement, will make any difference.

But there you have it: the UN officially appreciates Japan's Indian Ocean gas station. (And if you think this is just me being unfairly dismissive, a certain prominent Tokyo University academic and public intellectual described it in just those terms when we spoke last year.)

Anti-terror bill fight moves to the UN?

Calling the DPJ's bluff, the government is apparently changing its approach on the extension of the MSDF mission by seeking the passage of an UNSC resolution that will thank Japan for its contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom.

Somehow I don't think that's the kind of resolution Mr. Ozawa has in mind when he argues that Japan's contributions abroad must follow a UNSC resolution. Mr. Hatoyama, DPJ secretary-general, dismissed the idea of a resolution thanking Japan resulting from the Japanese government's lobbying as a "farce," and Asao Keiichiro, the DPJ shadow defense minister, said, "Just expressing gratitude is meaningless." [Full disclosure: I was an employee of Mr. Asao's until recently.]

This latest ploy to get the mission extended strikes me as absurd. Short of inventing a time machine and going back to 2001 to convince President Bush to get a UN resolution explicitly authorizing the US campaign in Afghanistan beforehand, I doubt there's a thing the UN Security Council can do at this point to the save the government the embarrassment of having to bring its ships home November 2nd.

Beyond the specific issue of the anti-terror law, however, Mr. Ozawa should clarify precisely what kind of UN sanction he thinks is necessary in order for Japan to be able to send its armed forces abroad — does he really envision more clear-cut scenarios like the first Gulf crisis? If so, his foreign policy stance is nothing but the abdication of a foreign policy, raising the bar for Japanese contributions to international missions to prohibitive heights.

In the meantime, the government should probably have a better plan than begging the UN for a fig-leaf "gratitude" resolution. Going to the UN first might have made a difference in the debate over the bill, but now after weeks of sniping across the Pacific, the government will not be saved by a scrap of paper bearing the UN seal.