Japan’s Defense Policy under Challenge
of Volatile Northeast Asian Security


　　　　　　 Ikegami Masako
　　　　　　Stockholm University

 

Introduction

 

　　　In Northeast Asia there are two major potential risks of armed conflicts, the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Straits, which will be catastrophic for the region as well as globally should any armed conflict breaks out. Both of the hotspots are getting increasingly volatile, in spite of the international community’s wishful thinking that such an armed conflict is too grave to happen. A historical lesson from the Pearl Harbor is that decision-makers do not have to be “irrational,” “crazy,” or “rogue” (as is tended to be believed) to make a final decision for a catastrophic war to ruin a nation.[1] When certain circumstances cause a perception to the deci-sion-makers under enormous pressure that “there is no other option left” and “time is immi-nent, the situation will get worse and disadvantageous if we wait longer,” they might well opt for a most adventurous option despite a high risk of catastrophe. Volatile situations on the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan Straits may cause a major change of perception among the par-ties/decision-makers involved, which could eventually lead to miscalculation or misjudgment. Given such major volatility in the Northeast Asian security milieu, Japan is rapidly shifting its defense policy. This paper will give an outline of the current situation on the Korean Penin-sula and Taiwan Straits, and how Japan’s defense policy is shifting to cope with the change.

North Korean Nuclear Crisis[2]

 

　　　The very fact that the Korean Peninsula is still divided means the legacy of the Cold War remains in the Peninsula, and does so as the Korean Cold War.[3] However, according to Sakamoto, the nature of the Korean Cold War has changed since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, from a symmetrical to an asymmetrical confrontation. During the Cold War, there was more or less symmetrical confrontation between South Korea allied with the United States supported by Japan and North Korea with the Soviet Union and China as strategic part-ners. However, this symmetry was lost when South Korea normalized the relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and China in 1992 respectively, and the relations developed rapidly. The Soviet Union suspended virtually free supply of heavy oil in the early 1990s, which further degraded North Korea’s isolation and energy crisis. Pyongyang will now perceive that it stands alone against the United States, the only left super power, which is supported by South Korea and Japan. Economic and energy crisis make this sense of insecurity and isola-tion more severe. Although North Korea is the most heavily militarized state in the world, Pyongyang still maintains a perception of severe vulnerability and insecurity. Although its conventional forces are massive ? approximately one million forces along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) ?, the troops are mostly equipped with outdated Russian systems from the 1950s, and they are short of training due to the lack of fuel.[4] It is conceivable, albeit unac-ceptable, that North Korea tries to make up its vulnerable conventional forces with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The Korean War was an initial experience for both China and North Korea to realize nuclear weapons as the “absolute deterrence” with decisive politico-military effects.[5] During the Cold War, the United States did not exclude offensive operation plans with the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.[6] Suffering from these severe senses of insecurity, fear and vulnerability, it is conceivable for Pyongyang to consider “North Korea is entitled to have nuclear weapons” (just as Israel or Pakistan went nuclear out of severe sense insecurity). Thus, it is more logical to conceive that North Korea is determined to arm itself with nuclear weapons and other WMDs, and its denuclearization is unlikely unless it is guar-anteed credible security in terms of both military and economy. Failure of North Korea’s denuclearization would finally end the nonproliferation regime already being eroded. There are, albeit as yet theoretical and hypothetical, five scenarios thinkable.

First, a “Ukraine scenario,”[7] a peaceful solution: Thus far there are only three cases of denuclearization, namely South Africa, Ukraine, and most recently Libya. When the Cold War ended, Ukraine, a former Soviet’s republic, inherited hundreds of nuclear missiles and over a thousand nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union. In return for Ukraine’s agreement to transfer the nuclear forces from Ukraine back to Russia, and to ratify the START I and NPT Treaties, the United States and Russia collectively guaranteed Ukraine’s security by pledging to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and borders.[8] Addition-ally Russian, U.S., and Ukrainian experts set economic compensation for 1240 strategic warheads at 1 billion U.S. dollar. Russia initiated fuel credits for Ukraine, and the United States provided economic aid such as infrastructure building necessary for denuclearization. If North Korea were to be denuclearized peacefully, the scenario would more or less follow the Ukraine scenario, albeit the price will be much higher for North Korea (in the Ukraine’s case, it was the Soviet’s nuclear missiles in question, while North Korea sacrificed and paid so much for its indigenous nuclear weapon development).

Second, an “Iraqi scenario,” the worst case scenario: A preemptive “surgical attack” of North Korean alleged nuclear sites as well as strategically important military targets at once. If so, a devastating consequence is inevitable; North Korean forces of more than one million deployed along the DMZ might conduct a massive counter attack against the U.S. and South Korean forces as well as possibly launch missile attacks against targets in Japan. This would inevitably escalate to an all-out war, otherwise guerrilla warfare with special forces against the U.S. forces and its allies, or clandestine selling of fissile materials. Thus the use of mili-tary option is unthinkable, and has to be avoided by all means.

Third, a “Pearl Harbor” scenario: If diplomatic efforts within the six-party talks will fail, economic sanction will be possibly enacted, either based on the UNSC or in a multina-tional framework. There is already a multinational framework to control North Korean exports, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) initiated by the United States in May 2003, joined by ten major states (Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portu-gal, Spain, Britain, and the United States). Besides, both the United States and Japan maintain an option of economic sanctions.[9] Currently China is the major supplier of oil and food to North Korea, particularly to the military, in order to maintain the North Korean regime. It is in China’s strategic interest to sustain the North Korean regime. Thus it is unlikely that China will agree on economic sanctioning against North Korea, and any economic sanctions will be ineffective without China’s cooperation. Should economic sanctions be enacted, whether in the UNSC or in a multi-national framework, its impact on North Korea would be seriously fatal. North Korea has repeatedly stated that it will regard economic sanctions as “declaration of war.”[10] In case of economic sanctions, there are two sub-scenarios possible: One is the Pearl Harbor scenario, and the other is the Romanian scenario. In the Pearl Harbor scenario, North Korea will resort to a preemptive attack, possibly attacking U.S. or its allies’ vessels blockading the sea area surrounding North Korea, just as Japan resorted to the Pearl Harbor attack under severe pressures of the ABCD oil embargo and blockade from the sea lines prior to the Pacific War. North Korea’s preemptive attack will lead to significant counter attacks from the U.S. and its allies.

Fourth, a “Romanian scenario”: Any substantial economic sanction, if enacted, will possibly lead to a collapse of the North Korean regime. Severe economic condition might provoke a coup inside the North Korean military to turn down Kim Chong-il’s dictatorship, just as the case of the sudden fall of the Romanian former dictator Ceausescu.[11] It cannot be excluded that a part of the North Korean military or the Party, possibly with help of foreign intervention such as from China, South Korea or the United States, may start a coup, which would lead to a shift of either the leadership or regime. In this case, China may well seek leadership change (replacing Kim Chong-il with someone more benign and amenable to China) in order to sustain the North Korean regime as manageable “mini-China,” while the United States would seek the regime change for complete denuclearization and democratiza-tion. In case of a leadership change with the current North Korean regime intact, complete denuclearization and the future course of unification of the two Koreas would remain an open question.

Fifth, an “Israeli scenario,” leading to an Asian nuclear chain reaction in the long term: When no one dares to make any decisive action due to a fear or lack of capacity, then this Israeli scenario is easy to fall into, and currently the risk is very high. Israel is a de facto nuclear weapon state, but not a single country including Israel itself has officially confirmed Israeli nuclear weapons. Without official recognition or confirmation, it is difficult to address the issue of Israel’s nuclear weapons, while Israel’s nuclear weapons constantly provoke incentives for WMD development among its Arabic neighboring countries such as Iraq, Iran and possibly even Syria and Saudi Arabia. It is likely that the current ambiguous situation will continue for the time being: North Korea threatens and claims its nuclear weapon program as legitimate, but never officially confirms nuclear weapons; the U.S. intelligence- and govern-ment sources constantly report and estimate North Korea’s nuclear weapons and its arsenals, but the White House has never officially confirmed North Korea’s nuclear weapons, simply due to the lack of decisive and viable actions to deal with the issue. China, trying to sustain the North Korean regime by all means, may be tempted to avoid direct and overt confronta-tion with North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, even if China will be in a position to best know about North Korea’s nuclear arsenals. The United States is currently preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Iraqi scenario unlikely for the time being. South Korea, being afraid of any drastic change, whether Iraqi scenario or Romania scenario, may well be tempted not to highlight the nuclear issue either, but to continue a benign “engage-ment policy” toward the North, such as inter-Korean business and economic cooperation. Consequently, no one confirms and no one takes any decisive action vis-a-vis the North Korean nuclear problem, and business continues as usual, while North Korea steadily builds up nuclear weapons. This Israel scenario is easy to fall out but potentially dangerous, since North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapon state would inevitably provoke incentives for nuclear armament in, for instance, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan, i.e. an “Asian nuclear chain reaction” in the medium- or long-term. Thus, this scenario is as threatening as the Iraqi scenario in the longer term.

Solving the North Korean nuclear issue will require serious addressing of North Korean insecurity in terms of economy and military, in tandem with the restoration of the NPT regime through nuclear disarmament and de-valuing nuclear weapons as the “absolute deterrence.”[12] These actions will hopefully formulate a new international norm of security that “There is more security without nuclear weapons than with them.” Neither hostile confrontation nor simplistic humanitarianism is an answer to the North Korean nuclear crisis.

  

A Potential Risk of the Taiwan Strait Crisis 

　　　The Korean Peninsula poses an imminent security issue, while the Taiwan Strait is another potentially dangerous security risk in the medium term. There is a wishful thinking over the future China-Taiwan relationship, based on their increasingly mutual-dependent economies. Despite that, all political and military circumstances suggest an increasing potential risk of armed conflicts. First, China continues rapid military build-up, an annually double-digit increase of its military budget in the past decade. According to the SIPRI World Military Expenditure database, China is already among the top five military expenditure spenders in both constant U.S. dollar price and purchasing power price (PPP) (see the table below). This is based on SIPRI’s estimation of China’s military expenditure, which is approximately 1.8 times of China’s official figure. However, experts on China’s military expenditure estimate that China’s actual military expenditure is 2 to 3 times of its official figure.[13] If so, China would be already the number two military expenditure spender after the U.S. in U.S. dollar (constant price), and comparable spender to the U.S. in terms of PPP.

 

Table: Top Five Military Expenditure (MEX) Spenders in 2003

Rank	Country	MEX in U.S. $b. at constant prices, Level ($b.)	World Share (%)	Rank	Country	MEX in PPP dollar terms, Level ($b.)
1	U.S.A.	417.4	47	1	U.S.A.	417.4
2	Japan	46.9	5	2	China	[151.0]
3	UK	37.1	4	3	India	64.0
4	France	35.0	4	4	Russia	[63.2]
5	China	[32.8]	4	5	France	38.4

Note: [ ] = SIPRI estimates, PPP = purchasing power parity
Source: SIPRI Yearbook 2004 (Oxford University Press: Oxford 2004), appendix 10A.

 

　　　Second, China’s rapid military build-up is not only in terms of quantity, but also more so in quality. There is a consensus among experts on Chinese military affairs that China is rapidly modernizing its weapons systems, prominently in its nuclear forces (to mobile system with solid fuels and multiple warheads) and naval forces.[14] Reportedly, China is projected to deploy 500 to 650 short-range ballistic missiles by 2005.[15] Taiwan’s defense forces are losing its parity vis-a-vis China’s forces, and most analysts estimate that China’s military strength will surpass Taiwan’s defense capabilities by 2005 (ibid.). Taiwan is also losing its economic parity vis-a-vis China. Thus Taiwan’s economy will not deter China’s offensive intention.

Third, access to advanced technology has become the top priority of China’s national strategy, both in civilian and military areas. Since China’s military expenditure in terms of PPP is already comparable to that of the United States (namely, China could procure compa-rable quantity of weapon systems as the United States does), the remaining crucial agenda is technological development for modernizing its weapon systems, and strengthen overall industrial infrastructure. China’s recent active lobbying in the EU for lifting EU’s arms embargo against China, as well as intensive efforts for promoting China-EU cooperation in science and technology in general are all along the line with China’s strategic priority. For instance, China has joined the European Galileo satellite navigation system development project by providing 200 million euro, aiming at the United States monopoly of the Global Positioning System (GPS).[16] Although the Galileo system is basically a civilian (typical dual-use) system, it will help improve China’s air control and early warning capability, which is a crucial factor for its alleged operation plan to attack Taiwan. Better military and technological capability will give China more confidence in its optimal calculation in favor of the use of forces against Taiwan, thereby making breakout of a military conflict more likely. It may not be a coincidence that China is in a haste to persuade the EU on the arms embargo issue, and the Galileo project is expected to complete in 2008, the period (2006 to 2008) that most experts on the China-Taiwan issue regard as “highly risky” for China’s military offence against Taiwan.

Fourth, other external factors are also, at least in Beijing’s perception, in favor of China’s optimal calculation for the use of forces against Taiwan. In spite of its intensive international lobbying, Taiwan has not been successful in winning an observer’s status in the World Health Organization (WHO). Principally, health and human welfare are a major issue of human rights and human security, which deserves the international community’s concern regardless of the sovereignty issue. Nonetheless China has been thus far successful in block-ing Taiwan’s entering into the WHO, which Beijing deems as a sign that the “one-China prin-ciple” is firmly accepted internationally. This could lead Beijing to assume even a military offence against Taiwan may not arouse too much international protest, for it is an “internal affair.” In Beijing’s conventional logic, an offence against Taiwan can be approved as an “internal affair,” just as its past military offence against Tibet. The current worldwide antipa-thy against U.S. military interventions since the 2003 Iraq war and general anti-America sentiment is another positive factor in favor of China. Due to a “war against terrorism” since September 11, the U.S. overseas forces are overstretched worldwide. This may make it more difficult for the United States to mobilize large-scale forces for the defense of Taiwan in case of military crisis. Given the worldwide anti-American sentiment, thinly overstretched U.S. overseas forces, and the international community’s weak support for securing Taiwan’s autonomy, Beijing may well calculate (or misjudge) that its military offence against Taiwan will not arouse much international protest and thus be paid off.

Finally, China’s adherence to the old-fashioned (of the imperialistic 19th century) concept of sovereignty, particularly “territorial integrity” based on its claim deriving from the ancient Chinese dynasties’ loose hegemonic rules, makes any flexible or creative/forward-looking deals with Taiwan virtually impossible, unless Beijing changes its current position. Since Beijing’s current position never accepts two political authorities representing China, what Beijing can provide is at most the “Hong Kong model” (one-country two-systems). Even Taiwan’s pro-unification faction may hardly accept the Hong Kong model, which means much setback from Taiwan’s current autonomy and full-fledged democracy. To make the situation worse, both Beijing and Taipei have a sense of imminence: Beijing thinks if it waits Taiwan will merely and irreversibly intensify its orientation for independence; Taipei thinks the last chance for consolidating Taiwan’s current autonomy is the coming two or three years, before China’s military strength surpasses that of Taiwan. Such sense of imminence may encourage either of the parties to opt for an adventurous and risky option. 

 

Japan’s Defense Policy in Volatile Northeast Asian Security 

　　　During the Cold War, Japan’s defense policy had a kind of “double standard” or “double structure”: the “Peace Constitution” and the Treaty of U.S.-Japan Security Cooperation. The double standard often caused inconsistency in Japan’s defense policy. During the Cold War, there was a constant build-up of Japanese defense forces, so that the Japanese forces could singly manage a minor attack to the Japanese territory, and could well support U.S. operations in case of major conflicts in the Far East. Consequently, the Japanese defense forces became so large that they tend to be perceived as excessive for its principle of “exclusively defensive posture” (senshu-boei). After the Cold War, Japan is redefining its defense policy towards a more internationalized stance, which is a viable way of adjusting its “double structure,” a legacy of the Cold War structure, into a more coherent defense policy. Japan is also intensi-fying its commitment in regional and international security arena by strengthening the U.S.-Japan security cooperation, prominently in the new 1997 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines,[17] as well as through international peacekeeping operations.[18]

Since mid-1990s, Japan’s defense policy has faced the major agenda as follows, which has led to a significant policy shift. First, strengthening the U.S.-Japan security cooperation. In the volatile security circumstances after the Cold War, the U.S.-Japan security cooperation is shifting its gravity from the Article 5 (defense of Japan) to Article 6 (Japan’s facilitating U.S. operations for the regional security). The scope of Japan’s logistic and complementary role for supporting U.S. operations is increasingly extended such as the case with the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) logistic support in the 2001 Afghanistan War.[19] Since the 2003 Iraq War and North Korean nuclear crisis intensifying, SDF are also contributing to the recon-struction works in Iraq and the Proliferation Security Initiatives (PSI) as an important part of the U.S.-led coalition. As the U.S. overseas forces are globally reorganized and increasingly overstretched in broader areas worldwide after the September 11, SDF’s complementary roles tend to extend in its scope and depth.

　　　Second, Japan’s defense budget is being constrained since the 1990s (see the chart below), due to the Japanese government’s huge financial deficit. Despite limited defense budget, SDF has to cope with the technological development (information technology revolu-tion).[20] Given ballistic missile threats perceived to be imminent in the East Asia,[21] Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) is a major system to be procured at the cost of other conventional systems. For example, the procurement number of major front-line equipment such as vessels, operational aircraft, and tanks has been significantly reduced since the mid 1990s (e.g. destroyers from 58 in 1996 to 52 in 2007, fighters from 431 in 1996 to 358 in 2006, tanks from 1110 in 1996 to 976 in 2004; Defense of Japan 2003, p. 429).

　　　Source: Defense of Japan, different editions

 

　　　Third, the SDF have to cope with nontraditional threats such as armed spies/boats, guerrillas, special operations units, and WMD proliferation and terrorism using NBC weapons.[22] As a major supporter of the U.S. operations against terrorism, Tokyo perceives a significant risk of international terrorism. The December 2001 incident aroused an alert against intrusion of spies/armed boats, when the Japan Coast Guard fired at an allegedly North Korean armed boat in the southwest coast of Kyushu. In case of armed conflicts on the Korean Peninsula, the Japan Defense Agency (JDA) foresees a risk of North Korean special forces intruding in Japan for sabotage.[23]

Concluding Remarks

　　　Given the major shift to the post-Cold War security dynamics and increasingly volatile Northeast Asian regional security problems, Japan’s defense policy has started transforming fairly rapidly. There is a prevailing view that Tokyo is taking advantage of the perception of threats from North Korea and international-terrorism, in order to break through the post-1945 taboo to become a more proactive military power. Such a view may have failed to recognize how seriously Tokyo takes the Northeast Asian volatile security as threatening. For instance, the fact is that Japan is within a range of hundreds of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, which in theory and technically are able to destroy Japan, even if the primary purpose of those missiles are for political intimidation and not for the actual use. Europe may well recall its late Cold War history when the West Europe requested the United States to deploy the Pershing missiles in response to the Soviet Union’s deployment of the SS-20s. It would be naive not to assume any major reaction from Tokyo under such a situation. The development and deployment of BMD was a rather painful decision for Tokyo, it meant to allocate a huge budget under strict financial constraints and by sacrificing other conventional front-line equipment for a system, which may not provide credible defense due to its allegedly essential technical faults (of the midcourse-interception in particular). Nonetheless, Tokyo has to go ahead with the BMD deployment; otherwise the U.S. commitment for the regional security may not be secured given the ballistic missile threats. On November 10, 2004, the Japan Coastal Guard and JDA set high alert since December 2001, when a Chinese Han-class nuclear-submarine intruded Japanese territorial waters and Tokyo officially protested against Beijing to receive an official apology.[24] Many past reports and studies, however, suggest that this was not the first intrusion by the Chinese navy into Japanese territorial waters.[25] Possibly the post-1945 taboo used to hinder Tokyo from recognizing or speaking out such incidents as “threatening,” which has finally started to be recognized as such.  

Responding to the increasingly volatile regional security situation, Japan is launching a series of policy change. Tokyo is now considering to partially loosen the Three Principles on Arms Exports, which has virtually banned exports of all arms and arms-production related facilities since 1967, and was tightened in 1976. The primary purpose of this partial deregula-tion is to enable full-fledged codevelopment of defense systems with the United States so that new weapons systems containing Japanese military components or subsystems can be sold to U.S. customers. The ongoing codevelopment program of a missile defense system would be an immediate example.[26] According to experts there was strong lobbying for the deregulation from the United States and Japanese major defense industry. In the past few years, the Japa-nese government openly started to debate on whether and how to amend the Japanese Constitution, which used to be a prominent taboo in the post-1945 era.[27] One of the major agenda is to enable “collective self-defense” (which used to be deemed to violate the Article 9) for full-fledged cooperation and inter-operability in international operations such as with the U.S. forces and/or international peacekeeping operations. Also, Japan is to revise its National Defense Program Outline (NDPO: boei-taiko), the basic framework of Japan’s defense policies determining its defense posture,[28] until the end of 2004. In the new NDPO draft and JDA’s annual white paper, Defense of Japan 2004, Tokyo has for the first time named China as a potential threat causing armed conflicts, which will probably inflict Japan.[29] Having seen the course of regional and global security changes since the 1990s, it would be too simplistic to condemn the on-going shift of Japan’s defense policy as “the revival of Japan’s militarism” or “Japan’s ambition to become a major political and military power, let alone economic power.” To the contrary, Tokyo has finally realized its vulnerability in the volatile Northeast Asian security circumstances, and that the U.S. military presence in the region shows signs of weakening in the long term. But it is also true that it will be a formida-ble task for Japan to redefine its essential defense policies for coping with new regional and global security challenges, while not to emerge as a threatening military power for its Asian neighboring countries. Therefore, the Japanese government is urged to present to the interna-tional community a long-term vision how Japanese defense forces will commit for the global peace and security, and clarify its action programs by keeping its defense policy transparent and accountable.