From the CNN website:
Good idea or a bad idea?
I haven’t yet seen any quotes from Japan’s neighbours, in relation to what they think of this.
I would think, though, that other Asian countries would be hard-pressed to view this as the first step towards the re-militarisation of Japan (not that it was ever de-militarised, since WW2 - it has always had a substantial Self-Defence Force).
The limited parameters of the flotilla should be of assurance to countries like Korea and China…
…right?
Japan is in the same position as Germany was between the world wars.
And the result will be the same, I’m afraid. Once the military does a thing, it never goes back. First local support for our troops, then international, then fighting with us, then separate missions, then trying to retake the former province of Korea.
Do the countries that won WW2 have to do all the fighting in the 21st Century? Does being the grandchildren of the people who lost WW2 absolve you of any responsibility for global policing?
China will hate a more militarily active Japan because it presents them with a regional rival. Koreans will hate it because they are xenophobic and racist about Japan as a matter of course (their grandparents can be excused for it, but this is 2001).
This mission is surely symbolic. It will be some time before Japan can contribute serious combat capabilities rather than just money. But the time will come, and it probably needs to. Why is it always Americans and Brits that have to get killed keeping the oil moving and the weirdos in their place?
saynothingmuch, your analogy is a bit strained.
There are several significant differences:
- Following WWI, Germany’s economy was in ruins, but both its infrastrucure and military were intact. There was a national perception (not very realistic, but still believed) that Germany could have retired from the field if it had not been “sold out” by various politicians.
= Japan was in utter ruins and everyone there knew that they had been utterly defeated.
- With only 21 years between the wars, the German military tradition was still well-established among its citizens (and various Nazi promotions of nationalism and the Spanish Civil War allowed that tradition to be kept in the forefront of the public consciousness).
= With an interval of 56 years since its last war (and the outlawing of many military trappings and displays throughout that period), Japan no longer has a military tradition with immediate access to the entire country (although I am sure that there are pockets of people who have kept alive some traditions).
- Germany’s economy never successfully recovered from WWI, and the notion that a new war could redress “grievances” was a theme that the Nazi’s were able to play, easily.
= Japan has had over 50 years to note that a seriously reduced military frees up much more of the GNP to dominate the world in other areas. (The last few years have not been kind, but the thought has been well established.)
I am not claiming that Japan could never again seek to become a major military power, but there are a number of obstacles to lessen the chance that it is inevitable.
Some personal anecdotes:
I have read academic literature, none of which I can cite, which claims that Japan is basically a military society - evidence of this is apparently kid’s school uniforms, which do look decidedly military, and suits worn by sararimans with their corporate logo on the lapel (and I personally think they look very military too). The corporate aggression Japan showed in its economic boom of the 1970s to the 1990s is also supposed to be symptomatic of this. I don’t necessarily agree on the whole - uniforms do not an armed society make, and corporate aggression isn’t confined to Japan, but its food for thought;
I know the head of Australia’s submarine squadron - I was supposed to meet him and his wife in Osaka while they were on an inspection tour of the Japanese navy a few years back. I didn’t get to meet with them, so I couldn’t get fresh anecdotes, but later he described the Japanese fleet as impressive. I suspect this might be so because of the reports of North Koreans stealing Japanese citizens while at sea - a strong navy is a deterrent to that sort of thing. I have no statistics on Japanese military might;
I anticipate that Japan is antsy generally about North Korea, especially as NK launched a ballistic missile over Hokkaido a few years back as part of a test. One of the things I deleted from the CNN post in the OP was reference to Japan’s decision not to send a high-tech Aegis destroyer as part of its flotilla, because they thought it might leave Japan too weakly defended. From who? one asks. America has taken steps to isolate North Korea in order to justify the NMD (in an embarrassing about face for Colin Powell), and poor relations between NK and the USA can’t be reassuring to Japan;
Koizumi’s decision to visit a shrine housing dead war criminals a few weeks back heralds a new stance on Japanese militarism. Suddenly, its not shameful;
China is the new big economic player in Asia, days from joiing the WTO. Japan’s economic prestige is lost, stripped by a cruel recession. Isn’t a way of making up for this to increase military prestige? Its certainly how Russia justifies mixing it up with the big guys in G8 (Russia’s economy otherwise being weaker than Portugal, as admitted by Putin a feew months back).
In the midst of a severe recession, playing a noble support role in fighting terrorism is a nice distraction from other domestic issues (see the recent Australian example). I wouldn’t be surprised if Japan expands into peace-keeping.
Isn’t a build-up of Japan’s military good for the West? It isolates Japan from China and Korea, and pushes it towards other devloped countries.
Despite Blair’s protestations to the contrary, the Afghan assault is a Western-Islamic conflict - the West is dealing with an Islamic threat - and Japan is showing which side of the table it sits on.
Those school uniforms (the boys’ ones with high collars) were copied from… Prussia. Uh-oh…
I would make 2 points. 1. Japan needs to become a “normal” country. “Normal” countries take part in international peacekeeping. 2. The hardware is OK, but the quality of Japanese military personnel is probably lousy. It’s not a respected line of work there, and there is no-one in the establishment who has ever heard a shot fired in anger.
Not staying awake at night worrying about them, personally 
World War I: The United States sent thousands of troops to Europe. When the war was over, the military went back.
World War II: Again the United States sent thousands of troops to Europe. Again, when the war was over, the military went back.
Vietnam: Thousands of troops. When it was over, they went back.
I hope you see, in light of just these three examples, how your anti-military propaganda is fatally flawed.
You’re right about Vietnam, but we were forced to withdraw from there. The U.S. has maintained a military presence in Europe for over 50 years now, though.
You left off Desert Storm. Sent troops to Saudi Arabia. We still have troops there.
Hemlock: Please attempt to eradicate some of the ignorance you display here.
So what? That does not mean that Japan is currently hell-bent on incorporating all the other German states. All it means is that when Japan began its modernization, it compared the school systems of a few countries and selected that of Germany as a model. Do you think that all the schoolgirls in Japan whose uniforms are copied after the US Navy’s dress blues are gung-ho Navy?
Please avail yourself of (a) a dictionary to learn exactly what a point is, and (b) what the term “valid” means.
Do you realize this comment comes across as quite racist? Japan is a country, a sovereign country. It is up to Japan’s government, and its people, to decide what Japan needs to do or not do.
This is the part about your ignorance I mentioned above. Japan has taken part in international peacekeeping efforts, and has done so in the recent past. Japan also partipates in numerous training exercises with the US Armed Forces.
It certainly is not up to you to decide what country is “normal” or not. What is your criteria, anyway? After all, the one you provided already disproves your assertion about Japan. Not to mention that Japan has this nifty little thing they like their government to follow: a constitution. You may recall that the United States has a nifty little thing the people of the United States like their government to follow. Care to guess what that’s called?
The caliber of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force personnel with whom I served, both ashore and at sea, was on the same level as those of my fellow Sailors of the US Navy. By saying “probably,” you display that you are making an unfounded opinion.
Care to provide any proof of this assertion. My observation from when I was stationed in Japan indicated that it was not as respected as other lines of work, but that does not mean that it was considered not respected at all.
That’s what’s known as either an error on your part or just a lie on your part. There are individuals in the “establishment” who were alive during World War II.
A note for all: Japan does not have Army, Navy, or Air Force. It does have the Japanese Self Defense Force which is divided into the Ground Self Defense Force, the Maritime Self Defense Force, and the Air Self Defense Force. Since the government follows their constitution, they use these terms to describe something that is legally a police force with a particular mission to defend the country.
Why don’t you take a look at the respective militaries involved. South Korea has war experience and has been on a war footing for nearly 50 years. Japan has jack squat in terms of a military and zippo experience at anything more major than containing riots over Narita airport. Who would invade whom?
Monty: Take a chill pill, please. To take your “points” one by one (missing out the stupid bits)…
How can I put it? You’re talking crap 
“Koreans will hate it because they are xenophobic and racist about Japan as a matter of course (their grandparents can be excused for it, but this is 2001).” (Hemlock)
From everything I’ve heard and read, 1st hand and 2nd hand stories, books and news reports, this blatant racism between Korea and Japan is incredibly ugly and goes both ways.
The “stupid bits” as you call them are coming from you.
It was not evident that you were joking. As it is, it’s a stupid joke. Also, the US Navy uniforms are modeled after the Royal Navy uniforms. Does that mean that US Sailors are hoping to have a monarchy in the United States? Of course not! The correlation you posited is nonexistant.
Instead of using a pejorative comment about a country being abnormal, why not say “unique” to avoid looking prejudiced against that country.
By what evidence, real evidence, do you base this conclusion?
So what? That does not mean they have not trained to defend their land. As I mentioned above, the JSDF train quite often with US Armed Forces.
That’s both irrelevant and not exactly true. After all, as mentioned above, their forces do train with ours. Do you also assert that the vast majority of the members of our Armed Forces are not competent? After all, most of them haven’t been trained by those who have been in combat.
That’s what I’m imploring you to do instead of just reciting incorrect assertions without factual evidence.
Ah! So when you say establishment, you don’t mean what the rest of the English-speaking world means by establishment. Got it, thanks. ::rollseyes::
Anyway, it’s irrelevant if the person’s actually been in combat. The JSDF constantly trains with the US Armed Forces.
Would that you were talking to yourself here.
And exactly how is the military considered in the United States? Especially, how is the enlisted career considered?
Care to explain the conclusions from this site, http://www.warships1.com/Japan2.htm, then? Looks to me like that’s a far more reputable source (US Department of the Army) than your unsubstantiated comments.
Care to explain why there are so many JSDF personnel who are married? Assuredly, the Japanese government didn’t issue the spouse to the SDF member!
And in the US, how many more people would rather have their offspring enter a federal military academy instead of Harvard, Yale, or another top flight school? How many more people in the US would rather their offspring pursued a career in the military (commissioned or enlisted) than in big business?
No. I am ably refuting that which you are positing.
I implore you: do some research before making unfounded assertions.
Now on to your comment about Koreans: Kind of a broad sweep of the broom there with your assertion about “they,” wasn’t it? Is that all Koreans? If so, how do you know this? Have you met every single Korean person on the planet? I noticed you’ve kindly excused the grandparent generation of Koreans for their supposed racism; what’s the excuse for your own?
Well, Japan needs oil too, right? Seems reasonable – at least superficially – that they’d be willing to join in with logistical support.
Actually the Japanese military is one of the few examples of a military group relinquishing a technology, see Giving up the gun : Japan’s reversion to the sword, 1543-1879
by Noel Perrin. Japan is one of our strongest allies. We’re going to let Canada, France, and Germany send troops, but no allow Japan to participate. They wouldn’t be offended by that at all.
Relations between Korea and Japan have been thawing for some time now, and since 1999 they have been holding joint military exercises.
China Guy said:
Really. I hate to break this to you, but Japan’s military is growing at a rapid rate, and is quite respectable. Japan, as of 1996, had 80 major warships, 63 support ships, 1150 tanks, about 1000 aircraft, 650 helicopters, 1000 armored infantry vehicles, 240,000 troops, and 50,000 reserves.
And remember, while plenty of other countries have larger militaries on paper, Japan’s is extremely modern. For instance, Japan is one of the few countries to float the newest Aegis ships.
North Korea, for example, has about the same number of aircraft, but many of those are aging Soviet designs. And Japan, with its AWACS aircraft and modern fighters, would probably wipe North Korea’s air force away pretty handily.
Or to get another perspective on this ‘puny’ military - Japan’s annual military spending is three times greater than the COMBINED military budgets of Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, Libya, and Cuba. Japan’s military budget is about the same as Russia’s, six times greater than Canada’s, and 25% greater than the U.K. and China.
Japan’s military budget is twice the size of North and South Korea’s combined.
Hardly a ‘puny’ military, and if Japan starts relaxing its constitutional restrictions on force projection, it could grow at an astonishing rate, because Japan has a huge economy, even with its current economic troubles.
Do you have any good links? I’ve looked a bit and the best round up I can find is from 1990. http://www.warships1.com/Japan2.htm Anyone know their way around Jane’s Defense or something similar? I would like some fun facts to use.
Maybe I was unclear. I was referring to South Korea. This article (don’t know veracity) puts N. Korea military at 1.1 million and S Korea at 690,000. Assume a 5:1 ratio for attacking superiority… I would personally take a South Korean line soldier any day of the week over a Japanese. Koreans are trained and commanded by combat veterns, and face daily threats of action.
As far as spending, that’s not necessarily a good measure. My estimates that illustrate the disparity, a Chinese PLA soldier for example probably makes less than USD1,000/year and a Japanese soldier in the tens of thousands. Japan’s cost of living certainly is and I assume the cost of the military is I’m guessing to be much higher than the rest of the world. Any data would be appreciated.
The biggest ship appears to be a destroyer and no landing ships.
Japan does not have any where near the ability to invade one of it’s neighbors unless you want to count Saipan.
Which is so by design.
Part of the way to justify the whole game-of-words of how come the McArthur Constitution says Japan “renounces war” and will have no standing military, while running one of the world’s largest defense budgets and fielding a large number of Aegis Destroyers, tanks, F-15’s, etc., is to indeed make their armed services a deliberately-hobbled “Self-Defence-Agency” equipped to secure the homeland/homewaters only. (Though they DO have Amphibious Dock Ships with “through decks”, which they insist are not convertible to LHA’s) The flip side of this is that the USA willingly assumes responsibility for the tougher strategic-level defense and response roles in what would normally be Japan’s “sphere.”
If the Japanese can adopt an attitude of willingly shouldering their fair share of the burdens, as opposed to claiming some supposed “rightful place,” their participation in international operations could work to aid them in becoming even more attuned to the rest of the world’s POV.
The Asian countries would seem to wish it stayed the McArthur way, because of the signs that Japan does not quite “get it” as to the 1890-1945 period (e.g., history textbooks that only after vehement protest offer lukewarm “mistakes were made” self-critique if any at all while pointing out “war was such a terrible thing, we even got nuked” as if the war just kinda happened out of nowhere.) OTOH, the economic boom that lasted until c. 1990 apparently succeeded in creating a sort of de-facto-official “consumer pacifism” among the bulk of the population so it would take quite some time to re-martialize. Ideally, as was mentioned, they should aspire to “normalize” their participation in these kinds of operation.
Regarding the Year 2000 strength of the JMSDF:
http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/asiapac/japan.htm
As to the “prestige” of JSDF members, well, back here in the West there is during peacetime too little “glamour” to being a Spec4 in the USArmy or an Able Seaman in the RN, beyond your immediate family and folks who “just love a man/woman in uniform”. Though there is some status of “specialness” given to careerists, particularly in professional militaries like the US or UK’s, it is by no means the standard across all nations.( The SDF’s, from what little I was able to glean, are considered humdrum civil servants, about as glamorous as a career Post Office billet. Relative to the many, many countries where the military is essentially a roundup of unskilled peasants for cannon fodder duty, that’s not bad…)
The biggest (combat) ship in just about every navy is a destroyer. The exceptions are the United States and Russia, which probably still has a few cruisers that haven’t been scrapped yet (perhaps something from the quite impressive Slava or Kirov classes).
In the early 90s the Japanese had half a dozen tank landing ships. Not exactly a huge invasion fleet, but there are good reasons for that, as has been mentioned.
I guess I don’t know what the big deal is here. Japanese constitutional questions are a matter for the Japanese. Sure the rest of us can give our opinions (and mine is that I would certainly like to see Japan as part of a multinational force).
I personally wouldn’t want to be the guy who figures out how the Ground, Maritime, and Air Self Defense Forces don’t constitute “land, sea, and air forces”, but I don’t have to - I’m not Japanese nor a lawyers.
I personally rate the JMSDF as one of the top five navies in the world (and I know it doesn’t call itself a navy, but that doesn’t matter to me or at least in the above translation of the Constitution). Last I checked they had just under 200 F-15 which is pretty impressive. Their tanks were getting laser integrated fire control systems in the 1980s.
I just haven’t figured out where the “unarmed Japanese” mystique comes from. (The same mystique is applied by plenty of folks, who don’t read Jane’s publications apparently, to Switzerland and Sweden as well, so I’m not too suprised. 
) Is this ever applied to Italy, or Hungary, or Bulgaria, Japan’s WWII allies? (I’m avoiding the obvious example of Germany since it is convoluted by the whole Iron Curtain Down Middle of Country thing.)
If people are reading section 2 of Article 9 literally, well then, just quit it. It is very perilous to read constitutions (foreign, especially) outside of context. Did you know the Emperor has the power dissolve the House of Representatives? Heavens! A virtual dictatorship! (Well, not really; the House dissolves at the end of every session (in the U.S. we call it adjournment sine die) and the Emperor is just there to look regal.) Peers shall not be recognized! A direct attack on equality! (No, this is peer in the British sense - a nobleman. The constitution is simply abolishing the feudal classes.)
I could go on and on. All I’m saying is it’s a lot easier to open up a military yearbook and count rifles than it is do leap into overseas constitutional law. If you don’t believe the Japanese are trustworthy as part of an international force, just say so, but I’ll debate you.
Here are some in-country opinions:
http://www.kanzaki.com/jpoll/1997/constitution-1997.html#P15