Page 1 of 2 Japan adrift in the Indian Ocean
By Richard Tanter
[Editors' note: The final version of this article was received prior to
the announcement of Yasuo Fukuda's resignation as prime minister. Tanter
comments: Fukuda's resignation will change nothing in the underlying domestic
and alliance strains that lead to his decision to resign. The next Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) leader, Taro Aso, will face the same limitations, and
the same demands on military policy, but with even more diminished political
resources and room for maneuver. If the LDP moves to a general election, the
Democratic Party of Japan would be under severe pressure, on the one hand, from
domestic sources to make good on its criticism of the Indian Ocean deployment,
and on the other, from the United States, to recognize US understandings of
Japan's global responsibilities - and maintain the deployment - possibly as the
price of power.]
Military policy is rarely an issue that wins or loses Japanese elections. Yet,
for the second time in little over a year the question of whether to extend
Japan's commitment to the US-led
war in Afghanistan may well decide the fate of the Japanese cabinet. A year
after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's failure to pass legislation extending the
Maritime Self Defense Force's mid-ocean refueling operations in the Indian
Ocean led to his resignation, his successor, Yasuo Fukuda, is assailed by
plunging personal unpopularity, rising public opposition to the Maritime
Self-Defense Force (MSDF) deployment, ongoing scandals in the Defense Ministry,
a wavering coalition partner, and by pressures to deepen Japan's commitment to
the war in Afghanistan from both his own nationalist party rivals and by the
United States.
This latest episode of Japan's ongoing political crisis has its roots in both
the unresolved structural blockages of Japanese politics, with their
accompanying democratic deficits, and the contradictions of Japan's position
within the United States alliance system at a time of war. The resulting
conjuncture pulls in opposite directions: at a time when the existing MSDF
deployment is under political strain, the government has sought to deepen the
commitment to the war in Afghanistan, expand the MSDF mission to protection of
sea lanes to the Middle East, and link Japan into a global military partnership
with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Extension of the Indian Ocean mission
During an extraordinary Diet session beginning in September, the government
will attempt to extend the MSDF mission by passing an extension of the
Replenishment Support Special Measures Law through both houses. The bill will
likely fail in the Democratic Party of Japan-controlled upper house, leaving
Fukuda the option of over-riding an upper house rejection by passing the
legislation through the lower house for a second time with a two-thirds
majority. There are, however, at least five problems with that scenario for
Fukuda - his coalition partners, his own abysmal popularity and his party
rivals, the Japanese constitution, a dysfunctional Defense Ministry, and his
country's principal ally.
The first problem for Fukuda is that the Liberal Democratic Party's coalition
partner, the Buddhist-aligned New Komeito is under pressure from its
pacifist-leaning Soka Gakkai parent to repudiate the Indian Ocean deployment.
While New Komeito has managed to ignore such concerns during its long coalition
with the ruling party as they presided over Japan's remilitarization, there is
some chance this time that the prospect of serious electoral defeat under
Fukuda's leadership is concentrating their minds on the issue, if not the
principle.
Fukuda's second problem is himself. In May, public support for his cabinet
bottomed out at 20%, according to a Nikkei poll, before bouncing back to 38%
following a cabinet reshuffle in early August widely thought to be his last
throw of the dice. The reshuffle brought his most important party rival,
nationalist former foreign minister Taro Aso, back into the LDP front rank as
secretary-general of the party. At 20%, Aso has the highest rating for the
position of next prime minister. Fukuda's own rating for an extension as prime
minister has shuffled between 4 and 8% in recent months. For Fukuda's
colleagues - and most likely, for the United States - the issue of the Indian
Ocean mission extension is the key test for assessing Fukuda's future:
"The extraordinary session would be pointless if we can't pass the refueling
bill," an LDP official says. "If he becomes unable to even convene a Diet
session, at that point the Fukuda cabinet will hit a dead end."
The third difficulty is one of time and timing. Due to New Komeito's
hesitations and the cabinet reshuffle, the timing of the extraordinary Diet
session was pushed back from early August to late September. Under Article 59
of the Japanese Constitution, a bill cannot be reintroduced into the House of
Representatives until 60 days after the House of Councilors has failed to take
final action on it.
According to the Nikkei:
After passage of the budget, the LDP intends
to pass a bill to extend the temporary law to extend Japan's refueling mission
after having it clear the lower house around October 20, as the lower chamber
will be able to hold a second vote after 60 days - around December 20 - even if
the opposition parties, which control the upper chamber, refuse to vote on it.
However the Nikkei also reported at the same time that:
The New Komeito
party has said that the duration of the extraordinary session should not be
decided based on the premise that the ruling bloc will resort to a second vote
in the House of Representatives to pass an envisioned bill to extend Japan's
anti-terrorism refueling mission in the Indian Ocean.
As a
result, whatever else transpires, the Fukuda administration will face serious
difficulties in passing the bill to extend the MSDF mission through the lower
house a second time with a two-thirds majority in time to continue the MSDF
deployment before its current authorization expires on January 30, 2009.
The fourth problem is the Ministry of Defense and its ministerial and
bureaucratic heads, which it keeps losing. The undistinguished current
minister, Hayashi Yoshimasa, is the fifth in less than two years. Of his
predecessors - Fumio Kyuma, Yuriko Koike, Masahiko Komura, and Shigeru Ishiba -
only Ishiba remained in the position for more than half a year. A 2007 bribery
scandal led to the arrest of the most senior defense bureaucrat and the closure
of the corrupt Defense Facilities Administration Agency. In March 2008,
vice-ministers and many other bureaucrats were censured and the commander of
the MSDF dismissed after further scandals and two collisions between MSDF
vessels and civilian craft. The continuing turmoil and aroma of scandal at the
ministry will reinforce parliamentary doubts about an extension of the MSDF
mission.
Fukuda's final problem is the United States. While Thomas Schieffer, the
bellicose US ambassador to Japan, was pleased with Fukuda's "crash through"
resolution of the MSDF deployment crisis in January, he has been publicly
harassing the Fukuda administration over what he views as its foot-dragging on
both defense spending in general and an inadequate recognition of its
responsibilities in Afghanistan: "We want contributions in other forms, not
just refueling." Schieffer has been an extraordinarily outspoken ambassador,
pushing the government and publicly hectoring the opposition. This may
reinforce the concerns of those anxious about offending the dominant ally, but
equally, will rub many concerned about Japanese autonomy the wrong way.
The 2008 MSDF deployment
The MSDF was first dispatched to the Indian Ocean in support of coalition
operations against international terrorism in Afghanistan and the surrounding
region in November 2001. After the expiry in November 2007 of the original
legislation authorizing the MSDF mission, the Replenishment Support Special
Measures Law in January 2008 passed the lower house for the second time on
January 11, 2008, in order to open the way to "contributions to efforts by the
international community for the prevention and eradication of international
terrorism".
Indicative of the LDP's declining parliamentary capacities, the activities
authorized by the Replenishment Support Special Measures Law were much narrower
in scope than under its predecessor, the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law.
Under the new law, the MSDF was only authorized to engage in refueling and
water supply, with the previous law's search and rescue and relief operations
authorizations having been removed.
After a four month hiatus as a result of the political crisis, the 13,500-ton
fleet support vessel Oumi, accompanied by the destroyer Murasame, resumed MSDF
refueling of allied vessels on February 21. These two ships made up the first
rotation dispatched in late January, with subsequent rotations dispatched in
April and July.
In June 2008 the Ministry of Defense released a map providing limited details
of the areas of the MSDF refueling operations. Three operational areas covering
the greater part of the western Indian Ocean were indicated:
Southern Arabian Sea, off the coast of Oman and Yemen.
Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Yemen.
Gulf of Oman, off the coasts of Oman, Pakistan and Iran.
Towards new Self Defense Force missions
With the re-authorization of the MSDF mission, albeit somewhat constrained
compared to its predecessor, accomplished by parliamentary force majeure
in January, the government turned to the longer-term question of expanding the
country's military involvement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Two options
emerged: committing ground and air elements of the SDF to the war in
Afghanistan proper, and, when that possibility appeared unlikely to succeed,
deploying MSDF destroyers and surveillance aircraft to protect Japanese tankers
from pirate attacks on the route from Middle Eastern oil terminals.
On May 30, the Chief Cabinet Secretary said that the government was seeking
ways of both maintaining the MSDF Indian Ocean mission and widening its
military involvement in Afghanistan. The following day, June 1, the prime
minister told reporters that the government was considering sending ground
troops to Afghanistan:
If conditions on the (Afghan) ground allow,
Japan can offer its cooperation in activities on the ground. I'm always
thinking of that possibility. My attitude is that we should do what we can do.
In preparation for this expansion, the government sent a team of Foreign and
Defense Ministry officials, accompanied by Self Defense Force officers to
Afghanistan to plan an SDF mission to Afghanistan under International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) auspices. According to newspaper reports, possible
missions included airlifting of supplies with CH-47 helicopters and CH-130
transports, road-building, and other construction activities. It was assumed
that the government would once again attempt to justify an expanded SDF
commitment on the ground in Afghanistan as an anti-terrorism deployment to
avoid legal restrictions on collective defense.
However, the combat reality of the widening war, the specter of coalition
defeat, and increased Japanese public resistance to an expanded commitment
combined to thwart these plans. A month later, a senior LDP official announced
the abandonment of the plan, at least for the moment, since "there is no strong
support by the people", while the junior coalition partner, New Komeito,
expressed deep reservations.
Piracy
Yet while attempts to deploy SDF ground and air elements to Afghanistan were
put to one side, a widely reported spate of pirate attacks on Japanese shipping
in the Middle East and Southeast Asia was used as a rationale for two quite
different Indian Ocean missions: using MSDF destroyers and surveillance
aircraft to escort Japanese tankers from the Middle East to Japan, and
deploying MSDF destroyers and surveillance aircraft to the Horn of Africa to
participate in coalition anti-piracy activities.
The idea of an MSDF mission to protect sea-lanes in the Middle East and
Southeast Asia - and that of sea lines of communication (SLOCs) in general -
has been a long-running theme of Japanese post-war defense debate. The Ministry
of Defense policy research arm, the National Institute of Defense Studies
(NIDS), has advocated both closer cooperation with littoral states and the
development of a multilateral Ocean Peace-Keeping force (OPK). In fact, both
the MSDF and the substantial armed Japan Coast Guard have developed a regular
presence at both ends of the Straits of Malacca through a year-round cycle of
training and cooperation with India, Singapore and Malaysia in particular.
There were ten reported significant piracy incidents involving Japanese ships
in 2007. In the past year attacks on major Japanese vessels in the Gulf of Aden
in particular have increased in number and severity, with large commercial
Japanese ships apparently targeted for ransom and theft possibilities. Although
there are important variations in what is counted as a piracy incident, there
is little doubt that major vessels steaming off the Somali and Yemeni coast
face quite real threats of attack, hijacking, and murder. In October 2007, the
11,000 tonne Japanese chemical tanker Golden Nori was hijacked for ransom. In
April 2008, the 150,000 tonne Nippon Yusen tanker Takayama was attacked by what
the Japanese government described as "a small pirate ship with weapons like
rocket launchers" in international waters some 440 kilometers east of Aden. In
its
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