For the First Time, Japan’s Self-Defense Force Deploys to Afghanistan

On August 23, the Japanese government announced that it would order the deployment of the country’s Self-Defense Force (SDF) to help the evacuation of Japanese and local staff of the Embassy of Japan in Kabul, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and other Japanese citizens who wish to leave Afghanistan. Based on the order, the SDF will form a Joint Task Force that will be led by the top general of Air Support Command of the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF), which would command the activities of the JTF unit on the ground.

When Japan modernized the legal framework that authorizes various SDF operations in the fall of 2015, one of the major changes was to authorize Japan’s armed forces to engage in non-combatant evacuation operations abroad. Articles 84 (3) and 84 (4) of the Self-Defense Force Law authorize the SDF to protect and evacuate Japanese nationals when the following three conditions are met:

1. Responsible authorities in the country of anticipated operation are in charge of public safety and there is no ongoing combat;
2. Interested countries and parties in the country permit the SDF to engage in the operation; and
3. There are secure means of coordination and cooperation with the responsible authorities in the country of anticipated operation to minimize the potential risk.

While the SDF has engaged in small-scale evacuation operations before – transporting a small number of Japanese nationals who had fallen victim to large-scale natural disasters or terrorist incidents overseas – the anticipated operation in Afghanistan will be the first time for Japan to conduct evacuation operations based on this particular clause of the SDF Law when the situation on the ground remains fluid at best. Needless to say, the operation in Afghanistan is undeniably going to be one of the riskiest operations that the SDF has taken part in overseas, a point driven home by the deadly suicide bombings at the Kabul airport on August 26.

This is not the first time that the SDF has grappled with this kind of operation, however. In 1994, Japan dispatched the SDF to Zaire (today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Kenya to support U.N. efforts to provide medical and other essential services for refugees that were displaced by civil war in Rwanda. The operation, authorized under Japan’s Peacekeeping Operation Cooperation Law, was not expected to respond to the deteriorating security situation on the ground. In fact, the SDF troops were dispatched with a minimal number of weapons, barely enough to protect themselves. But in the end, the SDF troops had to improvise to ensure that they could protect the refugees that were under their care, and support Japanese civilian aid workers who were working in the refugee camp.

The unrealistic premise of the original SDF mission in Zaire and Kenya was brought into the spotlight when the troops, which had evacuated Japanese aid workers at the request of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, became subject to intense criticism at home because they were considered to have breached the rules of engagement that they were dispatched under. That’s worth emphasizing: The SDF was criticized for evacuating Japanese nationals.

The 2015 legislative changes were supposed to address that. But the way in which the Japanese government has so far justified the SDF deployment to Afghanistan shows that military operations, especially those that take place overseas, remain too restrictive to allow the SDF to respond to situations like this in a timely manner.

The first big issue is the decision-making speed of the government itself. The Japanese government took almost a full week before deciding to deploy the SDF, only sending down the order on August 23. In the meantime, the Japanese Embassy in Kabul was shut down on August 17, and its key personnel were evacuated to Dubai “by an air transportation provided by a friend of Japan.” For comparison, the United States has been engaging in a large-scale evacuation operation since August 15, ferrying out of the country both U.S. citizens and Afghans who have cooperated with the U.S. military and government. Other countries that had their nationals on the ground, such as Australia and India, have been running similar operations.

Simply put, Japan had to rely on the goodwill of its friends and allies to evacuate its people as the collapse of the Afghan government unfolded. In other words, even under the modernized legal framework, the process for deploying the SDF failed to keep pace with the security situation in Afghanistan, which deteriorated rapidly.

Furthermore, the conditions under which the SDF is authorized to conduct these operations remain vastly unrealistic. All three conditions attached to SDF deployment for non-combatant evacuation operations overseas assume the existence of a stable government that enjoys some level of legitimacy.  Furthermore, they assume that Japan will be able to reach an explicit agreement with whoever governs the country that they will not interfere in Japan’s evacuation operation. Finally, they assume that such an evacuation operation will take place after the combat has ceased. Despite the justification made by the Japanese government, these conditions are far from met in today’s Afghanistan.

If Japanese leaders take this long to decide to deploy the SDF to evacuate their own people in a situation where, despite the fluidity of the situation on the ground, there is no active fighting, how can they make a quick decision to save the lives of Japanese people trapped in a country where bullets are flying? Even though the August 23 decision by the government in Tokyo was a step in the right direction, it raises more questions than answers about its leaders’ capacity to make life-or-death decisions in a timely manner.