TOKYO - In a significant step toward
strengthening Japan's security alliance with the
US, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government
has formally committed to the joint development of
a new sea-based interceptor missile as a main
pillar of the US-led missile defense system.
The joint development cost of the missile,
an advanced version of the Standard Missile 3, or
SM3, is estimated at a maximum of US$2.7 billion,
with Japan shouldering up to $1.2 billion and the
US paying the rest.
The decision to move
onto the development stage and pay the
$1.2
billion was made by the Security Council of Japan.
It will be endorsed at a cabinet meeting on
December 24, along with the fiscal 2006 budget.
In terms of that budget, Japan will cut
its overall defense spending by 0.9% to 4.8137
trillion yen ($41.35 billion), out of a total
budget of $684 billion.
Japan's share of
the missile budget will be spread over nine years
starting in fiscal 2006. The two allies plan to
begin production of the next-generation
interceptor missile in fiscal 2015, which will be
deployed on Aegis-equipped destroyers.
Japan will play a leading role in
developing a nose cone, which protects an
infra-red sensor from heat caused by air friction,
and a two-stage rocket motor, while the US will
develop a kinetic warhead, which targets an
incoming missile and destroys it, and an infra-red
sensor, which detects infra-red rays to identify
and track targets. Japan and the US have conducted
joint technological research into the new missile
since 1999.
Separately from the joint
development of an enhanced SM3 with the US, Japan
will begin to test elements of the US-led missile
defense, or MD, system at the end of fiscal 2006.
Many experts have raised deep doubts about the
efficacy of the MD system, claiming that it will
end up a money-guzzling white elephant.
Stepped-up preparations Japan
and the US launched joint technological research
into an enhanced SM3 in 1999, after North Korea
shocked the world - and Japan in particular - by
test-firing a Taepodong 1 missile over Japan into
the Pacific.
North Korea claims it was a
rocket intended to put a satellite into orbit.
North Korea has deployed an estimated 200 or so
shorter-range Rodong missiles capable of striking
almost all of Japanese territory. North Korea is
widely believed to be developing a more advanced
Taepodong 2 missile capable of reaching Alaska,
Hawaii or perhaps even the US West Coast.
Since last year, the US Navy has been
patrolling the Sea of Japan to watch out for
missiles from North Korea. It is anybody's guess
outside of North Korea whether North Korean
warheads are advanced enough to deliver weapons of
mass destruction.
In December 2003, Japan
decided to introduce the MD system at the end of
fiscal 2006. In December 2004, when it adopted a
new National Defense Program Outline, Japan also
eased a decades-old ban on arms exports, enabling
the export of parts and components needed for the
joint development and production of the advanced
MD system. This easing paved the way for Japan to
move into the development stage of a new
interceptor missile.
In July, the diet, or
Japan's parliament, enacted a law to revise the
Self-Defense Forces (SDF) law to allow the Defense
Agency chief to order emergency missile
interceptions without waiting for approval from
the prime minister and the cabinet. Since North
Korean missiles would reach Japanese territory in
about 10 minutes, the defense chief could not
afford to follow normal procedures.
The
Defense Agency is planning to procure 124 Patriot
Advanced Capability 3, or PAC3, surface-to-air
missiles by the end of fiscal 2010. PAC3 missiles
are intended to hit incoming missiles at an
altitude of up to 20 kilometers that have escaped
SM3 interceptor missiles launched from the SDF's
Aegis-equipped destroyers.
Four bases in
Saitama, Shizuoka, Gifu and Fukuoka prefectures
will get four PAC3 launch systems each. There will
be two backup units. The first 32 of the PAC3
missiles, which are estimated to cost $4.2 million
each, will be imported from the US.
The
Defense Agency is planning to have domestic
defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd
licensed to produce the rest. Mitsubishi is
expected to conclude a contract with US
manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp by March and
produce PAC3 missiles beginning in fiscal 2008.
Although the cost of producing the
missiles domestically is much higher than
purchasing them from the US, the long-term costs,
including maintenance, will be less and Japan will
also be able to boost its own missile production
technologies.
The Defense Agency plans to
extend the MD system using PAC3 missiles, first to
Tokyo and six other major urban centers. The other
areas not covered will be dependent on
interception by SM3 missiles launched from
Aegis-equipped ships.
Under an operational
plan compiled recently by the Defense Agency, the
prime minister's official residence, the diet, the
Imperial Palace and central government offices are
given top priority for protection. Nuclear power
plants and the command facilities of the SDF and
US forces in Japan are also designated priority
facilities for protection.
The plan
envisages joint operation between the SDF and US
military forces in Japan for intercepting missiles
in the event of an attack on Japan. The Defense
Agency would also consider taking joint combat
action with the US to counter an attack, even when
the target is ambiguous.
The Defense
Agency will improve its missile surveillance
network by deploying four new radar units and
upgrading seven others by fiscal 2009. The
upgrades involve the EPS-3 radar system deployed
at seven locations - Hokkaido, Akita, Fukushima,
Ishikawa, Kyoto, Mie and Saga prefectures.
The four new radar units will feature the
newly developed EPS-XX radar system and will be
deployed in Kagoshima, Niigata, Aomori and Okinawa
prefectures. Both types of radar systems are
designed to detect and track ballistic missiles
flying at a speed of around Mach 10 at an altitude
of more than 300 kilometers.
These new
ground-based radar systems, coupled with radar on
the SDF's Aegis-equipped destroyers to be deployed
in the Sea of Japan are intended to enable the
nation to quickly detect incoming missiles and
accurately calculate their projected impact
points.
Stronger security alliance with
the US Japan's decision on the joint
development and production of a new interceptor
missile with the US comes as the two countries are
accelerating moves toward a stronger overall
security alliance. Koizumi and US President George
W Bush, who both took office in early 2001, have
forged a close personal relationship. Koizumi has
been one of the staunchest supporters of the Bush
administration's "war on terror" and the Iraq war.
The Koizumi government enacted two new
controversial laws to enable the SDF to assist the
US-led military operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Under the first law, enacted in October
2001, SDF naval vessels have been dispatched to
the Indian Ocean to back up US-led coalition
forces' operations in Afghanistan through fuel
supplies to coalition warships. Under the second
law, enacted in August 2003, the SDF's ground
troops have been deployed in the southern Iraqi
city of Samawah on a humanitarian and
reconstruction mission.
Japan and the US
are now in the final stages of negotiations on the
realignment of American forces in Japan as part of
the US's global "transformation" of its military.
The US expects Japan to play the role of strategic
hub through the new arrangements.
At their
"two-plus-two" meeting in Washington at the end of
October, defense and foreign chiefs from Japan and
the US adopted an interim report on the
realignment plan for US forces aimed at promoting
greater military integration between the two
nations and lessening the burden on communities
hosting US bases, including a reduction of 7,000
Marines in Okinawa.
Under the agreement,
the Air Self-Defense Force will move its air
defense command from Fuchu to the US's Yokota air
base in Tokyo, to be stationed side by side with
the US Air Force Japan Command Center. This will
enhance cooperation in air and missile defense as
well as sharing information. The two countries are
to finalize an interim report in March after
working out further details.
Australia,
another steadfast ally of Bush, announced at the
end of 2003 a decision to join the US-led MD
shield, although Canada decided early this year
not to join in in the face of strong objections
from its people.
Concerns both at home
and abroad China has expressed it concern
over these developments in Japan, partly as
Beijing fears that the system could be used to
defend Taiwan.
Critics also fear that
Japan's full participation in the US-led MD shield
will lead to an escalation in an arms race.
Analysts say that China possesses about 30
intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could
reach the US, and is now turning them into
multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles
to counter the US MD system.
Japan's
relations with China have plunged to their lowest
point since they opened diplomatic ties in 1972
due to Koizumi's repeated visits to the
war-related Yasukuni shrine, territorial and
natural gas disputes in the East China Sea, and
other issues.
Japan's decision to jointly
develop a new interceptor missile with the US is
also expected to spark a fresh round of hot
political debate on the boundary of the nation's
defense activities permitted under the pacifist,
post-World War II constitution.
In a
move that is particularly expected to add fuel to
this debate, Tokyo and Washington are considering
stationing an X-band radar system for the planned
joint MD shield at a Japanese air force base in
Tsugaru, Aomori prefecture, 360 miles northeast of
Tokyo. The X-band system is more advanced
than the system Japan is scheduled to install in
fiscal 2008 to guard against medium-range
ballistic missiles. It is intended to guard
against missiles aimed at the US. It has a longer
detection range, enabling it to respond to
ballistic missiles launched from deep within a
continent, and is also capable of differentiating
missile shapes. The US successfully completed an
experiment in September in which the X-band radar
distinguished between decoy and ballistic
missiles.
Deploying a radar system in
Japan designed to defend the US homeland would
raise questions about conformity to provisions in
the Japan-US Security Treaty that call for the
supply of facilities solely for Japan's defense
and peace and security in the Far East.
Critics also claim that Japan's decision to
ally with the US will lead to the death of the
longstanding Japanese arms export ban.
Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based
journalist, commentator and scholar on
international politics and economy. Masaki's
e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com
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