TOKYO - It has gone largely unnoticed that Japan
now occupies a premier seat within a unique American
defense club, a club of two - Washington and Tokyo.
The reason for this is not because Japan is the
second largest economy still committed to having its
armed forces deployed in Iraq, but rather because Japan
has decided to do what few other allies of the United
States could. That is to follow the US in its
controversial missile defense program. At present,
practically no other nation is in a position to follow
suit. It is only the US and Japan that constitute an
exclusive club of ballistic missile defense (BMD).
On March 26, top military brass as well as
civilian officials at Japan's Defense Agency (JDA)
rejoiced to see the Diet (Japan's parliament) pass the
budget for the fiscal year 2004 that starts in April.
They were happy as the government-proposed budget went
into effect unscathed and uncut. And therein was the
plan for Japan to deliver its first round of BMD
programs.
In fiscal 2004, the JDA will spend a
gross total of 4.9 trillion yen (US$45 billion), which
is, as usual, about a hundredth of the nation's economy.
Out of the defense budget, 2 percent or 106.8 billion
yen ($981 million) will cover the cost for BMD. Divided
into three parts, 34 billion yen ($312 million) will go
to Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force to be used to
equip one Aegis-type destroyer with the "Standard"
missile system SM-3; 58.2 billion yen ($534 million) to
the Air Defense Force to procure a ground-to-air missile
system known as Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3);
and 14.6 billion yen ($134 million) will be spent to
upgrade the relevant BADGE (Base Air Defense Ground
Environment) systems.
The Aegis system is a
precious commodity for the US as it has kept its core
technologies secret. It is also costly both in economic
and political terms. True, Spain does have some Aegis
capability, but it has only one Aegis-type destroyer,
making it largely irrelevant, for in order to operate 24
hours a day, 365 days a year, three is the minimum
number required. Israel, South Korea and Taiwan all
aspire to have at least one Aegis-type destroyer, but
currently have none. Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force
by contrast currently has four, and will soon have six
such vessels, all home-built with loaned Aegis
technologies, enabling Japan to make the first entry
into the BMD club by equipping itself with a sea-based
mid-course defense (SMD) capability. It aims at hitting
enemy missiles mid-course.
The entry fee, as it
were, goes in large part to the US defense industry:
Raytheon (Waltham, Massachusetts) doubtless being the
clearest winner as it manufactures both SM-3 and PAC-3.
Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Maryland) will also benefit
as the sole provider of radar and missile systems that
make up the core of the Aegis system. While this could
be a boon to the Bush campaign to secure votes from the
military-industry complex, that is not the only reason
why Howard Baker Jr, US ambassador to Japan, on March 1
boasted about the nation's move, saying that Japan's
decision to go BMD along with the US was simply great, a
sign that Japan has now "matured".
More to the
point, Japan's action is hardly an isolated one. Saying
that it goes hand-in-hand with the US will not even
suffice. It is closely embedded into, and makes part of,
the overall BMD that the US has just started this year.
On the US side, a program called Block 04 is
being implemented. Designed as the first increment, or
the first "block", of layered missile defenses, "Block
04" calls on the US in the years 2004 and 05 (hence the
name "Block 04") to build up the following: a)
Ground-based mid-course defense; b) Sea-based mid-course
defense; c) Patriot Advanced Capability-3. Already, the
US Seventh Fleet has put one SMD-capable Aegis-type
destroyer on patrol in the Sea of Japan, with the
obvious purpose of deterring North Korea.
Indeed, Japan is about to commence the sea-based
and the Patriot defense, and the key weapon systems
Japan is procuring from Raytheon et al are exactly the
same as those that the US will adopt. In short, Japan is
co-building Block 04 with America.
"Block 06"
and "Block 08" are scheduled to follow, as the US is
taking an evolutionary "spiral" approach, thereby
upgrading its BMD capabilities step-by-step. It is also
projected that Japan will follow suit, at a substantial
cost - rumored to amount more than $8 billion in five
years - to the taxpayer.
BMD for Japan primarily
means a missile-shield against North Korea. Pyongyang
gave a wake-up call to the Japanese on August 31, 1998,
by test-launching one of its long-haul missiles
TaepoDong across the Japanese archipelago into the
Pacific Ocean. Since then, even the Democratic Party of
Japan, the main opposition party, has come to
acknowledge that BMD should at some point be introduced.
The Japanese are still outraged by the communist regime
not releasing Japanese abductees and their family
members, which may have also helped pass the defense
budget more smoothly than the government anticipated.
Yet the US-Japan joint BMD has another tacit
target. That is China, which is rapidly developing its
missile-strike capabilities: both submarine-based and
ground-based. This is the reason why Beijing is furious
at Japan going BMD. Also for this reason, the pro-China
camp among Diet members, regardless of their party
affiliations, remained extremely cautious about missile
defense. Concerns toward Pyongyang overwhelmed all that,
resulting in a surprisingly early implementation of the
defense program. Seen from the government perspective,
the timing seemed so ripe that they had to capture it.
And it worked.
That the budget went into force
without any amendment is another testimony to how far
Japan has come since Junichiro Koizumi became prime
minister on April 26, three years ago this week.
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