Japanese security today: Heisei militarisation problem or solution

1
Japanese security today Heisei militarisation -
problem or solution?

• Richard Tanter
• Nautilus Institute
• Australia

2
Outline

• Ways of seeing - myths and images
• Japanese security tensions - old stories and new
  stories
• New security thinking
• Japanese military today SDF, budget, military
  industries
• Heisei militarisation
• New policy developments special forces,
  intelligence, overseas deployment, missile
  defence
• 7. Japan and emerging NATO global partnership
  structure
• 8. Wrong horse, wrong race Five high impact,
  East Asia-relevant global problems as Japanese
  security threats

3
Ways of seeing - myths and images

• Japan as addicted to militarism
• Japan as victim

4
Japanese security - old tensions

• Russia - Northern Territories
• The weight of history
• Russia
• China
• Koreas
• the benefits and costs of the US alliance
• Part of Asia or part of The West?

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North Korean spy ship intercepted by Japan Coast
Guard vessel
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North Korean spy ship - Coast Guard firefight,
East China Sea, 2002
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Japanese security tensions - new stories

• Whose version of Global responsibilities?
• North Korea - again
• South Korea
• China
• Taiwan
• mega-terrorism
• sea-lanes and Southeast Asia
• oil and gas - China and Russia
• the rise of China per se
• US extended nuclear deterrence

8
New security thinking

• The past
• Yoshida doctrine
• defensive defence and comprehensive defence
• the culture of Article 9
• The future
• Proportional (to threats) defence
• Great power realism
• The new nationalism

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The view from China, Russia and Korea
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The Japanese armed forces

• Self Defence Force
• Other armed forces

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SDF personnel, 2005
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(No Transcript)
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GSDF regional structure and deployment

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GSDF regional structure and deployment

15
JCG escort vessel Shikishima6,500 tonnes, 2
helicopters
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Top military spenders 2005
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Defence budget1997-2007
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SDF budget by service
19
SDF budget - by function
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GSDF regional structure and deployment

21
GSDF exercises - Mount Fuji
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Type 74 main battle tank
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Type-90 main battle tank
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GSDF AH-1S Cobra helicopter
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MSDF ensign
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DDH Kongo 173
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MSDF Oyashio
28
MSDF P-3C
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DDH 13,500 tonne
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Air Self Defence Force aircraft
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ASDF future development

32
ASDF F-2 fighter
33
F-2/F-16C fighter comparison
34
ASDF E-767 early warning aircraft
35
ASDF Patriot 2 missile launch
36
ASDF BADGE radar sites
37
JCG escort vessel Shikishima6,500 tonnes, 2
helicopters
38
JCA plutonium escort duty

• Left BNFL Pacific Pintail transporting Japanese
  nuclear fuels
• Right Japanese plutonium-mixed uranium oxide fuel
  container reloaded onto Pacific Pintail after
  admission by BFL of falsified quality control,
  June 2002

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Budget and military industry

40
Top military spenders 2005
41
Defence budget1997-2007
42
SDF budget by service
43
SDF budget - by function
44
Arms producing companies by country
45
Defence contractors
46
Aircraft production and defence
47
Domestic production of C-X transport aircraft and
P-X reconnaissance aircraft
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Heisei militarization

• Heisei reign name of the current emperor
  Akihito, 1989
• Heisei, because the period in question begins
  just before the end of the Cold War
• militarization because the dominant
  characteristics of the security policies from
  that time onwards are an ever-increasing stress
  on military conceptions of security at the
  expense of previously well-developed
  complementary conceptions of security.

49
Heisei militarization

• marks great changes in Japanese security policy
• carry ongoing and profound implications for
  relations with other countries
• subject of deep division domestically
• flow from two interdependent sources
• US pressure to integrate Japan militarily as an
  active supporter
• shifts in Japanese elite perception of security
  threats and needs

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What is new Heisei militarization

• hollowing-out Article 9
• shift from defensive defense to threat-based
  defence
• upgrading and expanding military forces
• willingness to rely on military solutions
• legitimation of use of military force abroad
• closer operational integration with US forces
• growing possibility of weapons of mass destruction

51
New policy developments in Heisei militarisation

• Special forces
• Intelligence
• Overseas deployments
• Missile defence

52
GSDF regional structure and deployment

53
GSDF exercises - Mount Fuji
54
Type 74 main battle tank
55
Type-90 main battle tank
56
GSDF AH-1S Cobra helicopter
57
MSDF ensign
58
DDH Kongo 173
59
MSDF Oyashio
60
MSDF P-3C
61
DDH 13,500 tonne
62
Air Self Defence Force aircraft
63
ASDF future development

64
ASDF F-2 fighter
65
F-2/F-16C fighter comparison
66
ASDF E-767 early warning aircraft
67
ASDF Patriot 2 missile launch
68
ASDF BADGE radar sites
69
JCG escort vessel Shikishima6,500 tonnes, 2
helicopters
70
JCA plutonium escort duty

• Left BNFL Pacific Pintail transporting Japanese
  nuclear fuels
• Right Japanese plutonium-mixed uranium oxide fuel
  container reloaded onto Pacific Pintail after
  admission by BFL of falsified quality control,
  June 2002

71
Budget and military industry

72
Top military spenders 2005
73
Defence budget1997-2007
74
SDF budget by service
75
SDF budget - by function
76
Arms producing companies by country
77
Defence contractors
78
Aircraft production and defence
79
Domestic production of C-X transport aircraft and
P-X reconnaissance aircraft
80
Japan and emerging NATO global partnership
structure

• NATO contact country
• Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand
• share similar strategic concerns and key
  Alliance values
• NATO has its longest-standing Asian relationship
  with Japan.
• NATO post-Cold War global security role?
• MSDF Indian Ocean deployment, 2001 - present
• Current US pressure for GSDF and/or ASDF
  deployment to Afghanistan

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Strategic contexts for Japanese risk

• Japanese politics - chronic crisis and democratic
  deficits
• delegitimising Japanese democracy abroad -
  history, sex and negative soft power
• the brevity of the American unipolar moment
• Japans choice US vs. China?
• the delayed American choice on China
• the implausible solidity of Market-Leninism in
  China
• the restructuring of East Asia?

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With eyes wide shut

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Five high impact, East Asia-relevant global
problems as Japanese security threats

• climate change - sudden or progressive
• infectitious disease pandemic
• energy and resource depletion and competition
• Cross-border pollution
• regressive consequences of globalisation -
  cultural and economic

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Characteristics of global problems

• complex and inter-related
• pose acute vulnerability to humans
• cause and effect often separated
• time sequences and rates of change complex,
  unpredictable
• national solutions inadequate
• governmental solutions inadequate
• can only be solved jointly and simultaneously

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Wrong horse, wrong race

• The anachronism of Great Power Realism for Japan
• The problem of nationalisms
• Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian and American
• What has been jettisoned in Japan
• The real security imperatives from regional
  expressions of global problems
• Alternative potentials