Pyongyang Harbor?
This ought to get the Chinese to put pressure on Pyongyang to disarm:
Japan has warned it would launch a pre-emptive military action against North Korea if it had firm evidence Pyongyang was planning a missile attack.
Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it would be “a self-defence measure” if North Korea was going to “resort to arms against Japan”.
Mr Ishiba said it would be too late if a North Korean missile was already on its way.
Almost sixty years later, Japanese militarism remains the great bugaboo of East Asian politics. China would welcome Japanese forces (even if only planes and missiles) into the Korean Peninsula with about as much worry and disgust as a Vegan served a bloody rare steak.
What’s most interesting here is Ishiba’s formulation of a North Korean “threat” as a justification for a pre-emptive strike. First, he wisely echoes the policy of our current Administration to taking out the bad guys before they take out another office block. Or a city, as Pyongyang can do, or will soon be able to do. Second, the phrase “self-defence measure” is even more telling, as it is not-so-secret code to the Japanese people and leaders around the world.
By Article Nine of its constitution, Japan is forbidden to posses military forces, and forever forswore war as a means to achieve anything. However, Japan does have quite a lethal army, air force, and navy. Only instead of calling them by the typical names, they’re all under the banner of “Self-Defense Forces,” and have never been used outside Japan’s Home Islands. (Although Japan has recently and somewhat timidly entered the UN peacekeeping business.)
Now it seems Tokyo is willing to call a pre-emptive strike on forieng soil a self-defensive action. I’m not saying they’re wrong to do so — I am, in fact quite supportive of the idea. The new policy, should it stand, not only reinforces the American doctrine of pre-emptive war, but also takes some of the pressure off our forces in the North Pacific.
The Chinese won’t like this one bit. Tens of millions of Chinese died in the ’30s and ’40 under Japanese occupation, and thier memories are long, vivid, and perfectly reasonable. So, given the stark choice between a muscular Japan or a neutered North Korea, it’s a good guess China would go for the latter.
Problem is, the choice probably won’t be so stark. Consider it likely (although far from certain) that public pressure at home and abroad will force Ishiba to back down from his threat. And it will be a shame if he does.
Exactly what is Japan going to be launching a preemptive strike *with*? I know they have warplanes, and might be able to take out the NK nuke plant or a few missile sites, but that won’t do squat about the plutonium that has already been extracted, and SK is going to be rather ticked off if the attack causes NK to level Seoul.
On the bright side, there’s someone else the usual suspects can point at and whine about “cowboy diplomacy” now. Or not–they never have been big on consistency.
Re: #1
Japan knows how to make nukes, thye’ve got that knowledge for decades. They’ve also got more plutonium than they know how to safely disposed of. It won’t take them too long to build their own nukes and rain it down on North Korea. This IS the scenerio that Communist China want to avoid at all cost.
Scott Eiland:
Japan has a number of possible launch options:
1. F-15s (although primarily configured for air-to-air).
2. The H-2 rocket (roughly comparable to our Delta-class space launchers).
3. Harpoon missiles (I know, I know, they’re anti-ship missiles. But they’re also cruise missiles. Wanna bet that they’ve thought about how to reconfigure them into SLAM-type land-attack systems?)
More to the point, North Korea (in a very, VERY smart bit of PR) has been rumbling that, in the event of an attack on itself (presumably by the US), NK would NOT attack South Korea, b/c “Koreans would never kill Koreans.” Instead, they’ve been hinting at striking at other local targets, which most folks assume is either Japan proper, or Okinawa.
Sigh. One wonders if the North Koreans or the Chinese had been bargaining for THIS little development.
And even if Ishiba has to back down, the door is opened. In the early 1970s, a Japanese Defense Agency chief characterized the US-Japan defense relationship as an alliance. This cost him his job. Ten years later, EVERYONE (even the Socialists) used the term “alliance.”
Think of it as “hobo soup” (aka, rock soup).
yeah japanese nuke industry is good, as is rockets… they’re also rather familiar with semi-conductors and miniaturization….
course that’s all useless knowledge when it comes to developing nukes, right?
they probably even have a heu plant for “research” too
we’re not a nuke power.. we’rea 5 hours to nukes power
“Japan knows how to make nukes, thye’ve got that knowledge for decades. They’ve also got more plutonium than they know how to safely disposed of. It won’t take them too long to build their own nukes and rain it down on North Korea. This IS the scenerio that Communist China want to avoid at all cost.”
Yeah, no question that Japan knows how to make nukes–I’d go farther and say that they could probably build H-Bombs given a year or two, which NK won’t be doing any time soon. The question is: how much time do they need to tool up and build the damned things? Six months at least, I’d say (unless they just slap some plutonium together and recreate the Fat Man design, which might save them time but would be terribly wasteful of plutonium and would probably be inferior to whatever NK is doing). They won’t be doing it in secret, and a huge portion of the Japanese public will go ballistic over the prospect of nukes on Japanese soil. NK has been making noises to indicate that virtually *anything* the US or its neighbors do regarding increased readiness or sanctions for bad behavior will be grounds for war as far as they’re concerned. No question that the Japanese could become a serious nuclear power if they’re given the time to do it–will the North Koreans let it get that far before attacking? It’s insane, but Kim Jong Il is not exactly known for rational thought.
Also, nuking NK has its own problems, most notably that there will be serious fallout, and a lot of it will land on SK and China, neither of which is terribly fond of the Land of The Rising Sun anyway. Not a pretty situation, not at all.
1. The Japanese Self Defence Force is just that. Think of it as a big Coast Guard, and you’d be just about right. They do not effectively have an Army, they has some ships but they are truly in the nature of defensive weapons. They do have some interceptors, but they are just that. Fighter bombers, air tankers and the training it takes to make those things simply isnt in their stragegic planning.
To put it another way – We are their air force, army and navy. They do the martime law enforcement and customs that our coast guard would do, but the rest of it is in the hands of us (US).
2. The Japanese are constitutionally forbidden from doing any such thing. In the very legal sense, no one in the government of Japan is going to make that come together because the oppostion party would eat them for breakfast.
3. That japanese are not going to take up arms against anyone. Culturally, those days are gone. During Gulf War I , their government nearly collapsed when they proposed sending what few troops they had to assist in the coalition with non combantant roles.
This is almost certainly a bluff. I’d hate to think that its true and that my grandfather and his generation who fought to disarm Japan did it for nothing. I like a disarmed Japan, I think we were lucky to have disarmed them the first time, I dont think we’d be so lucky next time.
There was an interesting article I read a while back (sorry, I can’t be more specific). It seems that the Japanese plutonium reprocessing process is pretty inefficient. Over the last 40 years they’ve lost an unusually large percentage of the plutonium that goes through the process. IIRC, the article mentioned that it was enough for 20+ atomic bombs.
“There was an interesting article I read a while back (sorry, I can’t be more specific). It seems that the Japanese plutonium reprocessing process is pretty inefficient. Over the last 40 years they’ve lost an unusually large percentage of the plutonium that goes through the process. IIRC, the article mentioned that it was enough for 20+ atomic bombs.”
Which makes me think that if Japan did decide to go nuclear, they’d go whole hog and use the plutonium to build H-Bombs (assuming they can get a decent supply of tritium from somewhere). Twenty A-bombs isn’t necessarily enough to deter a nuclear armed neighbor, but fifteen to twenty H-bombs sure as hell is. If you’re going to eat domestic and international abuse for going nuclear (and they would, since they would have to withdraw from the NPT to produce nukes), you might as well go all the way.
RE: “There was an interesting article I read a while back (sorry, I can’t be more specific). It seems that the Japanese plutonium reprocessing process is pretty inefficient. Over the last 40 years they’ve lost an unusually large percentage of the plutonium that goes through the process.”
I think it is about 450 lbs. of plutonium that they have lost…the article was in Financial Times I linked to it a week or two ago but can no longer access it because I am not a Financial Times subscriber. Here’s the link in case any of you are.
Of course Japan doesn’t have to actually build nukes. They could just buy them. People will sell nukes to Japan in a second. And I’m sure that any deals would be publicized.
My fear [I'm kidding with this part] is that Japanese will do their miniaturization thing on nuclear weapons and create a personal hand-nuke or something.
Regardless of whether Japan would actually be able to execute a preemptive strike, the importance in this act will be as a barginging chip to scare the Chinese into pressuring North Korea which is likely the only way (short of a probably unwise American led assault) that Pyongyang will disarm. Coupled with this revelation, America’s decision to not seek punative sanctions against North Korea makes even more sense.
“My fear [I'm kidding with this part] is that Japanese will do their miniaturization thing on nuclear weapons and create a personal hand-nuke or something.”
After which they’ll make a series of cartoons and a playing card game based on cute little monsters who use them to fight, making a huge profit on the deal and sending countless parents and cultural critics into spasms of rage. . .might be fun to watch, for those among us with a sadistic streak.
I’m going to have to disagree with the assessment of the JMSDF (Japanese Navy) being a glorified coast guard. Since when do coast guards have Aegis equipped guided missile cruisers like the Kongo class or their own home-grown destroyers also fitted with Aegis and the SPY-1 phased array radar? Japanese warships are also some of the youngest ships in the world, with an average life of 9 years (compared to 19 for the U.S.) They may not have large deck carriers or nuclear subs, but Japan has a significant ability to project power from the sea.
The Japanese fleet visits Pearl Harbor quite often (every three or four months) and their officers and crews are on par with ours. Japan purchased several export-versions of our Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and some of our decomissioned frigates. They also have a handful of diesel attack subs. As if that isn’t enough, the US carrier USS Kitty Hawk is homeported in Yokosuka, along with Commander, Seventh Fleet and Commander, Submarine Group Seven. Los Angeles-class attack subs visit frequently (no nuclear-powered ships are homeported in Japan in accordance with our Status of Forces Agreement).
In short, should the Japanese need/want extra firepower, we’ll be there.
It hasn’t hit the news big yet but apparently one of N.Korea’s biggest sources of hard currency is starting to dry up. Japan’s Korean ex-pat dominated Pachinko (poor man’s slot machine) industry is starting to turn away from the Dear Leader in disgust. No wonder Kim Jong-Il is panicking!
Frank Martin states that the Japanese Self defense force is not up to operating in a military context. After a quick check of google I found the following list of available to Japan
You know,
I remember reading several years back an article in Esquire that talked about N Korea. What was interesting was that the journalist who was writing from N Korea was commenting on the fact that one of Saddam’s sons (Qusay or Uday, don’t know), was in town at the same time.
I personally think that it is not a coincidence that the rhetoric is being stepped up by the N Koreans at the same time that pressure is being applied by the US against Iraq. I personally believe that N Korea and Iraq are in cahoots together at some level and are trying to cause distractions and confusion amongst the US administration. Fortunately I believe that the US is smarter than that and is quite capable of dealing with both threats simultaneously.
Since September my theory has been that Junichiro Koizumi, when not hosting Iron Chef, is the wild card in the ongoing North Korean saga. When he went to visit nobody thought he’d get a straight answer on the abductees, and he ended up getting a few of them to visit. That was impressive enough to make me say, “Hmm.”
Koizumi has such an impossible task domestically that I think he retreats to foreign policy as a place where he can actually get things done. This may be a bluff, but I’ll bet there are eight other things going on that he don’t know about yet — i.e. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if Koizumi called Roh Moo-hyun and said something like, “I’ll be Bad Nasty Evil Nationalist Cop, and you’ll be Good Sweet Reconciliatory Cop, and between the two of us we’ll be able to keep Kim quiet without China or the US being able to take too much of the credit.”
for those of you that think japan can be nuke capable quickly, go here to see how that isn’t possible.
concerning M. Scott Eiland comments about Seoul being leveled.. just exactly how is that going to happen? if nKorea opens up with their artillery they won’t be shooting at Seoul (unless they are stupid).
By way of clarification. :^)
“Glorified Coast Guard” – Being in the Coast Guard myself, I would be the last to denegrate the service in which I toil. When I refer to “Coast Guard”, its in terms of its mission and not as some think ” the lesser navy”. When I refered to the JSDF as a ‘glorified coast guard” its in recognition that they have a mission that is closer to our defintion of what a “coast guard” is, but it is clearly performed with somewhat more oomph than our own USCG, hence “glorified”. I shouldve paid more a attention in english literature, perhaps a better word might have come to mind – but I digress.
Ill try be clearer in the future.
Its is true that the japanese have assets, and they have soldiers, sailors and airmen to maintain them. What they do lack is Airlift and Sealift capacity. They arent going anywhere with what troops that they have, unless we take then there. When you look at at number of troops that they have, the number looks larger than you would expect until you look at them the context of land wars in Asia.
It is not my belief that the Japanese Self Defense Force are not capable. Far from it. they are most capable, but only within the mission they are performing, and that mission is explicitly limited by both Japanese constitutional legal limitations and Japanese cultural expectations.
For example: I think the Swedes and the Swiss have excellent air forces and armys. Are they likely to ever take forceful action anywhere? no, not really. Is that bad? no not really. but if the Swiss start saying what they ‘might do’ to Austria, I have to put that into context.
If an armed force does not perform exercises to accomplish a given task, then it can be considered highly unlikely that they would be successsful in achieving their goal. Of course the Japanese have been know to pull off big surprise operations in the past without anyone noticing, so who knows….
In regard to the use of AEGIS on their destroyers, I would call that prudent, effective and deployable missle defense system for Japan.