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| Japanese planes ready to take off to attack Pearl Harbor |
It seems to me that, with his conservative national security credentials, Shinzo Abe’s election was a mixed blessing because the prime minister is confronted with a national security challenge made very difficult by China.
This election, and more broadly the challenge from China, come at a time when the domestic politics of Japan’s national security have not been resolved-- whether the Constitution should be revised; whether the right to collective self-defense should be authorized; and to what extent there should be real, meaningful military integration with the United States, which has never been achieved before.
Abe is seen in some quarters as radically conservative, and this is a disadvantage for him in relations with China and South Korea. Based on history, Beijing uses Japan’s unresolved security dilemma as a whip or a club to strike Japan as a political weapon. In contrast, South Korea uses history as a “hair shirt,” a constant and unpleasant reminder of Japan’s past aggression. So, the prime minister has a very difficult problem on his hands: how to deal with the history question--and not make it worse--while responding to China’s military build up and aggressive behavior.
At a time when raising the history issue will only make matters worse, the prime minister might consider taking the advice of President Teddy Roosevelt: “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”
Let me be clear--I support additional military capabilities for Japan. However, in the meantime, the prime minister can speak softly on the history issue, but “carry a big stick” by making many necessary military changes that cost relatively little and require few additional ships or airplanes.
For instance, command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are terribly important, both internally to the Self-Defense Forces and externally, between the United States and Japan. These are capabilities that have some cost but are relatively inexpensive, and provide great strategic and operational advantage.
Between military services, and between allies, these are areas of great intimacy, typically resisted because of professional and cultural misgivings. Also, because they represent “thinking” more than “doing,” C4ISR platforms and organizational structures are typically underfunded despite being in constant high demand by military commanders. (C4ISR refers to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.)
In the alliance, successful integration would bring tremendous strategic and operational benefits. There is no question that we have to get to this point of intimacy, where the United States and Japan can work much more closely together and confidently share the most precious secrets.
I don’t think it is necessary to amend the Japanese Constitution. In terms of security, Japan is doing so much more than the Constitution originally envisioned anyway.
In the last 20 years, Japan has changed many laws and administrative policies regarding national security. This is the reality--the untold story of the transformation of Japanese defense.
In fact, the implications of changing the Constitution are so negative that Japan should do everything possible without changing the Constitution. Revising the Constitution will impose great cost on Japan’s international stature. This is the meaning of “speaking softly.”
The Constitution notwithstanding, I urge the prime minister to consider the strong merits of collective self-defense as necessary for effective alliance solidarity and operational integrity. The time may have come to consider revising Articles 5 and 6 of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.
REVISIONIST HISTORY
As for national security politics in Japan, Abe is seen in some quarters as having very radical notions of the history of the 1930s and 1940s. Politically, this only helps with those Japanese who are constituents of the prime minister and who have misinterpreted the history of that period. Everywhere else, throughout Asia and including in the United States, this hurts the prime minister and all of Japan. Insisting on revisionist history is to “speak loudly” and is at best counterproductive.
Of course, these constituents expect the prime minister to support their view, so Abe is in a difficult position. Nevertheless, it is quite obvious that the last thing that any of us should want to do now is to give China a propaganda victory. Of course, China has and will continue to use this reinterpretation of history against Japan, and by proxy, against the United States.
Apart from being blamed by association by China, it is quite clear that the reinterpretation of history also causes a real problem in the United States. Speaking only for myself, and very frankly, it makes me very upset when Japanese historians, pressmen or politicians want to challenge my view of what happened before and during World War II.
My view of prewar history is that Japanese behavior and militarism was completely unacceptable, and that the United States took actions to change Japanese behavior. Washington was faced with the fact that not only was Japan’s behavior in China and Korea outrageous, but that Japanese militarists were intent upon disrupting the strategic balance of power. Rather than bending, Japan became stiffer and stiffer, and finally lashed out in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
December 7, 1941, was as thoughtless as the behavior that preceded it, because the attack on Pearl Harbor--just as the preceding behavior itself--was a disaster for Japan, and there is no way to change that reality.
