Drowning in noise

While Japan waited anxiously Saturday to see whether North Korea would launch its rocket, the day ended up being notable for the defense ministry's mistakenly informing the public not once but twice that launch had occurred.

Yomiuri has the details on how the public came to be misinformed. The first mistake, which occurred around 10am Saturday, resulted from a computer glitch at the GSDF command center in Tokyo, which resulted in some 900 JSDF personnel receiving emails announcing that a launch had been detected, including one GSDF officer in Akita, who proceeded to inform local authorities of the launch. The second mistake, at around noon, was the result of a misunderstanding by the Air Self-Defense Forces officer responsible for missile defense, who thought that a report received from air defense command in Tokyo was based on information from US early warning satellites, when in fact it came from a J/FPS-5 radar station in Chiba that had detected "some kind of wake." The ASDF officer informed the Kantei's crisis management center, which then informed the media and some local governments via its M-net system.

Geoffrey Forden has more about the Chiba station and another station in Shimonoseki. As for the Chiba station, Yomiuri reports that its location poses some difficulty due to the Japan Alps lying between Chiba and North Korea. Due to geography, the radar is detecting with a 4-6 degree angle of elevation, which apparently prevented the station from tracking North Korea's 2006 missile launches, which were about 100 kilometers too low. But as Yomiuri notes, the mistake had less to do with the radar than with human error: neither the ASDF officer who received the report nor the defense ministry's central command post confirmed that the information had come from US spy satellites. They ought to have been suspicious, because reportedly an alarm would sound when data was received from the US — and beyond that, they could have checked on a US-Japan computer system for sharing information.

The result was confusion and alarm in localities throughout Japan. Apparently the public is paying more attention to the government's extensive and visible preparations than to its messages telling the public to remain calm and minimizing the danger of falling debris. To some degree, the confusion was the result of over-preparedness. In their desire to deliver information to the public has swiftly as possible, local governments have neglected safeguards that would check for accuracy before issuing announcements. The speed with which corrections were issued caused further confusion.

The government was quick to apologize for the mistakes, and continued to stress its readiness — and urged the Japanese people to carry on with their daily lives. But yesterday's follies will likely dog the government for weeks and months to come.

On Saturday afternoon, Hatoyama Yukio, DPJ secretary-general, criticized the government for needlessly alarming the public, sentiments echoed by the JCP, SDPJ, and PNP. The government also faced criticism from within the governing coalition. I have already mentioned Komeito's rapid-fire criticism, which was echoed by LDP members. As an unnamed LDP defense zoku with cabinet experience said: "As this has made Japan's troubles with its crisis management capabilities public, it's extremely unpleasant."

Yomiuri's anonymous zoku giin alludes to an important point, namely that both the Japanese government and the Japanese people are not prepared for this sort of thing, despite their experience with disaster preparedness. How often have the JSDF personnel responsible for handling and conveying information received from Japanese radar sites and US satellites drilled for a missile launch? And this is a situation in which North Korea has provided a launch window. Would the JSDF be ready in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula which resulted in missiles being launched at Japan unannounced? It is fortunate that the errors were on the side of overcaution, but, of course, there's always the danger that these mistakes will result in the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome.

In that sense, Japan should be thankful that North Korea is stress testing Japan's national emergency response system. Of course, the Aso government won't see it that way, as I suspect that in the aftermath of Saturday's fiasco the DPJ will use its control of the upper house to launch an inquiry into what precisely went wrong and perhaps the Aso government's handling of the launch more generally. The last thing the government had hoped for when going all out in its preparations for the launch would be comments from the public wondering how these mistakes happened "despite Japan's high technology." But I hope — and the Japanese people should hope — that a public inquiry into Saturday's events reveals precisely what went wrong in the JSDF and the defense ministry, and offers recommendations for improving Japan's ability to respond to national security emergencies. Hopefully Saturday's mistakes also reinvigorate the process of defense ministry reform, as the ministry has shown once again that its information handling skills are gravely deficient.

Undoubtedly the Aso government must be hoping that North Korea launches its rocket on Sunday, that information about the launch is received, processed, and disseminated seamlessly, and that no debris falls in Japan's direction. Saturday's mishaps may have been enough to halt the rally the Aso government has enjoyed lately; further mishaps could send Aso's approval ratings back into the single digits.

And in the midst of all the focus on North Korea, Ozawa Ichiro must be breathing a sigh of relief now that the media's gaze has shifted elsewhere. Suddenly there are more important concerns than whether Ozawa and his secretary knew that they were receiving dirty money from a construction company.

Japan's security kabuki

The Taepodong-2 rocket — because, as Jun Okumura rightly notes, it is not a missile unless it is used a weapon — North Korea claims will deliver a satellite into orbit is on the launch site, awaiting a launch that will reportedly occur between 6 and 8 April. Japan is in a state of alarm.

The Aso government and the LDP have used the prospective launch to show its decisiveness. In anticipation of the launch, a joint session of the LDP Policy Research Council's defense division, national security investigative committee, and base countermeasures ad hoc committee recommended on 24 March that Japan prepare to intercept debris from the rocket falling on Japan with either seaborne SM-3 interceptors or, failing that, land-based PAC-3 interceptors. That same day the LDP-Komeito North Korean missile problem countermeasures headquarters reviewed the government's options in responding to the launch, stressing cooperation at the UN Security Council and commitment to the Six-Party talks as well as the possibility of more sanctions on North Korea, while preparing Japan's missile defenses and opening lines of communication with localities in advance of the missile launch.

On 25 March, the chief cabinet secretary and the foreign and defense ministers discussed and agreed upon Japan's response and on 27 March, the cabinet discussed Japan's response and Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu issued an order deploying Japan's missile defenses in preparation for destroying any debris that might fall on Japan, at the same time that Prime Minister Aso sought to reassure the public that the government is doing everything in its power to minimize the danger from the launch.

Since issuing the order, the JSDF has sprung into action. On the morning of 28 March, the Kongo and the Chokai, Aegis-equipped destroyers armed with SM-3s, departed from Sasebo to take up positions in the Sea of Japan. A third Aegis-equipped destroyer, the Kirishima, deployed from Yokosuka to Japan's Pacific coast from where it will track the flight of the rocket. Meanwhile, PAC3 interceptors arrived in Akita and Iwate prefectures on Monday evening, although not without incident. (Akita and Iwate have been designated as risk zones for falling debris.) The government has also made plans for recovering debris should it fall offshore.

All of this may be for naught. As one senior government official had the courage to suggest in the midst of the government's ostentatious preparations, despite missile defense system trials, there is no guarantee that Japan's missile defenses will work under real conditions. The MSDF is one for two in SM-3 trials, while the US Navy is thirteen for sixteen, but not only were the tests conducted in controlled settings, but Japan's missile defense system is intended for North Korea's medium-range missiles, not errant pieces of a long-range rocket. Foreign Minister Nakasone Hirofumi acknowledged the difficulty on 24 March, but that was before the government decided to order preparations for a most unlikely interception and he has since backtracked on his skepticism, stating in Diet proceedings that "it is natural for Japan" to intercept the debris given the fears of damage to lives and property. And even if the JSDF manages to intercept the debris, the defense minister admitted that there is still the risk of damage should the remaining fragments fall on Japanese territory.

The Japanese government's very public preparations are akin to the post-9/11 rituals of airport security (derisively referred to as "security theater"), the repetitive, cosmetic measures implemented by the federal government that many have argued provide the illusion of aviation security rather than actual security. Even as senior officials, including a cabinet minister, questioned Japan's ability to shoot down ballistic missiles, let alone unguided missile debris, the Aso government has made a public show of acting as if it is only natural that Japan's relatively untested missile defenses will be up to the task, all the while assuring the public that they have nothing to fear. Arguably the government's response has only heightened the sense of alarm, especially among residents of the prefectures now hosting JSDF PAC3s. More importantly, the Aso government's security kabuki — to coin a phrase — may undermine Japan's security over the long term. What will the public response be should debris fall on Japan and the JSDF spectacularly fail to intercept it, especially if the falling debris is the source of casualties or property damage? Japanese might — unfairly given that the system isn't designed to shoot down debris — come to question the government's substantial outlays on missile defense.

The comparison with the US response is revealing. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated plainly in a television appearance that the US will not attempt to shoot down the missile, even as the US Navy has deployed its own Aegis-equipped warships to the Sea of Japan. The US has, of course, agreed with Japan and South Korea to refer the missile launch to the UN Security Council as a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1718, but the US has refrained from a premature overreaction to the pending launch, wisely I think. Gates's remarks are indicative of a certain degree of powerlessness on the part of the US, Japan, and the other participants in the Six-Party talks, with the partial exception of China. It appears that all are in a holding pattern, following North Korea's failure to deliver on last year's commitments, waiting for something — most likely a leadership change in Pyongyang — to break the stalemate. I just hope that the five parties are planning for that eventuality.

I recognize that the Japanese government is unable to treat the rocket launch as nonchalantly as the US, by virtue of geography (the US, after all, doesn't have to worry about debris falling on its territory), public opinion (overwhelmly supportive of the government's response, according to a Sankei poll — even JCP supporters tended to be more supportive than not), path dependency (having pursued a hard line up until now, the government could hardly do otherwise), a desire to somehow rectify Japan's unpreparedness when North Korea launched a Taepodong-1 over Japan in 1998, and Prime Minister Aso's ideological tendencies. But the government better hope that should North Korea go through with the launch, no debris falls on Japan, because the damage it could cause in the likely event that an attempted intercept fails would be enough to destroy the Aso government, which has enjoyed a slight recovery in its support of late.

For the western press, Japan is always rising

Forbes and AP have run nearly simultaneous articles reviving the "Japan rising" meme that I thought had died with Abe Shinzo's government.

Tim Kelly of Forbes uses the occasion of the commissioning of the Hyuga — previously mentioned in this post — to argue that the launch of Japan's "first aircraft carrier since America dismantled the Imperial Navy a half century ago" is a landmark in Japan's "[creeping] away" from pacifism.

Eric Talmadge, meanwhile, uses the trick of reporting on a US-Japan joint military drill to argue that Japan's military is assuming a "more global role."

The funny thing about Talmadge's article is that it has all the pieces for a very different story, which might be headlined, "Japan remains reluctant to commit military to global role." The story mentions the Somalia dispatch occurring "after much haggling in parliament," "opposition from many Japanese who recall the disaster of the previous century's militarist misadventures" should the government send troops to Afghanistan, a quote from an expert (Eric Heginbotham of RAND) noting that "Japan is still extremely casualty sensitive," and a quote from another expert (Watanabe Tsuneo of the Tokyo Foundation) noting that "there is no consensus among ordinary citizens and politicians." One could take the same quotes and the same facts and write a completely different article talking about Japan's reluctance to play a greater role abroad, while alluding to the possibility of change.

The mistake that both Talmadge and Kelly make is to equate military capabilities with a change in intentions or policy. Kelly's article blithely dismisses the very idea that the Hyuga is anything but an aircraft carrier — and if Japan has an aircraft carrier, it must be interested in expanding its global reach. If Kelly acknowledged that the Hyuga might be something other than an aircraft carrier, as Japanese officials maintain, Kelly would not have a story, because what story is there in "Japan acquires another destroyer?" Talmadge, meanwhile, recognizes that far from enhancing its military capabilities, "Unlike China's double-digit defense spending growth, Japan's has remained flat for years." (In fact, Japan's defense budget has fallen for seven consecutive years, as discussed here.) But he then concludes that Japan has "one of the best-funded and highly regarded militaries in the world." But that is not a new development: Japan has had a high-tech and well-funded military for years. What has changed to merit having this discussion now? Not the Hyuga apparently — Talmadge actually doesn't mention it. (The only mention Kelly makes of Japan's defense spending is that Japan has "a defense budget on par with the more militarily active U.K." and that "if America ever lets Japan buy its latest state-of-the-art warplanes, Asia's pacifist nation has the cash to pay for them.")

Oddly enough, Talmadge's case seems to rest largely on the US-Japan joint missile defense program. But why does he equate a global role with the acquisition of military technology? Missile defense technology is, for Japan, explicitly local, intended "to protect the country — and the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed here — from a potential attack by its unpredictable and often belligerent neighbor, North Korea." Missile defense spending may show that Japan is taking its own defense more seriously, but I would not equate it with Japan's taking a more active global role.

I cannot help but think of everything these articles miss. No mention of the domestic political confusion that has shelved discussions of collective self-defense and constitution revision, which would be far more significant than the acquisition of a helicopter carrier. No mention of the lack of interest among many Japanese in seeing the JSDF used for missions not directly tied to Japan's security, as found in the cabinet's latest defense affairs survey (discussed here). No mention of the Asahi survey finding that many Japanese would like to see the government spend even less on defense than it is spending now. No mention of the smoldering debate between the LDP and the DPJ over Ozawa Ichiro's suggestion that perhaps Japan should consider taking greater responsibility for its own defense, while insisting that he literally meant own defense — a more robust JSDF would not be used abroad.

The puzzling thing about Japanese security policy is not that Japan has become so much more active but that it is still doing so little, despite the best efforts of some US and Japanese policymakers (and journalists like Talmadge and Kelly) to paint a picture of East Asia as unremittingly bleak and threatening for a "pacifist" country like Japan. It seems that the Japanese people will not be scared into becoming "normal." The public would still rather cheap ride on the US security guarantee, with greater role in self-defense a second-best option. But even in doing more to defend itself Japan might still not become the active global power of Talmadge's article. It is easy to imagine a Japan bristling with high-tech weapons for its maritime and air self-defense forces, intended to ensure that no intruders enter Japanese waters or airspace, perhaps while still sending unarmed contributions to UN missions abroad.

For once it would be nice to read an article about Japanese security policy from a mainstream media outlet that acknowledges that Japan is not on a linear trajectory to becoming a "normal" nation, that the lack of a public consensus on security policy is not simply something that will disappear with time; it is a fixture of the landscape that Japanese and US policymakers must acknowledge when considering the future of Japanese security policy.

Sailing to Somalia

Two Maritime Self-Defense Forces (MSDF) destroyers, the Sazanami, last mentioned on this blog when she paid a visit to China last year, and the Samidare, have departed from Kure naval base in Hiroshima prefecture for a four-month tour patrolling for pirates off the horn of Africa. The destroyers are expected to arrive in theater April 5.

The destroyers were dispatched on the basis of an emergency order by the cabinet, which, as I have mentioned previously, the government can do according to Article 82 of the SDF law. At the same time, however, the cabinet has approved an anti-piracy bill to the Diet to put the mission on surer footing. According to the cabinet resolution on the mission and the accompanying bill, the dispatch is to protect Japanese lives and property and ensure public security and order on the high seas.

In short, the Sazanami and the Samidare leave behind a delicate political situation.

The bill that will go before the Diet explicitly permits the MSDF to defend non-Japanese ships at sea and clarifies measures that can be taken by the MSDF to combat piracy. As of now, the MSDF will be permitted to use force in cases of legitimate self-defense, permitting the destroyers to fire warning shots and shots at the hull of pirate ships encountered.

How will the DPJ respond to the government's bill? Nakagawa Hidenao thinks that DPJ members like Nagashima Akihisa, who strongly approved the mission, will lose out to the DPJ left wing (and the SDPJ and PNP, possible DPJ coalition partners). I think there is reason to doubt Nakagawa's assessment.

First, public opinion is strongly in favor of the dispatch. A recently conducted Cabinet survey on the JSDF and defense affairs found that 63.2% of respondents thought that the JSDF should deal with the piracy problem. (The survey concerns more than just the Somalia mission, but I will comment on it at length in a separate post, once I've read it in its entirety.) Sankei suggests that the defense ministry has concluded that the public is favorable to the mission because they recognize the importance of maritime security for Japan. As Prime Minister Aso said in his statement on the cabinet resolution, "Japan is surrounded by ocean, and, moreover, the importance of foreign trade is high because it is dependent on imports for most major resources. The security of ships at sea is extremely important for the Japanese economic system and way-of-life."

Aso's statement mentions a number of other reasons why Japan is contributing ships to the multinational coalition — Japan's responsibilities as a member of the international community, the fact that the multinational coalition is acting under a UN Security Council resolution, and the participation of other major powers, including China, in the coalition — but the thread that runs through it all is the importance of this mission for Japan's national security.

It is for this reason that Ozawa Ichiro and the DPJ will not stand in the way of the cabinet bill. The DPJ will gain little from opposing a mission that the public recognizes is in the national interest, and may even suffer if it is seen as obstructing the government's plans for political reasons. Moreover, if the DPJ opposes the government's legislation, it will show itself to be indifferent to its own principles, which may cost the party public support. As I argued recently, there is a lowest-common-denominator position on foreign and security policy within the DPJ, the product of an agreement between Ozawa and former Socialist Yokomichi Takahiro. One plank of the agreement recognizes the legitimacy of JSDF dispatch provided there is a UN mandate. As Aso noted, Japan is acting in accordance with Resolution 1816. If Ozawa means what he says, he should support this mission.

I suspect the party will question the government, making a show of demanding accountability from the government, and then concede.

What does this dispatch tell us about the state of Japan's national security posture?

Far from being an example of rising Japan, the amount of time Japan took to undertake this mission shows the degree of deliberation with which the government treats every security issue that occurs. Instead of leaping at an opportunity for dispatching forces to participate in a highly visible mission abroad, the government proceeded gingerly.

Indeed, this mission was an easy test for Japan. Participation was overdetermined — participation enables Japan to secure its national interests, and demonstrate its willingness to be an upstanding global citizen and active participant in UN-mandated security missions. It is a high-profile mission in terms of the global media coverage of piracy, meaning that Japan would bear reputational costs for not participating. China was quick to participate, putting pressure on Japan to act lest it appear to be yielding a leadership position to its Asian rival. And the mission is wholly unrelated to the US-Japan alliance, which otherwise complicates Japan's security decisionmaking.

If anything, the fact that it took so long for Japan to commit despite these factors militating in favor of dispatch suggests that Japan is still a long way from being "normal." And I wonder whether it will ever get there. Despite considerable public support for the mission, the Japanese public is still, according to the defense ministry, more moved by the "national interest" dimension than any other component. Given that Japan's national interest in many cases justifies inaction, missions like this one may continue to be the exception rather than the norm for Japanese security policy.

The Japanese people is clearly more open to such missions than before, but the question is no longer about the distance from where Japan used to be, but the destination where Japanese security policy is heading. Regarding this question, this mission tells us little other than that the Japanese people are sensitive to Japan's national security, even as far afield as Africa, but we don't know exactly how sensitive they are, especially closer to Japanese shores, in thornier cases than fighting pirates.

Japan's revisionist problem

In my critique of Tamogami Toshio's essay, I asked, "Just how widespread are these views in the JSDF?"

Jun Okumura quickly provided some sort of answer: more than fifty SDF members submitted essays in the contest won by General Tamogami. Sankei reports that the number of ASDF members who submitted essays is actually seventy-eight by the ministry of defense's reckoning. Asahi notes that this constitutes nearly one-third of the contest's 235 entries. Asahi also breaks down the submissions by rank and finds that of those seventy-eight, none except General Tamogami were flag officers, ten were field officers, sixty-four were company-level officers, and four were cadets. Asahi also found that sixty-two had served under General Tamogami when he served as commander of Komatsu base, which Roy Berman of Mutantfrog found plays a central role in the story of the APA essay contest. (Berman did yeoman's work teasing out the various links between the actors of this saga; it's a must-read.) The contents of the Asahi article suggest that it's possible that the ASDF officers who submitted did so after having been "encouraged" by their commander rather than out of conviction.

But that said, it's possible that despite its efforts to project a warm and fuzzy image (cf. Prince Pickles), the JSDF attracts a disportionate number of people who look longingly to Japan's past as a military power and subscribe to the conservative nationalist interpretation of Japan's wartime past.

Does it matter what the members of Japan's armed forces think about Japan's wartime past? Does historical revisionism conflict with the SDF's ethos of ensuring "the continued existence and security of a Japan that stands on the premise of democracy by protecting its peace and independence?" And if so, what can the government do about it?

I would argue that historical revisionism — as it exists in Japan — is incompatible with the SDF's current mission and Japan's security policy. Revisionism is not merely a matter of "historical understanding;" it is an ideology concerning Japan as it is today and how it should be. Go back and read General Tamogami's essay. The problem for him isn't just that the Japanese people don't know the facts (revisionists love that word) of the war. They've been brainwashed for sixty years into believing that Japan's wartime behavior was dishonorable, and this belief in turn has handcuffed the SDF and made Japan dependent on the US for its security. In short, General Tamogami and other revisionists are openly contempuous of Japanese democracy, because they view Japanese citizens as little better than sheep who have been systematically manipulated by Nikkyoso-dominated schools and the Japanese media. Does General Tamogami actually believe that he was serving Japanese democracy, whose institutions and officials have decided, with the support of the public, to constrain the SDF? Why does he think that the path to a more active security policy leads through greater appreciation of World War II? Arguably a stronger case for an active Japanese international security role would be premised on an appreciation of the folly of Japan's war, of the criminality of Japan's war, of a recognition that the acts committed during the war should never be allowed to happen again? This argument, grounded in the preamble of the constitution, has animated Ozawa Ichiro's case for a "normal" Japanese security policy.

The key point here is, as William Faulkner wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past." It is not accidental that the historical revisionists are also the most enthusiastic supporters of various schemes for a more active Japanese security policy, why they are the most vocal defenders of the US-Japan alliance (even as they curse the US for abandoning Japan in favor of China) and the most vocal advocates for Japanese participation in all possible foreign deployments. Reclaiming the past is their means of reclaiming the present and future — and perhaps reclaiming the present by "normalizing" the SDF is their way of making the public more sympathetic to their view of the wartime past.

The problem is that their view of the world is not of the twenty-first century. The conservative-revisionist view of international politics derives much from nineteenth-century Social Darwinism, viewing the world as a brutal, relentless struggle among nations, for which nations must steel their spirits if they are to survive. It's not enough for nations to be prosperous materially. They must be spiritually, morally, and culturally sound. Part of this spiritual soundness is appreciating the struggles of the nation's heroes. While the revisionists claim to be striving for objective truth, the value of history for them is that it's instructive, strengthening Japan for international competition. This view also leaves little room for meaningful cooperation with one's rivals.

As I've argued before, this ideology is actually abnormal in the twenty-first century and no less dangerous than Social Darwinism was in the late nineteenth, as it risks leading Japan and Asia down a path of confrontation, strife, and war. I am not suggesting that revisionists are prepared to go down the path of imperial conquest again. But I am suggesting that the mindset that produced that Japanese empire is alive and well. And don't think that China or South Korea won't mention the general's essay the next time the Japanese government talks tough on a regional dispute (a fight over a disputed island, for example).

Japan is not unique in having elites prone to this view of the world. What sets them apart is that historical revisionism is part and parcel of their case for a new Japan.

Which makes it difficult to imagine what the government can do to correct for the politically incorrect (in the sense that the Murayama statement defines what is correct) views of JSDF officers. The government can prohibit publication, of course, or implement a system of vetting the public statements of officers. Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu suggested that more education is needed for officers. But are education — or bottling up politically unacceptable opinions — satisfactory answers? Not for me. Revisionism exists because the history problem has effectively been swept under the rug since the war ended, left to metatastize into a worldview that seeks to redefine Japanese identity by dismissing the postwar period as aberrant and harkening back to an earlier, purer time.

The government can impose all the safeguards it wants, but there is no safeguard or sanction that can change an individual's ideas. With luck General Tamogami will get the debate he wants. But in the end it will just be another battle in the culture war that has raged since the end of the war.

Strange days

Perhaps showing just how serious China is about not mentioning the war and acknowledging Japan's "consistent pursuit of the path of a peaceful country," not to mention illustrating just how dire the situation in Szechuan is, the Chinese government has reportedly asked the Japanese government to dispatch planes to China in order to deliver tents, blankets, and other relief supplies.

It apparently doesn't matter whether those planes are civilian or JSDF.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura, answering questions about the request in his daily press conference, could confirm only that Beijing made the request, that the Fukuda government is considering its response, and that the request appears to be for planes to deliver the supplies to Chinese airports instead of directly to affected areas.

What a dilemma for the Japanese right — a new opportunity for the JSDF to show its quality...by aiding "the grotesque superpower, China." (The Social Democratic Party of Japan, as if to rub this dilemma in the right's face, has quickly stated its opposition to using the JSDF to deliver supplies, declaring that "the JSDF is not a disaster relief organization.")

In short, this request is another blow to those in Japan and the US who see a belligerent, dangerous China that must be contained — and want Washington and Tokyo to take steps that will guarantee a belligerent, dangerous China.

Here's hoping that the Fukuda government swiftly agrees to provide China with the requested supplies, borne on the wings of JSDF transport planes.

The race for defense ministry reform

Back in February, when Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru was threatened with censure for his ministry's dilatory response to the Atago incident, Prime Minister Fukuda gave Mr. Ishiba a firm vote of confidence, calling upon the defense minister to "review the organization from its very foundation."

It appears that Mr. Fukuda's support for comprehensive defense ministry reform has lapsed.

Mr. Ishiba is still eager, of course. Earlier this week he appeared on TV to argue for a thorough reform that mixes civilians and JSDF personnel in the ministry to strengthen communication among them.

But now Mr. Ishiba faces competition from two different directions. From one side is the defense ministry reform subcommittee of the LDP - PARC's national security investigatory committee. Chaired by former JDA chief Nakatani Gen and staffed largely by boei zoku, the subcommittee issued its recommendations on Thursday.

The subcommittee report is less far-reaching than that envisioned by Mr. Ishiba. The word of choice seems to be "strengthening," especially the prime minister's office. The subcommittee revives Abe Shinzo's project of creating a Japanese National Security Council, and calls for naming a defense ministry/JSDF member as prime ministerial secretaries and military aides. (It also calls for a new adviser to the defense minister, who would could be a civilian from outside the ministry.) Instead of merging uniformed and civilian personnel, the subcommittee draws clearer lines between the two. It calls for shutting down the ministry's operations planning bureau and moving its functions to the Joint Staff Office (JSO), while strengthening the ministry's responsibilities for strategy and policy. It also calls for changing rules to allow JSDF personnel to testify to the Diet on specific military questions and for measures to improve morale in both the ministry and the JSDF.

This may be an improvement on Mr. Ishiba's plans. It seems to me that blurring the lines between civilians and uniformed personnel undermines civilian control of the military.

However, Mr. Ishiba also faces competition from the Kantei, which has announced the creation of a reform council of its own that will be more focused on tackling the air of corruption at the ministry.

The current political situation may result in the Kantei's winning the race to defense ministry reform with a more limited plan that does less to shake up the ministry (which will necessarily invite opposition from uniformed and civilian personnel).

But what outcome is the best for Japan? I do not share Michael Penn's bleak assessment of the consequences of various ministry reform proposals. (Unfortunately I have no link to Mr. Penn's latest newsletter in which he discusses the Nakatani proposal.) His argument is that the response of JSDF personnel to Judge Aoyama Kunio's statement on the ASDF Iraq mission, in addition to reported JSDF involvement in spying on antiwar groups, should raise red flags about the nature of the JSDF — and as a result the mooted reforms should be rejected. He wrote:

Come now! Criminalizing the act of handing out antiwar fliers to SDF families? Spying on peace groups? Growing links to international role models like the Pakistani military? Mocking civilian judges? A direct pipeline to the prime minister? Active units under the direct command of the Chief of Staff?

Is this really a good start for Japan's new Ministry of Defense? Where are the effective countervailing political forces here? What about the lessons of Japanese history in the 20th century? If unchecked now, where does this kind of thing lead in the future?

I think alarms about the JSDF are overwrought. Without denying the troubling involvement of the GSDF in domestic espionage against peace groups, which was revealed in June 2007 but has since vanished from the media, the Japanese defense establishment does need reform. It needs a clearer chain of command, swifter information collection and processing, and better decision-making in response to crises. (And beyond this, it needs a more transparent procurement process.)

That said, I share Mr. Penn's concern about the lack of "countervailing political forces." As far as I'm concerned, any defense ministry reform that does not include provisions for the creation of an inspector general's office and more robust Diet oversight is insufficient. The DPJ should be taking this position in the reform debate, agreeing that the ministry needs reform but insisting that reform must be matched by better oversight. The creation of a more effective defense establishment must be accompanied by the creation of stronger institutional checks to monitor its activities.

Missing the point on Japan's normalization

Using the occasion of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilots participating in live-bombing exercises with the US in the Marianas, Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times has a prominently featured article in today's edition (also on the front page, top of the fold of today's IHT) on Japan's shedding "military restraints."

The NYT website also features a short documentary called Rearming Japan.

In general, Onishi's article provides a fair summary of the contours of the debate, taking care to note, for example, that Japan, while ranking high on annual league tables of defense expenditures, has actually been letting its defense budget stagnate over the past decade.

And yet there are a few things that bear noting about this article.

First, Onishi premises the problematic nature of Japanese normalization on its "rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia." And yet the only example Onishi provides to support this is South Korea's recent launching of its first Aegis cruiser and President Roh's comments about an arms race in the region. It seems that if concerns about Japanese normalization are so prevalent, Onishi might have been able to muster a few more examples to show it. (Devin Stewart at Fairer Globalization notes that if Onishi had talked to Southeast Asians, he would have found them more supportive of a more active Japanese security policy.)

Second, and this is a far more substantial problem, Onishi's article and the companion video are lacking in context, both in terms of history and Japanese politics. Regarding the former, Japanese militarism was a product of political developments in Japan occurring at a given moment in history, when colonization and aggression were the hallmarks of great-power status. Just because Japan's ultra-nationalists make this argument does not make it untrue (but it also does not excuse what Japan did). The idea that Japan is going to invade China again, mentioned by one of the interview subjects in the film, is ludicrous and divorced from the facts. With its stagnant defense budget that increasingly emphasizes high-technology air and sea platforms over the GSDF, which according to recent planning documents is set to see its numbers fall, the JSDF may have a hard time helping at the Snow Festival in Hokkaido, let alone invading China.

In terms of the domestic political context, while Onishi gets the change within the LDP right, thanks to an assist from Richard Samuels, he misses the far more significant domestic political change: the ousting of the Socialists from their position as the leading opposition party, the destruction of the Japanese left more generally, and the rise of the Democratic Party of Japan. He quotes DPJ Secretary-General Hatoyama Yukio criticizing the government for violating the constitution in its activities in Iraq, but he misleadingly fails to mention that Hatoyama and his party are less concerned about Japan's playing a more active role than they are concerned about Japan's becoming to close to the US, which they feel has become dangerously aggressive. The DPJ's critique, in general, is not a pacifist one by any means, although former Socialists in its ranks still stand by that position. Rather, the DPJ rejects the argument made by former JDA chief Ishiba Shigeru in this article: "I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear."

The DPJ, perhaps because opposition affords it the luxury of taking positions that could be more difficult to adopt in government, has emphasized Japan's need for more independence from the US (I discussed one particularly articulate discussion of this here).

In other words, the debate is far more interesting than Onishi notes — it is by no means simply a matter of pacifists versus nationalists.

This raises the larger question, addressed by Samuels and J. Patrick Boyd in the monograph discussed in this post, of why Japan tied its own hands in security policy in the first place. As they argue convincingly, it was a matter of the political balance within the LDP, with the pragmatic mainstreamers, who favored the Yoshida line, receiving assistance from the political opposition and public opinion in their fight against the LDP's revisionists. But they sought limits not out of pacifism, but because it made good strategic sense. In other words, to adapt a Marxist concept, Japan's postwar pacifism may well have been the superstructure that served as a more presentable face for the substructure, Japan's assessment of its postwar interests as enshrined in the Yoshida doctrine.

With Japan's interests changing as the balance of power in East Asia shifts, it is to be expected that Japan would reconsider its interests in the new era and adjust its grand strategy and defense priorities accordingly. The rise of the nationalist revisionists is one aspect of that, but their rise has been accompanied by the collapse of the left and the emergence of a political opposition that is also interested in seeing Japan's grand strategy change. It may be useful to think of the situation once again as a matter of superstructure and substructure. Today, the superstructure of Japanese normalization is provided by Japan's ultra-nationalists, who never cease cranking out material that leads Japan's neighbors (and ally) to question normalization. The substructure, meanwhile, is once again shaped by a realistic assessments of Japan's interests, threats, and opportunities. Having talked with enough officials in MOFA and the Japanese Ministry of Defense, as well as members of the Diet from both the LDP and the DPJ, it is clear that there are enough important policy makers in Tokyo who don't buy the rhetoric of the ultra-nationalists even as they acknowledge that Japan needs a new doctrine that reflects contemporary realities and may require Japan's acting as a security provider.

In light of these considerations, one has to ask why the NYT thinks this article is so important as to merit page-one coverage.

Is Japan really poised to threaten its neighbors anytime soon, if ever? Is Japan truly ready to follow the US into combat in the "arc of instability" (and refueling in the Indian Ocean, as important a mission as its been, does not count)? Is Japan really even close to possessing even a conventional deterrent in its showdown with North Korea? These are the questions one must keep in mind while reading this article. As unnerving as Japan's ultra-nationalists are, for the moment they are still more of a menace, if that, to the Japanese polity than to Japan's neighbors (see earlier posts on Abe here and here, and Sakurai Yoshiko and the ultra-nationalists more generally here).

The cuts continue

No, not Japan's budget cuts, because, according to this article in the IHT, the government's draft budget shows that next year's budget will increase slightly.

Rather, I'm referring to this other article in the IHT, which reports that Japan's defense budget will continue to carry the burden of budget cuts. Makes you wonder why people are so alarmed about Japanese remilitarization, doesn't it?

How is a country with a shrinking defense budget -- and, within the defense budget, more spending on missile defense and expenditures related to the relocation of US forces from Okinawa to Guam -- supposed to become a major power in the region in terms of power projection? Under Koizumi, and now under Abe, Japan's defense establishment has been forced to accept budget cuts despite being asked to do more than ever before.

What reason does anyone have to think that this will change anytime soon, as Japan continues to age, with all the expenditures that an aging society entails?

From 庁 to 省 (From agency to ministry)

Aside from the highly controversial education reform bill, the special session of the Diet now concluding -- it was extended an extra four days -- also passed a bill elevating Japan's Defense Agency from an agency subordinate to the Cabinet to a ministry with full status equivalent to other government ministries.

This reform has been in the pipeline for a while now, and constitutes an administrative reform more than a policy reform: the new Defense Ministry will have its own budget, the ability to submit legislation without having to go through the Cabinet, and less concretely, symbolically raises Japan's defense establishment not only in relation to other countries' defense ministries, but also vis-a-vis Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, as a careful observer of these matters with whom I correspond regularly suggested, the Defense Ministry will have access to a better crop of recruits from elite universities than it had as the JDA.

In many ways, this legislation simply ratifies changes that the JDA has undergone over the past two decades. In particular, since the end of the cold war the JDA has gone from an agency that was effectively used to cordon the JSDF off from the Japanese political system to an organization staffed by security policy experts better able to manage Japan's defense policy in a fluid and uncertain international environment. The JDA went from an agency staffed by bureaucrats seconded from the Foreign and Finance ministries to an organization in which a core group of young policy experts from within the agency rose to positions of prominence, improving the JDA's ability to fight for preferred policies and secure an important seat at the table, particularly in discussions with the US.

Beyond the symbolic change from agency to ministry, the law passed last week makes "international peace cooperation activities" a fundamental mission of the JSDF, which means that for the first time in its history the JSDF's core purpose necessarily involves missions outside of Japan. (Thanks to my aforementioned correspondent for comments on this change.) As with the elevation of the JDA, this simply makes the JSDF's shift from a static defense force to an active force fit for overseas deployment de jure -- it doesn't actually change government policy, at least in the short term.

I think it's imperative for the international media to break itself of the habit of conjuring up Japan's post-war past whenever anything related to Japan's changing international position comes up, as this CNN article does. Yes, we get it; Japan has a controversial past. But anyone paying attention over the past fifteen years would notice that Japan has gotten into the habit of contributing its armed forces to UN peacekeeping missions. Rather than hint at the specter of Japanese "remilitarization," the international media should be talking about how this fits into a re-envisioning of Japan's international role as a country that specializes, in part, in peacemaking and reconstruction missions abroad.

In any case, the big, fundamental change underlying both of these reforms is a greater willingness in Japan to study the changing international and regional environments and determine how changes impact Japan's national interests. As this Yomiuri editorial on the Defense Ministry bill suggests, there's plenty for Japan's national security policymakers to consider.

Rather than worry about Japanese "remilitarization," the proper response should be relief that Japan is finally moving positively in the direction of bearing a greater share of the burden to provide global peace and security.

Thankfully the DPJ, after some initial grumbles about this bill, came to its senses and largely supported a piece of legislation that not only makes sense, but is also consistent with the DPJ's interest in a more autonomous Japan.

New survey on Japan's Iraq mission

The Yomiuri Shimbun reports today on a government survey that shows that among those surveyed (around 1800 people), 71.5 per cent said they "valued" the JSDF's reconstruction operation in Iraq, with only 22.6 per cent saying that they didn't value the mission.

Among those who said they valued it, as with earlier polls, they pointed to the mission's contributions to the Iraqi people, its role in improving the security environment, and its contribution to improving Japan's position in the world.

At the same time, the survey shows what I've said before: the Japanese people will support a Japan that cooperates by sending troops abroad to uphold stability, keep the peace, and rebuild shattered societies, but it will not support dispatches to fight -- not yet. As the JDA concluded from this survey (my translation), "There has been increasing popular recognition of how the JSDF helped Iraq, but the public also highly values that the JSDF troops left Iraq without suffering any fatalities."

Abe reviews the fleet

On the 29th of October, Prime Minister Abe reviewed the Japanese fleet at Sagami Bay in Kanagawa. In this week's issue of his email magazine, Abe poetically recounts the review, speaking of clouds giving way to an autumnal blue sky, of the deep azure of the sea, and of the majesty and magnificence of the line of warships preparing to return to the Indian Ocean, where, thanks to a recent extension of the enabling law, they will continue to provide refueling capabilities in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan.

The real meat of his message, however, is towards the end. He writes [my translation]: "In our country, we cannot do without the Self-Forces in their capacity for crisis management and disaster relief and reconstruction. Abroad, the Self-Defense Forces exert great effort [literally, 汗を流しています, to sweat] around the clock to contribute to international peace and stability. I am working to develop a system by which international peace cooperation operations are the primary function of the Self-Defense Forces [emphasis added]."

This statement is consistent with the broad thrust of Japanese security policy is the past fifteen years, since the passage of the International Peace Cooperation Law. Japan will develop a military force that can serve as a pillar of international stability, which reflects Japan's dependence on trade, especially energy imports from the Middle East and limits imposed by its massive debt burden. Let the US invest in major platforms suited to inflicting massive amounts of damage over incredible distances; Japan will excel in providing humanitarian assistance in failing and failed states and providing rear-area support to warfighters when the situation requires it.

The only question that remains is whether the Japanese public will support such a role for Japan. Indications suggest that the Japanese people can countenance the JSDF being sent abroad to help stabilize troubled countries. While this poll, conducted by the Asahi Shimbun in June 2006, showed that those surveyed were pleased to see the Ground Self-Defense Forces leave Iraq (and a majority wished they had left sooner), the same poll showed that 49% of those surveyed felt that the Iraq deployment was "good for Japan." Among those who said that it was good, 46% said it was good because it "contributed to the rebuilding of Iraq," with the second-greatest response being the 30% who said that it "demonstrated Japan's presence in the international community." (Both figures were considerably greater than the 14% who said it was good for relations with the US.)

This confirms the impression I got from speaking with Japan Defense Agency (JDA) officials in May: they told me that the Japanese public will support a more active JSDF, but only in activities that contribute to peace and stability.

What remains to be seen, however, is whether public support would hold up should a soldier die in the line of duty. The Japanese people's resolve to see their country play a greater role in upholding the international system has yet to be tested.

UPDATE: I want to add a brief note to emphasize to readers just how extraordinary Abe's fleet review is. Consider that sixteen years ago, during the Gulf crisis, JSDF officers could not even consult with the prime minister, because he feared that receiving advice from the armed forces would skew his judgement in deciding how Japan should respond to the crisis. At that time, civilian control of the military, exercised through the director-general of the JDA, meant using civilian officials to cordon off the military from the rest of society. Until recently, senior bureaucrats were not even from within the JDA itself -- they were seconded from other ministries. Aside from some cooperation on anti-submarine warfare with the US during the 1980s, the JSDF was expected to sit with its tanks up in Hokkaido and wait for the Russians to come.

And now Abe is reviewing the MSDF fleet, dressed in morning coat and top hat, and issuing public messages full of effusive praise -- and there is no negative reaction in the press or in the Diet.

So while Japan's security policy remains restricted in many ways, public and official attitudes about Japan's playing a greater role in the region and the world by contributing armed forces to operations overseas have changed substantially, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before Japan loosens the constitutional restrictions that have tied its hands.