Japan: Deputy superpower

Asia Times ^ | 3.29.03 | Richard Hanson

[Enemy Of The State]

Japan: Deputy superpower
By Richard Hanson

TOKYO - This is a story about superpowers and war in the post-September 11 era. Superpowers?

Okay, granted there is only one, the United States, left as a certified superpower in the post-World War II/Cold War sense of things. This is the mightiest and wealthiest country around - so much so that its current leaders have the nerve to take on, virtually unilaterally, a quixotic crusade against "evil" in Operation Iraqi Freedom along with the UK, Spain and several former Eastern Bloc countries.

Japan, which officially supports the war in Iraq, is not on the list of countries that are fighting or have military forces on the ground in Iraq, but there is an argument to be made that Japan is reluctantly on the path pushed by circumstances not entirely of its own making - to becoming, for lack of a better word, a new kind of superpower, in a class of is own.

Far-fetched? Consider this.

Japan has a genuine allergy to big-power military matters, an affliction that traces its roots to Article 9 of its Peace Constitution, which renounces war and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

For more than a half century, Japan's low profile on the war front is due in large degree to the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, who handed down the country's hastily composed pacifist pledge in 1946. In Japan, The US tried to create a democracy out of what already functioned as a defective constitutional parliamentary government (with democratic elections).

The results were stunning. Japan is one of the staunchest democracies in the world, bar none. True to Article 9, Japan has not initiated any aggressive acts of war. While the US wages war in Iraq, Japan is facing its nearby axis of evil contender in North Korea, relying in large part for stability on its Security Pact with the United States.

But the numbers show that Japan already ranks at the very top among most powerful military nations in the world. The United States is the hands-down No 1 superpower, boasting the world's supreme military and nuclear might, as well as its largest economy. On the next rung down, there are Russia and Japan. They vie for second and third place on the chart of second-tier superpowers. Depending on how spending is accounted for, Japan is ahead and the gap between it and Russia is growing. This is not a result of reckless military buildups. The secret to becoming, for example, the number two naval power in the world, as Japan has, is simple. Over the past decade, parliament has consistently increased each year defense spending by a modest percentage.

Japan has done this regardless of economic growth rates, and while it was spending (some would say wasting) public funds to attempt to bolster economic activity during much of the recession-pocked 1990s, no less. This was from a sea change in political attitudes since the 1960s and 1970s, when defense spending was crudely measured to stay within an arbitrary 1 percent of the gross national product.

Japan now spends about US$48 billion a year on defense. That adds up. It bought the world's second-largest, most modern (high-tech) and growing navy, air force and ground forces around. Can Japan defend itself? Not against a nuclear-missile attack launched without warning by a madman. No nation is safe on that count. But Japan is safe if a threat to its territory comes from just about any other conventional source.

In any case, in a ranking of the second-tier wanna-be or reluctant superpowers, Japan would be in a class of its own. These are some of the reasons:

• Japan is non-nuclear. The government has as standing policy Japan as a nuclear-weapon-free zone. These days, it is only marginally due to its historic distinction as the only country to be bombed by nuclear weapons. Others have suffered the fallout. The Defense Agency has long studied and rejected any serious ambition to build a nuclear arsenal. Even North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-il can do that. Japan relies on its defense pact with the United States for the US to nuke whoever nukes Japan. As for other weapons of mass destruction, Japan's brutal record in wartime germ warfare still haunts.
  
• Japan renounces war. This has already been given a liberal interpretation. If Japan can get the technology right, it probably would not hesitate to fire first if the other guy were about to fire. In late 2001, a Japanese Coast Guard (not Maritime Self-Defense Forces) sank a North Korean spy ship in waters claimed by China.
  
• Japan's political leadership. This is the tricky part. But a look at the current leadership under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, 62, suggests that Japan is not rushing headlong into anything without making sure that the nation's first line of defense is intact. The first rule for any leader is to remain in power. Of prime concern for any aspiring tier-two superpower is to stay on the good side of No 1. Koizumi has made a career out of doing that. He is following the advice of previous Japanese prime ministers who have enjoyed relatively long terms in office.
  
  Koizumi's model and mentor is former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. In early 1983, when president Ronald Reagan was battling the Evil Empire of superpower USSR, he found a true ally in the hawkish Nakasone, who offered up Japan as an unsinkable aircraft carrier in America's battle with evil.
  
  For Koizumi, Japan's superpower status can instead be measured by what it is capable of doing in keeping the peace as a military and economic power, while maintaining a democratic form of government, and more or less keeping up good relations with the United States. This fits the dictionary definition of a superpower, which is a power that is superior or great or any of the top countries competing with one another for influence over other states.
  
  Japan qualifies in the sense that it has proved itself superior in some things if not always great. Japan is the world's second-largest economy, despite economic (though, in truth, mostly political) problems. As for the second point, Japan is mostly seeking influence over its neighbors in a positive sense.
  
  Japan does not want enemies, and is committed to resolving most issues peacefully. One involves the northern islands seized by the old Soviet Union in 1945. Its greatest problem at the moment is North Korea, which it can only deal with in tandem with the US.
  
  Relations with the US have been tense at times. In 1991, as Gulf War I crescendoed to a violent climax, the United States Treasury badgered Japan (which was still flush with bubble-era cash) to ante a large chunk of money to pay for America's war bills, in lieu of direct military support. After heated exchanges over how much Japan would pay that left a bad taste, the Diet (parliament) finally ordered the substantial sum of 1.2 trillion yen paid from the national treasury. This made the Japanese citizens largest single bankroller of Gulf War I, but it didn't raise Japan's public esteem very much. When the time came to cash the check (wire transfer, in fact), the US Treasury whined that Japan's banner-headlined US$10 billion contribution had dwindled to $9 billion as the yen exchange rate dropped 10 percent when the war was won (eventually, Japan kicked in more).
  
  All in all, Japan's relations with the US were under strain over vitriolic trade disputes. At the time, when president George Bush Sr made an official visit to Japan, an ailing president Bush left a symbolic footnote to those times. On camera, he vomited on the lap of his host, prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa, at the formal state dinner.
  
  Gulf War II is different in two ways. First, long before the war in Iraq, Koizumi and US President George W Bush had a chance to get to know each other. Second are the effects of September 11, 2001, and how it changed the world.
  
  As fate would have it, Koizumi and Bush have found it remarkably easy to get along with each other, sort of the odd couple of the very big and small superpower world. The Koizumi-Bush connection began serendipitously in the pre-September 11 world. As it turned out, they came into office within three months of each other in early 2001, both under extraordinary circumstances.
  
  Bush was sworn in as president of the United States on January 20, 2001, under a dark cloud of doubt over the legitimacy of a razor-thin vote count in the state of Florida, in which a court ruled in favor of the conservative Republican Party candidate, ending eight years of Democratic Party rule. Bush faced a hostile Democratic majority in the Senate.
  
  Three months later, in mid-April, Junichiro Koizumi emerged as a dark-horse candidate for the leadership of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which was in shambles over the sudden resignation of a disgraced prime minister Yoshiro Mori. Koizumi, from the Mori faction but running on a radical structural reform platform, stunned everyone with a landslide victory over the Old Guard former prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who controlled the largest personal faction in the LDP. Hashimoto, the guardian of pork-barrel politics, became Koizumi's worst enemy. From the start, the ruling LDP was split, with a large anti-Koizumi block out to get him.
  
  Koizumi's popularity, with well over 80 percent support in the polls, soon helped LDP win a crucial Upper House election in July 2001. Koizumi's enemies retreated.
  
  Bush, meanwhile, was limping by on a Republican platform that his Democratic opposition attacked fiercely. Such was the scene when the new Prime Minister Koizumi made his obligatory first official visit to Washington to meet Bush. They seemed to hit it off, playing a bit of toss for the press - two handsome, somewhat awkward leaders trying not to drop the ball.
  
  Upon returning home, Koizumi soon fell into his own political morass. To fulfill a campaign promise, Koizumi went to the highly controversial Yasukuni Shrine to pray for the spirits of Japan's war dead on August 15, the date of the end of World War II. This inflamed memories of Japanese wartime atrocities around the globe, especially in South Korea and China. Calls for his resignation were heard. His LDP enemies concurred. Things looked grim.
  
  Then, out of the blue, came September 11, 2001. The rest is history. George W Bush's presidency was reborn. He rose to the challenge of the role of a strong, righteous leader in the battle against terrorism and evil. A man of deep Christian faith, Bush saw a battle of good and the evil in the world. In Afghanistan, he battled the oppressive Taliban and their partners, al-Qaeda.
  
  Koizumi, reeling from Yasukuni Shrine fiasco, reacted immediately by going to the aid of Japan's closest ally. Japan also felt the aftershocks of September 11. Within weeks, Koizumi's government drafted and passed an emergency plan (with time limits) that committed Japan's military to the US-led war effort in Afghanistan. Three destroyers and other ships were sent to aid allied ships in the Indian Ocean. This was unprecedented. Bush was grateful for this show of solidarity.
  
  This reporter watched as the Japanese navy escorted the Japan-based aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk from its home port of Yokosuka, Koizumi's home district, from Tokyo Bay on its way to war. Koizumi rode the September 11 wave through January 2002, when he hosted a successful fundraising conference on rebuilding Afghanistan. That too pleased Bush, whose support had soared in the wake of the bombings. Koizumi's support in the polls remained in the 80th percentile.
  
  Koizumi soon ran into his own trouble. An unfortunate row within the LDP and a messy midnight sacking of his popular female foreign minister Makiko Tanaka angered his female constituency. Within days, support ratings in the polls collapsed from the 80 percent level to below 50 (about where it is now).
  
  Bush tried to help. In February, he made his first-ever trip to Japan, for a summit with Koizumi. Bush pointedly used his high-flying popularity (by then more than 80 percent) to cheer his ally.
  
  But Bush had already raised the heat in Northeast Asia by declaring North Korea one of his three targeted states in the "axis of evil", just as Koizumi was making his own historic plans to visit North Korea. In September, he became the first leader to visit Pyongyang to meet "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il and start talks on normalizing relations. That was also when Kim shocked Japan by finally admitting that his country had abducted Japanese more than two decades ago.
  
  Tensions in the region became critical when North Korea then disclosed to the United States that it was violating the 1994 framework agreement in which North Korea ceased production of nuclear weapons in exchange for aid shipments from the US and assistance in developing nuclear reactors for power.
  
  These events took the wind out of Koizumi's triumph. But they did not keep the prime minister from sticking to his guns in supporting Bush the Christian warrior as momentum toward war in Iraq began to build. Behind the scenes, Japan lobbied for support as the United States pressed the United Nations Security Council for a resolution paving the way to war to disarm and remove Saddam Hussein and his regime from Iraq.
  
  This was a delicate matter for Koizumi. Feelings ran high in Japan against war in the Persian Gulf region, though not as virulently as they did in France and Germany, and in the United States. Koizumi's approval ratings suffered, though not precipitously.
  
  The issue of war scratches deeply into Japan, though not in the sense of past wars. It is more that Japan has steered clear of wars for half a century, all while surrounded by some of the most volatile potential regional conflicts on Earth. The dilemma faced by Koizumi was simple. Koizumi had to convince most people that support for US war plans was in the best interest of Japan, even if public opinion was running heavily against him.
  
  So Koizumi did what he often has done in the past. Serious politicians don't pay attention to the polls, says one political columnist who advises Koizumi. Koizumi is a serious politician. Most Japanese politicians try to skirt tough issues, such as publicly supporting a US president hell-bent on war. Not Koizumi. And this isn't just grandstanding.
  
  The prime minister not only comes from a family of serious politicians, but he comes from a family that for three generations has been elected from one of the most heavily pro-military constituencies in Japan.
  
  Koizumi grew up in a military town. He speaks of defense matters out of conviction, just like the Texas-influenced George W Bush.
  
  Koizumi was born in 1942 during World War II in Yokosuka city on the tip of Tokyo Bay. He is a third-generation politician who was elected to the Diet 30 years ago. His favorable view of the military comes naturally. Like his grandfather and his father (a director general of the Defense Agency in the 1960s), he hails from the electoral district that includes Yokosuka, in Kanagawa prefecture adjacent to Tokyo.
  
  Yokosuka is the home of Japan's navy and is the home port for the US 7th Fleet. Kanagawa prefecture houses most of the US military presence on the main Japanese island of Honshu. No wonder Koizumi was keen to support Bush in the Afghanistan war by sending several of Japan's most advanced naval ships to the Indian Ocean in support roles for the coalition.
  
  They were dispatched under the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law, passed by Koizumi after September 11, 2001 (and up for renewal this coming May 17). This law is not as Byzantine as what Bush pushed through in the US after September 11, but it was heavy stuff for Japan.
  
  Two weeks ago, as the US defied the United Nations, which refused to sanction war against Iraq, and set a deadline for hostilities to begin, Koizumi's strong support for the US sent his popularity polls plummeting. Most Japanese surveyed opposed going to war in Iraq. Koizumi took his case to the people.
  
  The prime minister gave an impassioned address to this year's 400 graduates of the Defense Agency College, located in his home town of Yokosuka.
  
  When the United States, an absolutely invaluable Japanese ally is sacrificing itself, it is natural for our country to back the move as much as possible, he told the young future officers of the Self-Defense Forces as their commander-in-chief.
  
  This was classic Koizumi: loyal to his allies. This is the same Koizumi who still repeatedly visits the Yasukuni Shrine, where he prays to the spirits of Japan's war dead, who include several Class A war criminals. He does so in part for politics, but he also, like most Japanese, believes that the spirits of the dead (especially those who die violently) need to be looked after, sort of like the way every religion looks after the souls of its dead.
  
  A week ago, as the cruise missiles started flying over the deserts of Iraq, Koizumi in spirit was marching shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush, Tony Blair and the rest of the band of allies who, each for their own reasons, agreed to support Bush.
  
  On the day fighting began, Koizumi addressed Japan: President Bush said this was not an attack on the people of Iraq but was meant to give them freedom and a prosperous life. I think so too, and I support Bush's policy.
  
  Bluntly, Koizumi told his nation that this was quid pro quo. "We do not know when there will be a threat against Japan," he said, "America has said clearly that any attack on Japan is an attack on the United States ... The Japanese people must not forget that this provides a strong deterrent against an attack on Japan."
  
  The reference is to the clear and present danger of the threat posed to Japan and others by North Korea. America's interest in North Korea is equally serious, since it has a pact to defend South Korea if that country is attacked. The US has 37,000 troops in place on the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
  
  In Koizumi's view, this gives Japan and the US more than enough common interest to be the closest of allies.
  
  In Japan, the recent developments in Iraq and North Korea have helped keep Koizumi's opponents at bay. That is important for Koizumi. In April, there will be a series of important local elections. And next September, Koizumi is up for re-election at the ruling LDP's annual convention and therefore his hold on the Prime Minister's Official Residence.
  
  In two weeks, he'll celebrate both his second year as prime minister as well as the second year of his relationship with Bush, who is also up for re-election next year.
  
  So should Japan take a shot at being that new kind of superpower, with reluctance and lots of preconditions? Hard to tell, but, meanwhile, Prime Minister Koizumi is holding his own in the polls.
  

[nanomid]

Isn't giving Japan a nuke to use, just in case, a good idea?

It's ironic, but is it?

[Coroner]

I say give them a half dozen. Then announce to China that since Kim Jong has nukes we are going to share a hundred with our Jap and Taiwanese friends unless he is disarmed immediately. That will solve the No Ko problem quickly.

[xrp]

We should encourage Japan to build an aircraft carrier or two.

Heck, maybe we could sell them one of the ones we've recently decommissioned, like the USS America

[Vigilanteman]

Agreed. Japan is as likely to wage an agressive war as Saddam is to turn into a normal human being. They are about as likely to war on America as Saddam is to turn into Mother Teresa. A well-armed pro-American deputy superpower is nothing but an asset.

[ffusco]

Japan is quite capable of building their own nikes. They , like many nations, CHOOSE not to, for the time being.

[Enemy Of The State]

Current Japanese Military Capability

[spetznaz]

A Japanese government official was asked last year how long it would take for Japan to field a working nuclear weapon(s) and he said less than 6 months! And several leading scientists have said that with the amount of nuclear material the Japanese have from their reactors (which should not be weapons-grade but some of it has allegedly been enriched, made potent and stored in case of an emergency necessitating an atomic reprisal) meshed with Japan's great technoligical know-how that they can be churning out weapons that are very advanced (compared to anything N.Korea, and even China .....before US 'asistance' ....could ever dream of).

Hence i doubt the Japanese need the US to give them a nuclear weapon ......or even nuclear warhead technology! The Japanese can devise allt hat for themselves, and it has been speculated in military circles that they have actually done everything but actually producing the weapons (meaning they have worked out paradigms on warhead design and thermo-nuclear yield using supercomputers, and they have the necessary deliver systems to bring those nukes down the smokestacks of their enemies). All Japan needs is a good enough reason to do so .....and then Nippon would rise again as a military to respect.

And in my opinion they may have to ........primarily due to a near-future Chinese threat (since N.Korea is more or less juts sabre-rattling and trying to extract maximum mileage through nuclear brinkmanship and blackmail). China will be the next major threat, filling the void left by the defunct USSR and threatening Japan, Taiwan (and basically the whole of Asia), Australia, and most importantly the US and Russia (the target China would possibly target after Taiwan would be Russia ....something Russia has been wary of for a long time ....and why the Russians are working day and night to make India into a regional super-power so as to have back-up in case of a Chinese attack. Sadly there is little Russia can do to stop a tertiary Chinese attack .....which is through Chinese immigrants that have been flooding into Russia, doubled by the fact that the Russian birthrate is in the dumps. There is great risk that some parts of Russia, like Siberia, will have more Chinese than Russians in the future).

Anyways, going back to japan, just know Tokyo does not need US help when it comes to nukes. They can do it all by themselves ....and do it extremely well.

As for the comments of Japan acquiring aircraft carriers they already do .....but not 'US style' carriers (like the US, France, Russia and Brazil have that use steam catapults and/or are fullsized) but instead the STOVL types (like Britain, Spain, Thailand, India, Italy, and the US Marines have). However maybe it is time the Japanese got a full-sized carrier .....however it should be noted that if they get in on the F-35 JSF fighter deal then even a 'Harrier' strike deck would be sufficient since the F-35 JSF can take care of any aerial job very well. Hence if they get some JSFs they do not need to get a full-deck carrier.

Chances are many of they other nations will aircraft carriers will try to get in on the JSF deal .......and some say that the JSF may compete with the F-16 as the most prolific fighter in the near future (do nto worry though .....their JSFs will not have the same capabilities as US/British JSFs).

[exDemMom]

Japan is quite capable of building their own nikes.

Yes, and I buy a pair of those nikes every few months or so.

[nanomid]

Thank you for the Japanese nuclear survey.
I've worked with Japanese companies and people for a few
years. They still have a somewhat rigid militarist
hierarchy, and some resentment towards the U.S. I think
that we're good enough friends, that at least we could
remain 'feudal' partners.

[Stavka2]

Actually, the Russian birth rate is turning around rather quickly and the level of abortions is also falling. Also, the level of population loss was way overstated. Two reasons: 1. the communists needed something to bash the government with and 2. Putin needed it to get emergency reforms through the legislature without it being clogged up. Go on my links and look up Russia removes itself from the endangered species list

for a more level headed assessment.

[ffusco]

"qwertyuiop!"