Understanding Japan’s Military Limitations

Despite the hype surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s efforts to “normalize” Tokyo’s defense policy and military posture, Japan will continue to face more restraints than any other major power in this area. There are a number of reasons for this. From basic legal restrictions and fiscal constraints to the country’s alliances, Japan’s defense normalization is an evolutionary step, rather than a return to militarism.

Legal Restrictions

In September 2015, the Upper House of the Japanese Diet--Japan’s parliament--approved two contentious security bills based on a July 2014 Cabinet resolution reinterpreting article 9 of Japan’s pacifist Constitution. The bills lifted a decades-old, self-imposed ban on collective self-defense and allows Tokyo to defend allies even when the country itself is not under attack.

The new so-called Permanent International Peace Support Law and the Armed Attack Situation Response Law – the former facilitating the deployment of Japan’s Self Defense Forces (JSDF) logistical support assets abroad, the latter providing the legal foundation for the reinterpretation of the constitution – have caused some states (notably China and South Korea) as well as the Japanese public to openly worry about a resurgence of militarism in the country.

However, despite much domestic and international hysteria at the possibility that Japan could be drawn into foreign conflicts, potentially even launching wars, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces can only be deployed to help defend a Japanese ally under three conditions: Japan’s survival is at stake, all other non-military options have been exhausted, and the use of force is limited to the minimum necessary to deter aggression.

In addition, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly noted that the reinterpretation does not even apply to UN Security Council-sanctioned peace enforcement operations that would involve the JSDF actually engaging in combat, but is rather confined to logistical support activities, since the use of force outside self-defense remains unconstitutional.

The only possible exception is a hypothetical blockade of the Strait of Hormuz – around eighty percent of Japan’s crude oil shipment pass through there – with undersea mines, which would threaten the country’s existence, according to Shinzo Abe. However, even there, the JSDF would only be deployed in passive mine sweeping operations and not in actual combat.

In reality, these changes will have a negligible impact in the field. For example, once the new legislation comes into effect in March 2016, Japanese UN peacekeepers in Sudan will be allowed to engage in “normal” military security operations like patrolling and inspecting vehicles at checkpoints. They will also be able to come to the rescue of other UN peacekeeping troops engaged in a firefight, all things completely normal for any other military in the world. Consequently, to think that Japan will fight alongside others in a 1991 Gulf War scenario – even with the blessing of the UN Security Council – let alone in other non-UN sanctioned wars, is far-fetched at best.

Defense Spending

Japan’s Ministry of Defense has requested a record 5.09 trillion yen ($42.38 billion) defense budget for fiscal year 2016, as part of a defense posture reorientation to southwestern Japan. The defense ministry’s 10-year National Program Guidelines – subdivided into two five-year Mid-Term Defense Programs – have allocated 23.97 trillion yen ($199.5 billion) within five years (2014-2018) toward the creation of more amphibious warfare capabilities and a lighter defense force capable of being quickly deployable to repel a Chinese invasion of the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

New equipment in the 2016 budget proposal includes 17 Mitsubishi SH-60K anti-submarine warfare helicopters, 12 Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, three Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk drones, six F-35A Lightning II fighter planes, one Kawasaki C-2 military transport aircraft, and 36 new lighter maneuver combat vehicles – a wheeled tank destroyer.

However, the “record” 5.09 trillion yen defense budget only constitutes a 2.2 percent increase from the current fiscal year. A 1976 Cabinet resolution mandates that Japan’s defense budget be limited to a mere 1 percent of its GDP – the so-called “1 percent Framework” (1 percent Waku) and this framework has remained untouched by the recent reforms.

The result: Given Japan’s economic troubles in the 1990s, the defense budget, prior to 2012, declined for 11 consecutive years. Since 2012, the defense budget has only increased around 1.9 percent per year. In nominal terms, however, it is still lower than in 1997, and the majority of it is consumed by salaries and host-nation support costs (Japan pays 72 percent of Japanese employee salaries, utilities and maintenance at U.S. military bases in Japan) while Japanese military hardware remains as expensive as ever.

Defense Industry and Inefficiencies

Beyond the restraints of a tight defense budget, the JSDF also pays exorbitant prices for domestically produced military hardware, a reflection of Japan’s notoriously inefficient and slow defense procurement process. Per-unit costs for any new piece of equipment are driven up due to a self-imposed 1967 arms export ban (amplified by limited domestic demand), in addition to lack of long-term defense contracts that lead to interruptions on the assembly lines, driving up costs even further.

To reduce total expenditure by allowing sales overseas, the Japanese government lifted this export ban in April 2014m hoping to carve out a share in the international arms market. By exporting military hardware, Japan also wants to deepen joint development partnerships with allied nations, acquiring additional technical know-how.

Among other things, Japan is now trying to sell Australia its brand-new, 4,000-ton diesel-electric Soryu-class stealth submarines, made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, all outfitted with a new super quiet lithium-ion battery propulsion system – one of Japan’s top military secrets.

Tokyo is also offering Great Britain its first indigenously developed and built maritime patrol aircraft, the Kawasaki P-1, and has recently displayed two airplanes at the U.K.’s Royal International Air Tattoo, the world’s largest military airshow – a first for Japan. The P-1 is a sub-hunting aircraft equipped with cutting-edge acoustics and radar technology.

Next to defense exports, to save costs the Japanese government is also working to introduce more predictable procurement plans for domestic defense firms. For example, the JSDF will receive 20 P-1 patrol planes by 2022 based on one bulk order that will purportedly save Japan’s Ministry of Defense 41.7 billion yen ($348 million).

However, it remains to be seen how competitive Japanese military hardware is on the international arms markets and whether the introduction of more bulk orders can genuinely drive down procurement costs given other high fixed costs (e.g., R&D where Japan – with few exceptions - can still not engage as freely with allies as other countries in the region can). Japan also lacks technology transfer expertise, as is the case with the Soryu-class submarines bid in Australia, and has shown reluctance to share sensitive military technology. 

In addition, the Japanese defense industry’s sole customer to date has been the Japanese defense ministry, with the result that there is both very little understanding in the industry of how the global arms market works. There is also a general lack of sales and marketing expertise, something experts say will be crucial for selling weapons abroad.

The U.S.-Japan Alliance

This April, the United States and Japan released updated Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation after a review process that lasted two years.

The guidelines, first established in 1979, were last updated in 1997 to reflect changes in the national security architecture of East Asia at the end of the Cold War. Now they have been updated to reflect the growth of Chinese economic and military power as well to better coordinate actions to contain the ever belligerent regime in North Korea.

The 2015 guidelines, next to pledging deeper intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) cooperation, for the first time ever call for a standing Alliance Coordination Mechanism (ACM) in a wide array of contingencies including “gray zone” incidents (such as maritime territorial disputes with China), natural disasters and armed conflict.

The 2015 guidelines also state that Japan, under the banner of collective self-defense, can now come to the help of allied forces “engaged in activities that contribute to the defense of Japan.” There is also a pledge to expand the U.S.-Japan partnership into a “global” alliance by deepening bilateral and multilateral cooperation with partner nations regionally and across the globe on a wide array of national security issues.

However, the core of the guidelines remains unchanged. First, Japan still has no obligation to support the United States in a conflict – the United and Japan, despite public impressions to the contrary, still have no mutual defense pact. Tokyo and Washington merely pledge to support each other in “an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan.”

Second, the guidelines note that Japan continues to ban “offensive” weapons such as bombers, aircraft carriers, and long-range ballistic missiles and that Japan has no plans to acquire them in the foreseeable future. Even the largest surface combatant in the Japanese fleet, the JS Izumo, ostensibly an aircraft carrier, is euphemistically referred to as a helicopter destroyer and carries anti-submarine and anti-mine warfare helicopters rather than multi-role combat jets like other nations would.

Third, the guidelines reiterate that the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” prohibiting Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons remain in effect.

Finally, the 2015 guidelines clearly state that applying force beyond the “minimum necessary” for self-defense remains unconstitutional even under the banner of collective self-defense. In practical terms, this means that Japanese support for the United States in an future conflict will be first and foremost of logistical nature.

Overall, then, it is fair to conclude that changes being made to turn Japan into a “normal” country when it comes to its national security policy are at best evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Fears that any of these changes will lead to a re-militarization of Japan are, for the foreseeable future, unfounded.