Japan


	May 30, 2002	atimes.com

Japan

Loose cannons in Koizumi's back yard
By Axel Berkofsky

The Japanese navy is not returning home from the Indian Ocean just yet. The opposite seems to be the case and the "navy is ready whenever and for whatever ordered", maintains Hideaki Kaneda, a retired rear admiral of the Japanese navy and now senior researcher at the Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Research Institute. Where and what the navy's next orders will entail remains to be seen, although the recently announced six-month month extension of Japan's rear area support mission in the Indian Ocean in support of the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan was another "step toward becoming a full-fledged and key US military ally fighting international terrorism" as Japan’s Defense Agency officials say.

Providing US and British warships with roughly 129,000 kiloliters of fuel on 75 occasions, as well as flying aircraft to transport supplies to US bases more than 50 times over the past six months, was what it took to please the Defense Agency officials, and the US and Japan’s decision to keep on operating the floating gas stations was made after Japan's policy makers joined US rhetoric on "unfinished business in Afghanistan", claiming that the al-Qaeda network was still operating in the country.

Even though the US has made it repeatedly clear that it is counting on Japanese support beyond Afghanistan, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his cabinet are still convinced that there is no real need to worry about moving on to the Persian Gulf, claiming that the extension of the Japanese mission by six months was "totally unrelated to the question about what Japan would do if the United States attacked Iraq".

This, however, is nothing more than an ill-fated attempt to silence critics, according to the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, which believes that further US requests for Japanese support for an attack on Iraq are inevitable. "The Japanese government has no exit strategy whatsoever in its anti-terror support for the US," the paper recently wrote, indicating that there are no short-cuts home for US military allies these days.

At a meeting of Japan’s House of Representatives special committee on preventing terrorism last week, in response to questions on whether the government would be able to refuse a US request for support in a Iraq crisis scenario, the government’s answers again ranged from the familiar "maybe" and "hopefully" to the clueless "we don’t know" and "time will tell". This leaves open whether the government will expand the navy’s mission to the Persian Gulf if requested, or whether it prefers to disappoint the Pentagon at a later time instead.

The Japanese daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, usually on the forefront when expanding Japan’s role in the US fight against terrorism, stepped in, trying to fill in the government’s blanks by suggesting a revision of Japan’s anti-terrorism law implemented last November. Under the current version of the law, the support of the Japanese armed forces for the US-led operations is strictly limited to missions which target the al-Qaeda terrorist network, and its has a limited duration of two years. Accordingly, Iraq’s alleged development of weapons of mass destruction would not authorize Japanese support for a military strike against Saddam Hussein. According to the Yomiuri, a revised version of Japan’s anti-terrorism law should not have any geographical and operational restrictions and should enable the country’s armed forces to expand their missions beyond the Indian Ocean whenever necessary and if requested by the US.

Tempting as it might be for Japan’s policy makers to present the Japanese public and the Pentagon with definitive answers on the country's missions and positions that last longer than a day, working on a new anti-terrorism law is not an option for Koizumi and his cabinet for the time being.

Nevertheless, with or without a revised law, the navy seems ready to move even if a "reinterpretation" of the current anti-terrorism law is needed. "If Japan continues support during a US attack on Iraq, we can stretch the law in our favor," a senior navy officer recently said, adding that "resistance from the political opposition is unavoidable but can be dealt with".

The opportunity to show more of their skills and eagerness to be a good ally seem to be too good to let politicians spoil their efforts, and the soldiers are beginning to make military cooperation with the US a matter close to their hearts, as Ralph Cossa, president of the Hawaiian-based think tank Pacific Forum CSIS, believes. "It is personally embarrassing for the Japanese military to watch their government turn down requests for help," Cossa says, adding, "The Japanese Self Defense Forces have for many years wanted to be a better ally and understand that the war on terrorism presents the best opportunity for that to happen."

And the Japanese public? Initial fears that the public were opposed to deploying ships and soldiers beyond the initial May deadline turned out to be mainly baseless, and despite the public’s general lack of enthusiasm to see Japanese soldiers engaged abroad, Koizumi’s statesman-like rhetoric seemed good enough to convince them not too worry too much about Japan’s so-called "one-nation pacifism" or what is left of it. "The Japanese are suffering from collective historical amnesia and are obsessed with being on the side of the good guys for a change," claimed a Japanese political commentator recently, indicating that Japanese pacifist principles were indeed about to be replaced with enthusiasm for being a US ally.

Japan’s conservative press is ready to support more US-Japan comradeship and is very likely to come up with more opinion polls identifying the usual "solid public support" for Japanese logistical support beyond the Indian Ocean. Japanese opinion polls, however, are only as accurate as their questions and are mainly conducted over the phone when dinner is in the oven and getting rid of callers is the main concern of the interviewees.

The Japanese navy not only wants an on-going role in the Indian Ocean and beyond, it is also very eager to play a more important role defending Japanese territorial waters and territory from illegal intruders. The government’s recent announcement to immediately dispatch the navy instead of Japan’s coast guard if an unidentified ship intruded into Japanese territorial waters was exactly the news for which the navy was waiting. The government changed its policy after a vessel, believed to be a North Korean spy ship, sank after exchanging fire with the Japan Coast Guard in Japan’s exclusive economic zone at the end of last year, causing controversy over the role and competence of the coast guard.

Under the new government policy, the navy and not only the coast guard can open fire if an intruder refuses to stop and identify itself, although the Japanese government has yet to clarify whether the navy is actually allowed to sink a ship should it return the fire. This is not enough for navy officers who again identify the government’s usual reluctance to come up with clear-cut guidelines when the use of military force is on the agenda. "It is like prescribing a drug for heartburn when the patient has been diagnosed with a gastric ulcer," a Maritime Self-Defense Force senior officer recently said, indicating that the government’s policies did not cover realistic military crisis scenarios.

More controversial discussions on when to shoot and sink uninvited guests are in the offing, although the navy’s taking over from Japan’s coast guard the protection of Japanese territory will give the navy a chance to upgrade its hardware, as Kaneda hopes for his former colleagues. "The Japanese navy needs to upgrade its capabilities to counter illegal intruders," he says, adding that "the navy’s role as the country’s ‘goalkeeper’ should not be any different from other countries".

The US is ready to help out and has very recently offered to sell Japan a few more high-tech Aegis destroyers, although the armed forces’ new self-confidence and eagerness to go shopping for new military equipment seems to be too much for the civilian bureaucrats in Japan’s Defense Agency. They are reportedly seriously concerned that military officers have increased their influence in the agency’s decision-making process through their role in planning Japan’s support for the US-led war on terrorism and in undermining the basics of Japan’s defense policy.

Civilian control of the self defense forces is generally considered to be in the hands of the prime minister and the director general of the Defense Agency, although the agency's bureaucrats maintain that the principle of civilian control implies that uniformed personnel should also report to them as well as to the premier. The uniformed personnel, on the other hand, have very different ideas about the duties of the bureaucrats, claiming that they "should concentrate on paper work instead".

With the military almost rebelling, Defense Agency bureaucrats worrying about their competencies and his own public approval rating down to 30 percent, Koizumi might want to consider replacing his smooth and high-sounding rhetoric with a couple of straight lines demonstrating that he is still in charge.

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