Koike versus the "soft liners"

On Tuesday, Koike Yuriko, former defense minister and aspirant to the LDP presidency, announced her resignation as chair of the LDP's special committee on base countermeasures.

She told the media that her resignation was intended as a protest against the decision to soften the language on preemption in the LDP Policy Research Council's defense division in the recommendations for this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) sent to Prime Minister Asō Tarō this month. She sees the longstanding doctrine of "nonaggressive defense" as injurious to the national defense, unacceptably tying the government's hands in addressing threats to Japanese national security.

Koike has a point: if Japan is to acquire the capabilities to strike at "enemy bases," it might as well be straightforward about the circumstances in which it intends to use said capabilities. What is the deterrent value, after all, of capabilities that Japan may or may not use if faced with an imminent missile launch?

This feud may be indicative of what I thought the response to the remarks (mentioned here) by Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, would be among LDP members. While it is unclear at what point the language was softened to rule out preemptive strikes even while calling for capabilities to strike enemy bases, Ambassador Cui's remarks surely reinforced concerns by LDP members like Yamasaki Taku that Japan must be careful about sending the wrong signals abroad — while reinforcing the resolve of hawks like Koike who unabashedly want Japan to be ready and able to carry out preemptive strikes.

Naturally there is also the question of Koike hopes to achieve by resigning her post in this fashion. She has reinserted herself into the discussion of a hot-button issue just as the Asō government has entered into what might be its endgame. She has taken a hardline position on an issue of prime importance to Asō's conservative backers, perhaps in hope of prying their support away should the prime minister be forced out before an election. Of course, I am not questioning the sincerity of her beliefs — just the timing and form of her protest.

It's a small step, but it could be an important one. If Asō does not survive long enough to lead the LDP into the general election, the conservatives might reason that backing Koike is a way to ensure that their approach to North Korea and national security generally enjoy top priority in the LDP's election campaign — while allowing Koike to take the fall should the LDP lose disastrously in the general election. (Of course, I remain skeptical that the prime minister's critics will be able to force him out before a general election.)

Meanwhile, I am curious about the political salience of the debate over preemption in the LDP. Curiously, I have yet to see a single poll that asked respondents for their opinion on the idea of preemptive strikes and the acquisition of capabilities in order to carry out attacks on North Korean bases. I suspect that there's little interest in the issue as a priority, especially if respondents were informed that acquiring new capabilities would entail greater defense spending, but I am keen to see some data on this question. If a poll has asked this question and I've missed it, do send it my way. Otherwise, the question remains: why no polling on preemption?

There is another question in the preemption debate that advocates like Koike have not addressed forthrightly. Can Japan actually preempt a possible North Korean attack? Jiji calls attention to a recent report by the International Crisis Group that suggests that North Korea has an estimated 320 Rodong intermediate range ballistic missiles on mobile launchers directed at Japan, exceeding the previous estimate of 200. Would Japan be able to find these missiles, let alone destroy them? Have Koike and other hawks made an honest assessment of what capabilities Japan will realistically need to possess in order to carry out this mission? If Japan is to have a proper debate about preemption versus deterrence, the advocates of preemption ought to be honest about what the JSDF would need to possess — and what such an arms program would cost.

For now, all I see is posturing from politicians like Koike about how Japan lacks a "true national defense."

Is Japan balancing?

"Randy Waterhouse," the nom de blog of a contributor to the political science group blog Duck of Minerva, looks to Japan in a discussion of when and why states balance against other states.

As I wrote in April, the lack of Japanese balancing behavior is the great puzzle in Japanese security policy since the end of the cold war. Waterhouse considers the possibility that North Korea — as opposed to China — is leading Japan to pursue a balancing strategy. He considers threatening signals from North Korea as a source of "perturbations" (borrowing a concept from Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies) that will trigger Japanese balancing behavior against North Korea.

There are a few problems with this argument. First, while the DPRK is in a sense be "revisionist" in that it wholly rejects the prevailing international order, as a small, impoverished, isolated country dependent on its neighbors to feed its people and having little more than its nuclear weapons, its missiles, and its wits to depend on for survival it hardly constitutes a revisionist power in the sense outlined by Robert Gilpin. North Korea may be revisionist in rhetoric, but do states balance against rhetoric or reach? The idea — implied but not explicitly stated by Waterhouse — is that Japanese conservatives can balance against the state that may one day become a revisionist power if it is not one already (see Alastair Iain Johnston's consideration of this question here) by using the DPRK as a stand-in for China. Policy decisions made to cope with North Korea could serve as a "down payment" on a balancing strategy against China. Or not: as Waterhouse notes, there is a difference between reactionary balancing and long-term balancing. And while Waterhouse argues that elites interested in a more robust security posture are treating North Korea's recent behavior as a catalyst, certain conservatives make no secret of their desire to balance against China. A recent Sankei editorial on the LDP subcommittee's draft NDPG points to China's rise to second place in the SIPRI index of defense spending to make the case for reversing cuts in Japan's defense spending, a call echoed in an op-ed by Sassa Atsuyuki, the first head of the Cabinet's national security office, who calls for an increase in defense spending to 1.5% of GDP (but does not mention China). Japan's desire to purchase the F-22 is explicitly connected to a desire to balance against Chinese airpower. Despite the positive developments in the Sino-Japanese relationship, the China threat thesis is alive and well among the Japanese elites arguing for a more robust security policy. North Korea's actions may help make the case for balancing, but that does not mean that elites using Chinese behavior too.

There is a bigger question in this debate, namely how do we know when a state is balancing? What mix of policies would constitute a Japanese balancing strategy? Waterhouse essentially assumes that any change to the status quo in Japanese security policy would constitute balancing. But there has been plenty of change in Japanese security policy in the past twenty years, but it is debateable whether these changes constitute balancing. Japan may have opted for some balancing: the decision made by Japanese officials in 1994-1995 to keep the US-Japan alliance at the center of Japanese security policy (and to "strengthen" the alliance) was a response to the uncertainty surrounding China's rise, although US and Japanese officials were careful to not mention China when discussing the redefinition of the alliance. In other words, it is possible to argue that Japan has opted for external balancing over internal balancing, which would entail sweeping legal changes and (presumably) an expensive rearmament program that would give Japan greater autonomy from the US to cope with an uncertain regional environment. Nearly a decade of stagnant defense spending in areas aside from missile defense and host nation support — i.e., defense spending directly connected to the alliance — means that autonomy has become increasingly costly for Japan, which may in turn explain why Japanese elites are especially sensitive to recent signals emanating from Washington.

But that being said, there are other explanations for Japan's decision to embrace the alliance that have less to do with balancing and more to do with institutionalist arguments: Japan opted to renew the alliance after the cold war because there was a certain degree of path dependency. While it appeared as if Japan was making a choice between the US-Japan alliance, greater autonomy, and greater independence within the UN and other multilateral organizations, the choice may have been a false one. Japan may have reaffirmed the alliance simply because the balance of power among domestic actors was overwhelmingly in favor of doing so, with little thought to the strategic implications of this choice versus other choices.

Is this about to change? With the defense division of the LDP's Policy Research Council approving its subcommittee's draft NDPG that recommends the acquisition of preemptive strike capabilities — most notably cruise missiles — it is possible that Japan is preparing to shift from external balancing to internal balancing. Prime Minister Aso is favorably disposed to the proposal, although his defense minister, Hamada Yasukazu, is more cautious (triggering two blog posts from Komori Yoshihisa criticizing Hamada for being too soft). But Hamada's caution suggests that there may be skeptics within the LDP who could prevent the government from making a radical break with the status quo. (And there's a strong possibility that the LDP will not be in power long enough to oversee the publication of the new NDPG in December.)

In short, Waterhouse is right to look at domestic politics as a source of Japanese balancing behavior, but he understates the extent to which Japan may have already opted for a particular balancing strategy via the US-Japan alliance, and the extent to which domestic politics constrains political actors who want Japan to embark on a substantial and expensive rearmament program.

Pushback on preemption

Prime Minister Asō Tarō and a group of national security hawks in the LDP may be pushing hard for the inclusion of preemptive capabilities in this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), but it appears that while there is little opposition from within the LDP, the Aso government may yet have some difficulty getting its way on preemption.

The LDP's campaign for preemptive capabilities is part of a broader national security program compiled by a subcommittee of the national defense division of the party's Policy Research Council. In addition to the acquisition of preemptive defense capabilities — which the subcommittee maintains is critical to strengthening the US-Japan alliance — the draft calls for reversing cuts in defense spending, permitting collective self-defense, creating a "Japanese-style" National Security Council, relaxing the three arms-exporting principles to permit joint development, and altering Japan's policies on the defense of outlying islands.

Not surprisingly, Komeitō's leadership has aired its skepticism about both preemptive defense and a new law in the works on the inspection of North Korean vessels.

Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, criticized the calls for preemptive defense as being unhelpful for resolving the North Korean crisis.

It is unlikely that Ambassador Cui's criticism will do much to stymie the debate on preemptive self-defense — it is possible that he might convince some risk-averse LDP members to question the wisdom of significant changes to Japan's security posture, although, at the same time, his interjection has undoubtedly stiffened the resolve of the LDP's hawks. Komeitō opposition is more significant, at least in terms of having the power to prevent the government from embracing the proposed national defense program or, should Asō embrace the program, soften it considerably. Does Komeitō need to do anything more than remind the LDP of the importance of its votes in the forthcoming election in order to receive concessions from the LDP on security policy?

The question is whether public attitudes towards North Korea have shifted markedly since 2007. In 2007, then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzō sought to implement a national security agenda similarly to the agenda now under consideration. Much like today, Abe could appeal to "evidence" of a North Korean threat in the form of North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, at that time the July 2006 missile launches and the October 2006 nuclear test. He had control of both houses and was largely indifferent to Komeitō's interests. And yet he was unable to do anything more than convene an advisory group on collective self-defense, failed to pass legislation that would create a Japanese-style NSC, failed to reverse the decline in defense spending, and did nothing about preemptive self-defense capabilities. If Abe could not succeed in implementing this program, it seems highly unlikely that Asō will succeed where Abe failed, certainly not without an extraordinary and unexpected victory in this year's election.

The question is whether North Korea's latest actions have produced a tipping point in the Japanese public's approach to North Korea. Have North Korea's second launch over Japan and second nuclear test — combined with unease about the US-Japan alliance following the Bush administration's about-face on North Korea — made the Japanese public more favorably disposed to the conservative national security agenda?

Amazingly, I have yet to see a public opinion poll that has asked respondents about preemptive self-defense capabilities and an accompanying increase in defense spending, but I suspect that elite opinion is more favorably predisposed to preemptive self-defense and the other planks of the LDP subcommittee's program than the public at large. The latest public opinion polls on the alliance — mentioned in this post — recorded growing public unease about the alliance, but it is unlikely that public unease matches that found among elites. Is the public so much more afraid of North Korea and abandonment by the US in the face of North Korean threats today than in October 2006 that it is willing to sign off on the conservative agenda? Not, I suspect, if the public sees the price tag.

Could the Asō government tie the hands of a potential DPJ government on this question? I suspect not. If the government takes steps in the waning weeks of its tenure to include subcommittee's program into the NDPG, the DPJ may be inclined to delay the NDPG in order to start from scratch, so to leave its own stamp on the program.

Of course, the DPJ may in fact be open to preemption, if not to greater military spending in the near term. Autonomous defense capabilities geared to preemptive self-defense flow logically from the DPJ's rhetoric on defense and the US-Japan alliance.

But ultimately the DPJ will be bound by the public — and the public may not be willing to commit to drastic changes in Japan's defense posture, North Korea's saber rattling and doubts about the US commitment notwithstanding. A DPJ-led government, desperate to consolidate its power and likely dependent on the SDPJ, will hardly be more able to implement far-reaching changes to Japanese security policy than Asō and the LDP, hobbled by intra-party divisions, its dependence on Komeitō, and dismal public approval figures.

It is far from inevitable that Asō and the hawks will get their way.