Tokyo ponders new defense strategy

By Todd Crowell

TOKYO

A panel studying Japan’s response to North Korea’s rapidly expanding nuclear/missile capabilities has recommended that Japan be equipped to retaliate should the North launch a ballistic missile at its heartland.

The announcement was made March 30 and explained at a Wednesday press conference attended by two former defense ministers in the Shinzo Abe government, both members of the panel.

If adopted as official policy, this recommendation would represent a sea change in Japan’s defense posture and another step away from its Constitution, which prohibits any use of force in international situations or maintaining any armed forces.

Japan’s pacifistic constitution has been interpreted as allowing for a minimal defense, and the armed forces are officially designated “self-defense” forces.

“Striking a country that is lobbing missiles at us is no different from enemy bombers or ships bombarding us,” said Itsunori Onodera, the former defense minister who heads the policy group in the governing Liberal Democratic Party studying how to respond to the missile threat.

On the very day he talked with journalists, Pyongyang launched another intermediate-range ballistic missile from a site on the Korean east coast. Unlike previous launches it did not land close to Japan.

Counter-attack, not defensive

The North’s missile and nuclear weapons program accelerated in 2016, when it exploded two underground nuclear bombs and also launched 21 missiles. It has kept up the pace in the first three months of 2017.

North Korea’s missile program is likely to dominate this week’s summit meeting between President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Onodera noted that Japan traditionally has defined minimal defense as defeating an invader on its own shores. What the administration is considering is meeting the enemy on their own shores, he said.

“It is designed to prevent a second strike or even a third strike against Japan,” Gen Nakatani, also a former defense minister, told the press conference. He stressed that at present the government does not plan to acquire the equipment for an offensive posture.

While some in the LDP have argued that Japan should act pre-emptively when there is evidence Pyongyang is planning an attack, Onodera spoke mainly of launching a “counter-attack” against launch sites that have actually targeted Japan.

At the moment, Japan does not have the weapons needed to mount such an attack even in self-defense. The most logical weapon, cruise missiles, have long been seen as “offensive” in nature and thus not consistent with Japan’s strictly defensive defense posture.

Of course, Tokyo could easily obtain them from its principal protector, the United States. Additionally, Tokyo has already ordered 42 of America’s most modern attack aircraft, the F-35, for delivery next year.

In another move away from pacifism, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in March that Japan would no longer be bound by a 40-year policy that limits defense spending to only one percent of gross domestic product.

For the time being, Japan will probably opt for anti-ballistic missile technology that it can acquire immediately. This would very likely include purchasing or asking the Americans to deploy the THAAD anti-missile system, the same as the one installed recently in South Korea.

It would also upgrade the existing sea and land-based PAC-3 patriot missile. It will soon launch a $1 billion program to upgrade the anti-ballistic missiles. “We’re looking for assets that are available today,” said Nakatani.

Japan has come a long way during the five years of the Abe government. Just a couple years go, it was merely contemplating sending armed soldiers to other counties on peacekeeping missions; now it is contemplating actually striking targets in other countries.