TOKYO: A rocket will blast Japan’s first two spy satellites into orbit next month, in a potent symbol of how North Korea’s brinkmanship is pushing the pacifist country into beefing up its well-funded but ill-prepared military forces.
Peeking at the neighbours from space may be a matter of course for many major nations, but Japan’s pacifist constitution has kept its military heavily reliant on its main ally, the United States, for the past half century.
North Korea has shaken that security, most famously by lobbing a missile over Japan in 1998 and more recently on Thursday, when US officials said the communist nation had restarted a long-dormant nuclear reactor.
“The 1990s really put a stake through the heart of pacifist Japan,” said Brad Glosserman, director of research at Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank. “They realised they live in a very dangerous neighbourhood.”
The two satellites, costing 250 billion yen ($2.14 billion), are meant to close an information gap that was highlighted on Thursday when Japan said it couldn’t confirm US reports on the reactor reopening, which comes close on the heels of Pyongyang’s withdrawal from the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. North Korea’s missile and nuclear ambitions have also exposed Japan’s lack of offensive punch — or force projection — that it has said could become necessary in the name of self-defence.
What Japan calls its Self-Defence Forces are untested in real combat and rely heavily on the nearly 48,000-strong US force stationed here and America’s nuclear deterrent.
ON THE DEFENSIVE: Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba told Reuters in an interview this month that Japan would launch a military strike against North Korea in self-defence if Tokyo had firm evidence that Pyongyang was launching a missile.
But analysts said Japan probably lacked the capability to carry out such an attack.
“I think they would have great difficulty in trying to do that,” said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor at Jane’s Defence Weekly. “I can’t think of any of their aircraft that really have the legs to get from Japan to North Korea,” he added.
WINSOME WARRIORS: But hemmed in by the war-renouncing Article Nine of Japan’s constitution, drafted by the United States after World War Two, the military lacks the ethos and equipment to project force outside its borders.
“The problem is we’ve never seen them fight since World War Two,” said Iain Cowie, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in London. “My impression is they haven’t got a great reputation.”
Promotional material featuring cuddly cartoon characters dressed in military uniforms hardly adds to the impression of a fierce fighting force.
Japan’s military may boast the biggest official budget in Asia, but nearly half of that goes on personnel costs and food.
As well as North Korea’s bristling army of around a million, Japan has a nervous eye on China’s two-million strong military, which lacks technological prowess but is rapidly modernising with no such pacifist constraints.
“Basically you have a country that has not had to think seriously about defence for 50 years,” said Robyn Lim, professor of international relations at Nanzan University in Nagoya.
She argues that Japan should be stepping up its civil defences and bringing in new-generation Patriot missiles to help counter external threats without overstepping its pacifist remit.
MODEST CHANGE: For the moment, the changes Japan is making add up to a small but significant step forward.
“It is a very important development,” Karniol said of the satellite launch, planned for March 28.
“But it has taken nearly 15 years to come to fruition and is already out of date because of the resolution the satellites provide,” he added. “Technology moves much quicker than the Japanese bureaucracy.”
The launch will send into orbit one radar-equipped satellite and one optical satellite, which can detect objects one metre in diameter.
Although it is a closely guarded secret, US military satellites are thought to be capable of detecting objects smaller than 30 cm in diameter.
Other developments in the pipeline include plans for two new 13,500-ton helicopter-carrying destroyers, for which the Defence Agency is likely to submit a budget request this summer. The Defence Ministry says the ships are intended to fulfil a defensive role and could be used to rescue Japanese citizens from emergency situations abroad.—Reuters
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