[ full, unlicensed translation of article in September issue of Sekai by Tooru Shirakawa, a 24-year old journalist who has travelled to Afghanistan 5 times in the last 3 years to conduct research and make contact with local people. ]

In April 2009, my feet touched down again on Afghan soil. This was my fifth extended visit to gather local information.

Coming out of the plane my nostrils were once again assailed by the combined aromas of sand, spices and faeces that always accompany my sense of arrival in this

Map of Afghanistan

country.

As I walked out of the airport building, I was greeted by my friend of 3 years, Ismat and we celebrated this reunion with an embrace; “We have missed you, son.” says Ismat with a huge smile on his face. He is one year younger than me, at 23, and works for the UN. He has a small build and is always wearing lightly-coloured sunglasses. A slightly timid man, he is prone to swings of emotion. Ismat undertook some training in Japan at one time for a month and is very much a ‘Japan-man’. Once, however, when he came to meet me at the airport when I visited in February 2008, there was a moment of tension : “Why does Japan always take sides with America?”.

These, his first words to me, were prompted by world-wide reporting of the adoption by the Japanese Diet in January of that year of the “Terrorism Special Measures Law” – approving SDF provision of re-fueling services to American warships in the Indian Ocean. The law had just come into effect that February and the fuss surrounding the issue in Japan had been reported all over the world; for the Afghanistan people it was the moment that Japan’s ‘pro-America stance’ was first exposed. The story goes that even President Karzai had not suspected it.

This was the first time that the mild, young Ismat had ever expressed such anger to me; and it reflected the damage done by these events to his somewhat fantastical image of Japan.

Japan has a certain, special kind of ‘popularity’ in Afghanistan. This is in no small part due to the omnipresence in people’s daily lives of Japanese consumer goods. The casual visitor first notices the startling number of 1990s Toyota Corollas on the roads of Kabul city centre. Almost all the cars there are second-hand Japanese models. Bearded men drive around, whistling, in Corollas decorated with stickers advertizing ‘The Tanaka Rice-Wine Micro-Brewery’… Above all, the relationship between Japan and Afghanistan is not burdened by hidden, vested interests. Neutrality has preserved Japan’s reputation in Afghanistan. It could be said that the 2008 adoption of the ‘Terrorism Special Measures Law’ created the first cracks in the friendly relationship between our two countries; this probably appeared to the Afghan people as a kind of ‘betrayal’.

The Afghan Press

In the hotel lobby, groups of self-appointed ‘interpreters’ are hanging around – these are men who call out to foreign journalists in gentle voices with the promise of  an ‘exclusive interview with the Taliban’; for the most part their intention is to sell foreigners out to armed groups of insurrectionists – you’d make it to the suburbs before being surrounded by a group of men with guns.

When I hire an interpreter I am careful to only take on close relatives or friends of Ismat. When conducting research in a country where the most intimate of relations between people are based on clan affiliations, a trusted partner like Ismat is a necessity. The domestic economic situation in Afghanistan is dire and large numbers of university graduates find there are no jobs for them. As a result, people’s hearts have hardened and the foreign hostage-taking business has come into existence as a means of making a living.

The ‘brain drain’ of educated Afghans to foreign countries is also a serious problem. The breakdown of law and order over many years has led to a situation where the English-speaking, educated class will emigrate as a matter of course in order to earn a decent amount of money. Of the six interpreters I have employed since beginning my research in Afghanistan, over half put the money I paid them towards their emigration and resettlement costs and have left the country. In the universities, it is almost at the point where final year students provide the lectures for the first years. This exodus of the next generation of young talent puts a question mark over the country’s ability to establish independent government policy.

The breakdown of law and order invites a decline in the quality of media reporting. Most foreign news agencies have local staff conduct research on the ground and it is

Foreign forces in Afghanistan

now rare to see foreign journalists travelling around and gathering information for themselves. During the large-scale demonstrations in Kabul in February 2008, the people covering the story were almost all Afghans – there were only three foreign journalists on the ground reporting on events, and one of them was me. At present, foreigners are only involved in the kind of information-gathering where security is to some extent guaranteed – insertion with military forces, for example.

Japanese press agencies are also struggling in Afghanistan and only the Kyodo News Agency still maintains an office there. I was approached in 2008 by a certain news agency in Japan with a request for written coverage, but the conditions proposed were nothing short of humiliating from the point of view of a media professional : “Our man is covering the situation in Afghanistan but the situation is too dangerous for him to leave Kabul – how about you cover the rest of the country for us?”.

But it is dangerous to leave all reporting to Afghans; the lack, historically, of reliable media in the country means it is rather an understatement to say that present-day journalists are not of the highest quality. In addition, the poor economic situation and lack of work leads many so-called journalists to regard the job as a means to make money in any way possible. When I visited a news agency used by the BBC and NHK, I heard the following from a member of staff there :

First off, we need you to write down what kind of content you need the interview to produce – it will cost you, but we will come back with what you request.

These agencies have lucrative contracts with large, foreign media corporations but their journalistic integrity leaves much to be desired. It is highly doubtful whether news coverage of events here can be timely and fair. Of course, there are some outstanding local journalists, but without considerable local experience and knowledge it is a quite a job to identify them.

In the Afghan press, there is a conspicuous lack of reporting by local journalists on the domestic situation. Japanese newspapers’ coverage of Afghanistan also largely involves the word-for-word reproduction of foreign news agencies’ articles. It is a fact that Japanese press coverage, with its dependence on US and European media sources, is not functioning healthily.

What is the Taliban?

Taliban

Behind the collapse of law and order lies the resurgence of the Taliban. Their influence has increased dramatically since the presidential elections in 2004. According to the thinktank ‘International Council of Security and Development’, 72% of the country in 2008 was under the control of the Taliban.

The majority of those who made up the Taliban hardcore located in the country in 2001 have been beaten back into the tribal areas bordering Pakistan and their domestic presence is now limited to Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The terror attacks of recent years have been largely conducted by a group known as the ‘New Taliban’.

In January 2008, I visited the Choroi Kanba refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul. There are now said to be at the very least 230,000 refugees in the country. At this camp, around 400 people were struggling to survive. They had fled from the Sangin region in the war-ravaged Helmand province, where their village had been obliterated in air attacks by foreign military forces. Kabul is situated on a plateau at about 1900 metres above sea level. The wind that blows through the mountains is cold; at night the temperature drops as low as minus 20°c. Most of the refugees live in tents of thin canvas with no heat source at all. Several foreign aid agencies were distributing blankets, but during my visit people were still dying from exposure to cold.

Looking around the camp, the majority of inhabitants are women, children and the elderly. There is not a single young man. When asked, people say that they have gone off to join the Taliban.

The ‘new Taliban’, as opposed to the old ranks, are victims of air attacks who independently choose to launch attacks. They operate in small groups of between 5 and 10 people and on a fundamental level bear no relation to the old ranks of the Taliban who ran the country before the US-led invasion of 2001. They have adopted the name ‘Taliban’ for its emotive force and cannot be said in any real sense to represent a military wing of the former Taliban. However, with their origins in the dust and devastation left after foreign air attacks, these groups are far more radical than the original Taliban, who are primarily an ideological organization who do not conduct attacks with political objectives that would involve casual citizens. The ‘new Taliban’, however, will attack any foreigners, regardless of civilian or military status. Last year, a British woman working with a christian aid organization was shot dead in the centre of the city.

While everyone knows that the ‘Taliban’ exist, it is a very difficult task to grasp completely what it is in the present reality. Much research has been and is being conducted, but the results all seem to point in different directions.

Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative in charge of Pakistan and Afghanistan affairs for the Obama admninistration, revealed at a conference in Tokyo in April this year that he classifies the Taliban in three different ways :

1. a minority core group aiming for a society based on fundamentalist Islam;
2. citizens who have come to support the Taliban due to rage caused by having lost family members killed in military conflict, or poor government, or unresolved poverty issues;
3. mercenaries who join the Taliban as a ‘career move’, based on the logic that the Taliban will pay soldiers more than the government will.

More than half of the thus-defined Taliban, he continued, are made up of members of group 3. One could assume this assessment to be based on the enormous revenues the Taliban are estimated to gain from poppy cultivation.

There are some people, however, who describe this as an ‘imaginary classification’. In May of this year, I succeeded in getting an interview with Wakir Ahmad Mutowakir, who was high up in the Foreign Ministry of the former Taliban government. Mr. Mutowakir was captured by US forces during the 2001 invasion and incarcerated until 2004 at Baghram air base. He currently denies any Taliban connections, but there are rumours around the city’s watering holes of his association with the group. Out of the people to whom foreigners can still gain access, he is the most knowledgeable about the Taliban.

The Westerners say that the Taliban are mostly mere mercenary soldiers fighting for money, but who is going to carry out a suicide bombing for money? They will only go so far because their actions are based on ‘belief’. Their consciousness is one of resistance against the forces that seek to occupy and dominate their country and culture.

Mutowakir points out that the nature of the Taliban has changed considerably.

The definition of the word ‘Taliban’ has changed. Previously, the word used only to mean ’student’ in Arabic, but now among people in this country it means ‘those who fight for the freedom and independence of Afghanistan’.

The Obama administration’s main aim is to see the Afghan government engage the ‘moderate wing of the Taliban’ in dialogue. Mutowakir doubts whether such an undertaking can be successful.

As I keep on saying to you, the Taliban are ‘people who fight for independence and freedom’. You’re not going to get anywhere by talking to Taliban who are not fighting. Because if they are not fighting, they are not Taliban. Who on earth is President Obama trying to negotiate with?

This change in the nature of the Taliban seems to have escaped the Americans. The more military pressure they apply and the higher the body count rises, the greater the numbers of new recruits for their insurrectionist enemy. Negotiation itself is difficult since there is no unified organization as such and therefore the standard strategy of seeking dialogue with one’s top counterparts cannot be applied.

Matters have already past the point where military measures  will lead anywhere. Despite the presence of troops from around 40 countries in Afghanistan, the situation gets worse from year to year.

Mutowakir describes the Taliban’s goal as “the withdrawal of all foreign military forces”. If that is the case, then the Obama administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan must be regarded as rather running off at a tangent.

However, it is not the case that a complete withdrawal of all foreign forces would see a resolution to the situation. There is a significant possibility that an immediate withdrawal of foreign forces would be followed by civil war. The native Afghan military forces, with US guidance and funding, are swelling in size each year. Currently, this native army draws the boundaries of its activities in cooperation with the military tacticians of 40 other countries – there is a fear that their departure would lead to a collapse in the balance of power. In such a case, a clash between the current government administration and Taliban forces would be inevitable. Even if the current government was overthrown, the non-unified nature of the Taliban itself would lead to further struggles for power.

The US-led invasion has beaten the state of affairs in Afghanistan down to a point from which it is not possible to recover. There is no magic medicine that is going to cure or resolve this situation.

First, we must discuss the original justifications for the American invasion that brought Afghanistan to this state. Then, we should think about a way to provide a soft landing, so to speak, a solution ‘in a form that is best for the Afghan people’.

The state of support for the PRT

During this research trip, I visited the largest foreign air base in Afghanistan – Baghram air base in Parawan province, about an hour and a half’s drive from Kabul. American, Turkish and French troops are currently stationed there. ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) has divided the country into four regions, and Baghram air base represents a strategically-critical position in the eastern theatre.

This was the second time for me to be ‘inserted’ with troops. The American military frequently send journalists out with their troops – during the trips, accomodation, food and transport are all provided and while on the move special security detachments accompany you. From the base promotional literature, one is given the impression that journalists are regarded as VIPs.

Obviously, prisoners of war currently incarcerated there, on-base funerals and other negative goings-on are completely out of bounds and reporting of them is not permitted. Information gathering on-base is also strictly limited, and it is only possible to interview the individuals who have been given the job of introducing and promoting the base to you.

Entering the base feels like entering America. From a land of violence and famine, one experiences a considerable shock on entering a systematically-run society – it is hard to believe you are standing on the same soil. Inside the base, there are supermarkets, hamburger bars and pizza shops. I was surprised to see there is even a beauty salon. In the shops, dollar bills fly back and forth, in the cafeterias Americans lick ice-cream and guzzle down fried chicken. If all the people were not wearing military uniform, you would think you were in some American provincial town.

TV games are currently the rage on base, and young soldiers were gathered around a monitor playing a war game. Outside the base they kill people and get killed for real, back on base they continue the killing in a game. The mixture of reality and falsehood left me feeling quite speechless.

During this insertion, I conducted research into the activities of a PRT – Provincial Reconstruction Team. The US military are deeply involved in this activity – constructing schools, building roads and providing medical treatment and care. The Obama administration increased troop numbers by 21,000 but, at the same time, made increasing reconstruction efforts a central task of the military in Afghanistan. PRT is the carrot in the US military’s ‘carrot and stick’ strategy.

At dawn, in a meeting with the PRT unit with which we would be spending the day, we were informed by the unit commander that five troops would maintain a cordon around us and we should not egress from that area. Prior to our departure, a strange atmosphere surrounded the whole unit. Perhaps it was something to do with the soldiers being only just into their 20s. Bellowing and hooting, some pretending to kiss each other’s arses, they were playing together like children. These young soldiers, with a strange fatalism showing in their faces, could just have been about to head off on a school trip.

They said they were going to a nearby village to meet with some local leaders. Three armoured personnel carriers travelling in convoy moved off and we left the base behind us. On the way, the vehicle I was in drove over a bicycle, crushing it. Fortunately, there had been no-one on it, but a boy who may well have been its owner caught our eyes through the window of the armoured personnel carrier with a decidedly unfriendly gaze. The American troops commented, “OOOooh! That’s done it!”, and laughed heartily.

After about an hour we pulled up in a small village. The villagers stood around the troops at a distance watching them carefully. Some of the older ones looked quite put out by the team’s arrival, but some younger boys came up to the soldiers to ask for money :  “Give us a dollar!”.

We went into a house with the troops. The American soldiers strode straight in with their desert boots on. Afghanistan, like Japan, is a country with a culture where it is just plain wrong not to take off your shoes before entering a building. The children of the house made a noise from another room, as if testing whether we could hear them or not.

In the guest room, a number of village leaders were gathered, waiting. A man in his 40s, dressed in black, appeared to be the leader and he was exercising his charm on the American soldiers. The other four leaders were watching uncomfortably.

We will do what we can to cooperate with you. If armed groups appear here, we will let you know.

The man in black was very cooperative. One of the other leaders said, “We have found a bomb near the village.” The American unit commander replied that they would, well, check it out tomorrow. The village leader rubbed his hands together and said, “…and in return I hope that the little matter of my son working on the base will make some progress.” Between the village leaders, who cannot wait to see the back of them, and the US troops who need local cooperation, it is not unlike a contest between a wily fox and a mischievous monkey that refuses to be serious. The unit commander remarks that the aim of reconstruction activity is “educating through giving support”.

Most Afghans do not know about the situation in their country. They are taught that America is bad. So, we want to give them support and through that educate them with the message that Americans are good people.

This is the so-called ’sweet tongue’ which serves to justify the PRT programme. But the question remains whether an occupying force can change the consciousness of the Afghan people by offering them ’support’. After our insertion time was up, I travelled to a village not far from Baghram air base that had received support from PRTs.

Once they saw my camera, everyone refused to be interviewed. After several hours of searching, just one man agreed to give me an interview. Ali (not his real name) explained the other villagers reluctance to talk to me with these words :

They are scared! Of course. If the Americans knew that we had spoken critically of them they would come and kill us.

Ali continued, his voice trembling with anger :

The American troops come on the pretext of giving us support, and they come into our villages with their guns. Actually, they are just searching for terrorists. We are not terrorists. We are scared what would happen if we were to turn them away, so we have no choice but to accept their support.

Last February [2008], I was researching with a unit in the Eastern province of Khost who were air-lifted to various points along the dangerous border area with Pakistan. These troops were in the front line of defense against Taliban crossing the border from Pakistan to fight. A PRT team – ‘Human Aid Unit’ – consisting of medics and vets travelled with us. They, too, were forcing their way into houses and searching for terrorists under the banner of offering ‘human aid’. After conducting searches, they would take pictures of the vein patterns in people’s eyes using a special camera for use in a military database. The aim was to separate the insurrectionists from the ordinary citizens.

In the extremely violent Eastern and Southern regions, PRTs work together in a set with battle units. This is another feature of the PRT system that draws criticism. Mutowakir (quoted above) comments on the PRTs :

If they are there to offer aid, why do they need military uniforms? People here cannot tell them apart from normal soldiers. And so people are scared of them.

I must admit that I think Mr. Mutowakir’s remarks do make sense. The PRT members bear no markings on their uniforms by which they might be identified as aid

workers, and they conduct standard patrols during the course of their ‘aid’ work. The research I was able to do makes it hard to say that they have won the support of the local people.

Furthermore, some areas have actually refused to accept aid. PRTs are conducting major construction work all over Afghanistan, but voices of opposition are being raised by Afghan citizens. Roads are built, but everything must yield to military transport. Fire trucks and ambulances may never overtake a military vehicle. Some citizens can be heard to comment that “they only built [the roads] so that it would be easier to patrol”.

With regard to school construction as well, the PRTs build mixed schools designed for boys and girls being educated together. In a country where the majority of the population are conservative muslims, school construction thus also attracts criticism since these new schools are clearly “organs of western frontierism”.

Afghans have, for various historical reasons, almost always regarded western countries as their enemy. It is a fact that there is local opposition to the kind of PRT-type aid being offered by the western forces here in the hope of winning local support.

Furthermore, local construction companies that actually do the building work for the PRTs, earn a reputation as ‘western collaborators’ and are targeted for attack by armed insurrectionist groups. When I ask a senior commander on the ground about this aspect of the PRTs’ work, “It is the job of the police to maintain local law and order” is the curt reply.

Japan has also been ‘collaborating’ in the PRT project since the first quarter of this year. JICA detachments have been working under the guard of Lithuanian troops in Chagcharan in the western province of Ghor. The deterioration of the security situation is the reason given for this collaboration in the PRT system, but it is surely questionable whether this has been the right decision.

When I ask Mr. Mutowakir about this, he makes a gesture of prayer and says

The PRT are just military. They are a target for Taliban attacks. I pray that none of our friends from Japan will come under attack.

Doctor Saab

In October last year, I visited Nangahar Province in the east of the country. I went to find out more about a Peshawar council that has been active in Afghanistan for four and a half centuries.

If you visit the region of Dara-I-Nur where the council’s activities take place, and you encounter an area across whose countryside spread small, but thriving wheat fields. In Afghanistan where a barren landscape extends over a vast area, this is a fairly unusual sight. At the site of a water channel construction project organized by the Peshawar council, the local representative Dr. Tetsu Nakamura. When he gives an instruction in the Pashtun language, the bearded workers set to work with vigour. Listening to people I meet from the nearby villages, I am warmly welcomed as they tell me :

Thanks to Dr. Saab [ saab = doctor in Pashtun, this affectionate nickname refers to Dr. Nakamura] we have been able to grow crops here once again. Japan is no foreign country – it is a true friend.

Tragically, last August [2008], a Japanese working locally with the Peshawar council, Kazuya Ito, was murdered. All the other Japanese workers except for Dr. Nakamura – who decided to continue his work there – returned to Japan. Dr. Nakamura himself has been ringing the warning bell for some time now that ‘the greatest crisis in Afghanistan is drought’. According to the WFP (World Food Plan), Afghanistan produces less than 60% of its own food. In an agricultural country like Afghanistan self-sufficiency is a fundamental key to sustainable existence and the WFP statistic is indicative of a catastrophe.

90% of the Afghan population are farming people. A bad crop due to drought would lead directly to famine. Some people, with nothing to eat, would turn and join the Taliban or other armed insurrectionist groups. It is the food crisis that is mainly bringing about the breakdown in law and order.

Impoverished soil has been turned to poppy production, the raw material for drug manufacture. Around 90% of the world’s poppies are cultivated in Afghanistan. The poppy is the main source of revenue for armed insurrectionist groups and a principal fuel for the fires of chaos in the country. In the region irrigated by the Peshawar council, however, there is not a single poppy field. Provided there is enough irrigated and nutrient-rich soil, there is no need for farmers to cross the ‘dangerous bridge’ that leads to poppy cultivation. The areas where the Peshawar council is active are safe and healthy places to live. Normally, in such rural areas of Afghanistan, foreigners arriving unannounced would almost certainly be kidnapped or killed, but here I – a Japanese – was welomed warmly by people who told me with smiles on their faces that ‘the Japanese are different’. There is the trust that Dr. Nakamura and his colleagues have spent 25 years fostering in this part of the world. And with the success of the crop programme, people’s lives are beginning to regain some stability.

I see one main hope in the work that Dr. Nakamura has been doing in Afghanistan. In the midst of the terrifying storm of violence gripping most of the country, this area has managed to maintain an oasis of peace. Irrigation projects and other activities in which Dr. Nakamura has been involved may contain within them – admittedly by some round-about route – the key to turning many of the country’s problems in a favourable direction.

Military Power will solve nothing

The situation in Afghanistan gets worse year by year and the presidential elections on 10th August [ref wikipedia : An ISAF spokesperson stated two days before the election that insurgent attacks had averaged 32 per day in the last 10 days, but had spiked up to 48 attacks per day within the last four days. ] are expected to be accompanied by large-scale disturbances. In Kabul, I heard many speak dejectedly to the effect that “Karzai is going to win anyway (whatever we do)”. In the last elections held here, vote-buying and selling was commonplace and there are those who even now dispute Karzai’s right to the presidency.

President Karzai’s younger brother, Wali Karzai, is widely suspected of being associated with the narcotics business and the president himself cannot claim to have high public support ratings. But there are no other candidates in this election (Aug 2009) who have the high profile and international recognition that the name Karzai brings with it.

The increase in the activity of the present Taliban began in earnest with the 2004 elections. They charged that the elections results were not true, numbers joining armed insurrectionist groups began to swell and the law-and-order situation in the country deteriorated rapidly. This time round also, the Taliban are declaring their intention to block the election process, and similar unrest can be expected.

Director of the 2003 US Golden Globe winner “Afghan Year Zero”, Shidik Balmak, speaks of the current state of heart of the Afghan people :

There should be a way to break out of this situation. But the decisions required to resolve the situation are not in our hands, but in the hands of foreigners. This is probably the reason for the philosophical resignation of the Afghan people.

Many Afghans believe that the current administration does not reflect the will of the people of Afghanistan and is merely an American puppet government. The result would be the same whether elections were held or not. It may be for exactly this reason that the Afghan people hold the ‘Taliban’ in favour.

There are very few positive aspects to report about Afghanistan at present. Rampant violence, starvation caused by drought, and the downward spiral of the economy all continue to relentlessly deteriorate. Japan has got involved with Afghanistan through the dispatch of the Marine SDF to the Indian Ocean, and participation in the PRT programme. But neither of these ventures can be said to be turning the situation in Afghanistan in a positive direction.

I feel acutely aware of an overly-simplistic and casual consciousness of the actual situation on the part of the foreign countries involved here, including Japan. It is necessary to find out what the Afghan people are angry about and to hear their laments. The majority of the population there are farming people who believe devotedly in Islam. What these people want is to be freed from violence, and to have enough food to get them through each day.

I once asked Dr. Tetsu Nakamura how he thought Japan should be interacting with Afghanistan.

We have to think not so much of things that we should do, as of things that we must not do. Exploiting a foreign country – ‘implementing self-interested strategy’ with out taking into account the actual situation will have a negative effect.

Presently, many countries are involved in Afghanistan through the dispatch of their armed forces and it is exactly Japan’s declaration that ‘we will not send military forces’ which has an impact with the local people and gives us influence here.

Now, surely, is the time for us to stop and think.

]]> http://japanaffairs.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/afghan-situation/feed/ 0 bbt Map of Afghanistan Foreign forces talib PRT camp under construction in Afghanistan http://japanaffairs.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/toyota-in-china-re-call/ http://japanaffairs.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/toyota-in-china-re-call/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:38:16 +0000 japannews http://japanaffairs.wordpress.com/?p=203 ]]>

Toyota Automobiles revealed on 24th August that the company has recalled around 680,000 passenger vehicles from customers in China. The re-called models include the mid-size ‘Camry’ sedan, the ‘Corolla’ sedan and the ‘Vios’ and ‘Yaris’ compact cars. Regular use of window ‘open/close’ switches in these vehicles can cause them to overheat and stop working.

According to information released by Toyota, the defect was caused by the over-application of grease to the switches. This is the first time that Toyota has been involved with such a large re-call (680,000 units) at any one time in China.

Asahi Shinbun today reports results to public opinion polls relating to support for political parties.

All figures are percentages, rounded to the nearest integer. This is only a selection of questions and answers from the survey. Where four figures appear in a row they represent results from surveys this year (2009) in the following order : 4th-5th July, 18th-19th July, 1st-2nd August, 15th-16th August.

◆Do you support PM Aso’s Cabinet, or not?

Support　　２０　１７　１８　１９

Not　６８　６９　６３　６５

◆Which party do you currently support?

Liberal Democrat　　　２４　２０　２４　２０

Democratic            　　　２５　３１　２６　３２

Koumei Party     　　　　３　　３　　４　　２

Communist Party   　　２　　２　　２　　４

Socialist Party   　　　　１　　１　　１　　１

People’s New Party  　０　　０　　０　　０

The Everyone Party  － 　－　 －      ０

Reform Club            　　０　　０　　０　　０

New Party Japan　　　０　　０　　０　　０

Others                           　０　　０　　０　　０

Respondents supporting NO political party

３９　３５　３０　３４

No answer / Don’t know

６　　８　１３　　６

◆Are you concerned about the forthcoming election? （one choice must be chosen from a selection）

Yes, a great deal　   ３８　４３　４９　４９

To a certain extent ３６　３８　３５　３８

Not particularly   　２０　１３　１１　１２

Not at all                  　６　　５　　４　　１

◆Hypothetically, if the election were held now, which party would you vote for in your district?

Liberal Democrat　　　２２　１９　２２　２１

Democrat               　　　３７　４２　３９　４０

Koumei Party     　　　　４　　４　　５　　４

Communist Party   　　４　　４　　３　　５

Socialist Party    　　　　１　　１　　１　　２

People’s New Party      ０　　１　　０　　１

The Everyone Party　－　　－　－　０

Reform Club             　　０　　０　　０　　０

New Party Japan　　　０　　０　　０　　０

Other Parties              　１　　１　　１　　０

No answer / Don’t know

３１　２８　２９　２７

◆If you live in a single-seat electoral district, which party’s candidate do you think you will vote for?

Liberal Democrat　　　２２　２０　２２　２１

Democratic Party　　　３２　３７　３７　４０

Koumei Party     　　　　２　　３　　２　　２

Communist Party　　　２　　２　　２　　３

Socialist Party   　　　　１　　１　　１　　１

People’s New Party　　０　　０　　０　　０

The Everyone Party 　－　　－　　－　　０

Reform Club             　　０　　０　　０　　０

New Party Japan　　　０　　０　　０　　０

Other                             　０　　０　　０　　２

Independent Candidate　２　　０　　１　　１

No answer / Don’t know

３９　３７　３５　２９

◆Do you think it would be a good thing for an administration centred on the Liberal Democratic Party to continue in power? Or do you think it would be good for power to switch to an administration centred on the Democratic Party?

LDP-centred administration

２４　２２　２４　２１

DPJ-centred administration

４７　４９　４６　４９

◆Which of the two main parties’ leaders do you think is more appropriate a candidate to be PM – the LDP’s Aso Taro or the DPJ’s Yukio Hatoyama?

Mr. Aso　　             ２２　２１　２０　２０

Mr. Hatoyama　　４２　４２　４０　４１

◆Each political party has made election promises and published a manifesto. When you make your vote in the general election, to what extent will you be conscious of the manifesto/election promises made by the parties? (Choose one answer only)

Very conscious　　　　                        ２７

Conscious to a certain extent　　　５４

Not very conscious                  　　　１５

Not conscious at all                   　　　３

Toshiba - 64 gb SD memory card

Toshiba unveiled a new SD card today that can store 64 gigabytes of data – amounting to around 12,000 high-quality still pictures or 16 hours of high-quality video images. Until now, the largest SD memory card on the market has a capacity of 32 gigabytes which is doubled by the new Toshiba card. It is expected to go on sale from November in Japan with a price tag of around ¥60,000. This story was reported in the Asahi Newspaper this morning.

[ Sekai, July 2009 ] – precis translation

A Call for Escape from American Domination / Ideological Stasis

[ 1 ] – The Guam Re-location Agreement and US-Japan Security Framework

The Guam Re-location Agreement, which lays out the plan for the movement of part of the US Navy forces located in Japan to the island of Guam and the payments required from the Japanese government in return for leaving their country peacefully, was signed on 13th May 2009. There are actually two documents that led up to this ‘agreement’ and the agreement lays out in concrete terms who will bear the brunt of the cost for the troop re-location : the first is the “US-Japan Treaty : Reform and Revision for the Future”, known within Japan as the “Intermediary Notice” and the “Working Roadmap” – which lays out the work needing to be done towards fulfilment of the conditions of the agreement – known in Japan as the “Final Notice”. The Guam Re-Location Agreement is particularly based on the “Final Notice” and its stipulations relating to the extensive US military presence in Okinawa. The question is why the stipulations of the “Final Notice” came to be enshrined in the final Agreement, rather than those of the “Intermediary Notice” or other proposals discussed by both sides.

The “Working Roadmap” or “Final Notice” came about as a consequence of the US side being unable to rationally explain its requirements and therefore took the shape of a ‘package’ that had to be accepted as a whole; its central tenet is also that Japan should bear the majority of the costs involved in the transfer. The document implies that the financial burden on Japan will lighten as a result of the troop movements from Okinawa to Guam, but in actual fact the burden will not decrease at all and, if anything, is likely to become less negotiable in the future.

The following points are clear :

1. Despite its claim to increase security while reducing the financial burden on Japan, the Guam Re-Location Agreement will do nothing of the sort;
2. The Agreement is biased heavily in favour of the American side, and while stipulating Japanese obligations in detail – eg., $2,800,000,000 ‘contribution’ to the re-location costs of US Navy forces to Guam – lays out no concrete obligations on the US side whatsoever;
3. The only stipulations relating to the US side in the agreement refer to ‘taking the necessary steps’, which action is apparently dependent upon the following conditions : (1) that the funds for the re-location should be available in a readily-usable form, (2) that the Japanese government take concrete steps towards the re-location within Okinawa of the Futenma Air Base and (3) that the Japanese contribute the funds made explicit in the Agreement without deviation. Failure to fulfill these conditions will remove any obligation on the US to take any of the ‘necessary steps’ – whatever it may imagine those to have been in the first place.
4. The funds contributed by Japan will not be spent on visible, physical materials and the only evidence of the contributions will be in un-publicized military book-keeping records.
5. The Guam Re-Location Agreement has been ratified by both the Upper and Lower Houses of the Diet and it is arguable that a change in the ruling party may be the only way for there to be any possibility of any kind of re-negotiation.

[ 2 ] – Breaking Out of the State of Submission

From the US point of view, the Guam Agreement was surely an expression of the Obama administration’s intention to maintain the ’status quo’ and American privileges in Japan. US priorities start with ‘economic strategies’ and ’security considerations’ are a secondary issue; likewise geographical priorities place the Middle East higher than relations with East Asia and we can expect little fundamental  ‘change’ when it comes to the US-Japan Security Agreement. As much can be read in the faces of the staff chosen to work under Hilary Clinton in the East Asia Department of the Defense Department – they are all so-called Japan experts with detailed knowledge of the re-location negotiations, but with their argument for the maintenance of the status quo they reveal their loyalty to vested interests in the Security Agreement.

No-one believes that the current economic crisis has been contained in the economic world – the cancerous cells released by the US financial industry have infected the international political system and moved also into other fields. The American economic crisis showed that the two principles of the state strategy that propped up the former Bush administration – ‘neo-conservative economics’ and ‘unilateral action / the ideology of pre-emptive attack’ which found their true bankruptcy not only on Wall Street but also in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan – were no more than an empty bluff and the US  – though loud and fearsome – no more than a scarecrow.

America does not have the strength to withstand the drain on its economic resources of both domestic needs and the enormous costs involved in foreign military action. The current re-assessment of the ‘un-ending war on terror’ and ‘reduction in size of the world-wide network of military bases’ is an inevitable result of this economic analysis. Such a re-assessment could not be said to be complete unless it extended to the US-Japan Security framework. Looking in the long term, the appearance of the Obama administration could give rise to an opportunity for change in Japanese security policy-making.

As we have already seen, the Guam Re-location Agreement suggests that the future of US policy vis-a-vis Japan will centre on “a return to a path of international cooperation” and “an increase in the responsibilities of treaty countries (Japan)” and will seek to reduce the burden on America of its unilateralism by a ‘kind of division’ of labour with Japan. Such being the case, it is inevitable that some fairly heavy demands are going to be made of the Japanese. It is clear that the ‘Japan experts’ group in the Defense Department have designed a policy vis-a-vis Japan that seeks to pressure Japan not through the hitherto favoured carrots/sticks of ‘Re-alignment of US forces in Japan’, ‘Missile Defense’ and ‘Foreign Mobilization (of the SDF)’, but through demands for cash to finance the new foreign policy ambitions of the Obama administration.

It is now only a matter of time before the LDP, which has toed the US foreign policy line on Asia all along, loses power to the DPJ. And that will be an opportunity to finally bring to a close a security sphere that with its “Sovereign Military Base Financial Support” has functioned as a war chest for the US military.

Of course, the security framework lies at the heart of the issue, but there is no need to immediately make the abolition of the current security agreements into a major political controversy. What is necessary, and fully possible, is to set in motion a change of course in Japanese diplomatic and security policy-making away from the current submissive position. The situation needs to be frozen for a while to create an opportunity for the kind of re-negotiations that will enable the removal of the loose language that has placed Japan in this position – rather like the regular hacking-off the crusty shell-fish and other sea life that have attached themselves to the smooth hull of a ship. The ship need not be dismantled completely, but needs to be put in dry dock. From there, policies need to be drawn up that will set US-Japan relations on a new course.

Just like the EU since the end of the Cold Way, US-Japan relations need to be based not on secret agreements and bilateral treaties but on UN-centred cooperation and take into consideration the security concerns shared with other East Asian countries; in other words, the emphasis needs to be moved from confrontation and threats – where winners and losers are locked into a zero-sum power game – to a broader state of mind based on fairness and trust – where either side wins – upon which a common security policy can be built.

This is exactly the direction indicated in the Japanese Constitution. It represents a return to the introduction of that document : “We state our wish and intention to support our life-style and security as a peace-loving people engaging with other nations in relationships of trust and fairness.” The new direction we seek to take starts from the will to maintain and creatively develop the posture with regard to the rest of the world encapsulated in Article 9 of the constitution.

Without even really touching US-Japan Security itself it is possible to change the emphasis from ‘zero-sum security policy’ to ‘win-win security policy’; put in other words, from ‘bilateral collective defense (against a conjectural enemy)’ to ‘a multilateral common security guarantee (that does not conjecture an enemy)’; also, a central pillar of this multilateral security should be the United Nations. There is nothing wishful or impractical about such a choice [from the Japanese point of view]. To achieve such a goal, a consensus needs first to be established within Japan through decision-making backed by consultation and discussion and then the political world needs to move to bring the US to a negotiating position. Opposition political parties need then to use their manifestos or other public documents to put the new consensus and political will before the broader society, which will place political pressure on the LDP.

To ‘escape from submission’, one needs only to change and/or reverse the policies whose enactment created the situation in the first place.

1. Domestically : free US-Japan security relations from ‘loose interpretation’ and the world of ’secret agreements’ (including the greater release of information freeing diplomacy from the narrow and secretive channels it currently operates within);
2. Diplomatically : the new guidelines particularly on ‘Overseas (military) missions’ need to be re-considered (within a broader, multilateral framework of military cooperation);
3. Asian : the construction of an Asia-focused diplomatic and foreign policy over one with our hands tied by military agreements with the US.

Scraping the ‘Oyster Shells’ ‘off the hull’ of the Security Agreement

The following policy principles should be written into the manifesto :

–> Secret security agreements should be made public : the new administration should publish an ‘open statement’ about security policy. Those aspects of the US-Japan security agreement that have been kept secret up till now (for example, the specific minutes of and clauses of agreements made at meetings of the ‘US-Japan Unification Committee’ – the final authority on matters of joint security – the majority of which are never released in the public domain, should be openly published. Were the legally-unfounded financial burden imposed on Japan as a result of secret decisions made about the continuing US military occupation of Okinawa and the subsequently agreed ‘Generous Budget’ revealed to the Japanese public, they would likely understand that the Security Agreement has been implemented in ways contradictory to its stated purpose – ie., its implementation has involved actions and decisions being taken that are illegal under the very terms of the agreement itself.

If the accumulation of deception and cover-ups over many years were revealed through the publication of classified Foreign Ministry documents (secret agreements over Okinawa and the records of meetings of the US-Japan Unification Committee), the Japanese people would discover the extent to which the US-Japan Security Agreement has been completely misrepresented to them and that the US-Japan Union over the years has not only lacked transparency but also a proper legal basis for its enactment. This is the process of ’scraping the oyster shells from the hull’ of Japan’s security structure.

–> A moratorium on all current US-Japan security activities : the new administration will first have to draw up an ‘exit strategy’ for the SDF regiments sent on foreign missions : the re-fueling of US ships in the Indian Ocean, and the policing of the seas of Somalia should be aborted and the troops re-called. These orders should be given – before the ‘Terrorism Special Measures’ Law is abolished – by the the government as part of the already-existing ‘Plan for Fundamental Change in the Principles of Sending SDF on Foreign Missions’ legislation. If this position is clearly stated in election manifestos and political agreements, the voice of the Japanese people will be represented clearly and directly. Other examples of countries which withdrew troops from foreign missions after general elections are Spain and Italy, who re-called their troops from Iraq without America taking any steps against them.

Along with these steps, the US government would need to be asked to take part in talks based on clause 4 of the current Security Agreement; naturally, if the Agreement itself states that “the US-Japan Security Agreement will be strictly enforced”, the obligation to “obey the Constitutions of both countries” stated in clause 3 cannot be ignored. Many aspects of current security cooperation, for example the sharing of information on regional issues, the mutual provision of required materials, stop-and-search cooperation, etc., could be judged as ‘collective self-defense’ measures and therefore in breach of the Japanese Constitution. In the same way, the granting of permission for nuclear-powered or nuclear-bearing vessels to harbour in Japanese territory (in breach of the 3 non-nuclear principles), missile defense (in breach of the principle of non-military use of space), cooperative development of weaponry (in breach of the 3 principles of military hardware exportation), the Indian Ocean and Somalia missions (in breach of the law banning foreign dispatch of military forces) could all be regarded as “un-constitutional activities” (indeed the Nagoya High Court judgement of April 2008 on the illegality of the “Iraq Special Measures Law” is an example of support for such a view).

With regard to the majority of the above ‘agreements’ – which were brought into effect not by discussion and ratification by the Diet, but through secret meetings – the new Japanese administration will seek discussions with the US government while insisting on her right to refuse to enter into agreements not covered by official agreement documents.

–> The cancellation of the ‘Generous Budget’. According to “clause 6 of the US-Japan Cooperation Agreement on Security”, “all costs related to the maintenance of US forces in Japanese territory will be borne not by the Japanese but by the United States of America. In spite of this, Japan has been burdened since 1978 with the costs of forces stationed in Japan under the so-called “Generous Budget”. Covering ‘facilities maintenance’, ‘personnel costs’, ‘light, heat and water costs’, ‘training transfer costs’, and so on, the cost of this ‘budget’ to Japan has been around 200,000,000,000 yen each year. The total cost (since 1978) amounts to 5,500,000,000,000 yen.

While the Agreement does stipulate certain provisions that are the responsibility of the Japanese side – the surrender of the land required for the bases, etc., but the costs involved in maintaining and running the bases, along with those relating to the construction of housing for military personnel and their dependants have no place on a Japanese balance sheet. In spite of this, such payments have been introduced into the administration of the bases, at first in a ‘temporary’, ‘limited’ fashion or as ’special measures’; these have then been allowed to balloon and concretized into the ‘Okinawan Secret Agreement’ or the ‘Ron Yasu Treaty’ – duties introduced as temporary ’special agreements’ have weaved themselves into permanent fixtures, extending now to the ‘welfare costs of American military families’.

These kinds of impositions have no legal justification. Therefore, all agreements concluded by the LDP administrations hitherto should not be renewed when they reach their expiration – such an attitude is in no way illegal.

–> Review of agreements on US Military re-location : The current situation where Japanese communities are being forced to bear the costs and other social burdens of the American military presence must be resolved without delay. The supposed and stated purpose of the re-location project, the ‘reduction in the Burden borne by the people of Okinawa’, is an illusion; costs have increased and will continue to do so into the future. This is principally because alongside the re-location plans are clauses in the imposed agreements that prioritize the ‘maintenance of current military oppressive power’. Thus it is that a moratorium needs to be called and the conditions of the re-location agreement need to be renegotiated in a way that will actually lead to some improvement in the situation of the people of Okinawa and other regions burdened by the presence of US military installations. The Guam Re-location Agreement should be scrapped as a matter of course.

–> US-Japan Status Agreement revision : There are many other problems with the US-Japan Status Agreement – the right of US soldiers to evade trial for crimes commited in Japan (Article 17), the right of US military to deny compensation to local citizens (Article 18), the right of US military to use Japanese ports and airports, the right to execute low-flight manoeuvres anywhere in the country (Article 5), the provision allowing the US military bases to return used property/land in any condition and with no obligation to address pollution issues (Article 4), the toothless ‘Respect for Japanese Environmental Standards ‘ which contains no actual obligations, and so on – which cause suffering and anxiety for citizens living in the area of military installations.

Deliberations in the Diet focussed exclusively on the written Agreement itself and once passed the daily handling of such issues was left to bureaucrats – the adopting of resolutions and conclusion of negotiations behind closed doors and with results kept secret became a normal aspect of US-Japan security policy-making – leading to a situation now where we have a mountain of secret agreements but the only area open for debate is the officially-agreed document that no longer bears any relation to the actual situation in the country.

Germany has been through a similar experience of bearing an extensive US military presence; their way of balancing the issue was to aim for ‘homogenization’ and ‘mutual security’ as key policy aims and in negotiations managed to establish the principle of ‘Precedence of German Law’ in the Bonn Agreement (1992-94) thereby reducing some of the arbitrary rights of the US military’s freedom of action in the country. As a result, the US government closed many of their bases and returned the land; the German government continued by banning low-flying, insisting on the application of German environmental standards and the return of used property/land in its original condition.

The US-Japan Status Agreement states explicitly that ‘either government may seek revisions of any clause of this agreement at any time’ – there is no procedural fashion in which the US side can refuse to take part in re-negotiations.

Native Priorities

At the same time as freeing itself from secret agreements of dubious legal nature, Japan should seek to build an environment for a common East Asian Security policy. If neighbouring countries were all ‘friends’, the current Security Agreement would lose its meaning. One of the reasons that Germany managed to reduce the US military presence on its territory was through the realization of a ‘European Common Security Framework’ based on ‘effort to create a favourable and non-threatening international environment’. Japan should also seek to work for such an Asian environment based on Article 9 as a creative force for peace rather than simply a ’stubborn denial of war’.

A Non-Nuclear East Asian Security Sphere

A Spiral of Loss : hysteria and ’satellite launches’

When the DRNK launched a Space Launch Vehicle (SLV) from Musdanri at around 11am on 5th April 2009, US intelligence reported that the SLV was most likely carrying a satellite as the North Korean government were claiming. Experts and NGOs drew the same conclusions, while the Japanese government moved quickly to demand that North Korea ‘cease conducting further nuclear tests and/or missile launches’ – the SDF mobilized PAC3 MD systems and Aegis ships, both houses of the Diet passed resolutions condemning North Korea on the same grounds. An appeal to the UN Security Council to impose heavier sanctions was vetoed by Russia and China. In the end a non-binding resolution was announced by the President of the Council.

North Korea responded by withdrawing from all agreements and stating their intention to address the threats to their security by re-starting nuclear testing. This could have been a bluff to up the ante and force the Americans to a negotiating table – a dangerous gamble on the part of the DRNK but not unusually so for them. This kind of ‘adventurism’ in foreign policy deserves serious criticism – the future of the 6-party Talks is uncertain.

Which raises the key question – what should the next step be with regard to North Korea after the use of ‘criticism’ and ’sanctions’? Some groups in political circles were calling for retaliatory attacks on North Korean installations. PM Aso stated before gathered journalists on the evening of 26th May that such counter-attacks would be ‘legally permissible’. Such ‘venting’ has occured before and been regarded as having a calming effect. In practice, such military offensives are ‘forbidden by the constitution and would be entrusted to American forces.’ This leads to greater dependence on the part of Japan on US military cooperation/impositions (eg., missile defense).

However, it is important to remember that North Korea’s nuclear weapons development is a response to the US conventional and nuclear military threat to their own country. The deeper Japan gets tied into military/defense coooperation with the US, the North Korean response will be to strengthen their military forces and conduct nuclear development in proportion to the threat they sense around them. This would create a vicious circle and represents the classic ’security dillemma’; it is this from which an escape road must be sought.

An East Asian Non-Nuclear Zone Framework is the answer.

A Non-Nuclear Zone – the global spread of the non-nuclear umbrella

The officially non-nuclear regions of the world as of June 2009 include 123 countries with around 30% of the world’s population (2,100,000,000 people) living in their borders which cover over 50% of the planet’s land surface. Listed in order of their non-nuclear declarations/agreements, they are :

1. Latin America and the Carribean region’s Nuclear Prohibition Treaty (Toraterolco Treaty), since 1969, 33 countries;
2. South Atlantic Region Non-Nuclear Weapon Treaty (Rarotonga Treaty), since 1986, 13 countries;
3. South East Asia Region Non-Nuclear Weapon Treaty (Bangkok Treaty), since 1997, 10 countries;
4. Central Asia Region Non-Nuclear Weapon Treaty (Semipalachinsk Treaty), since 2008, 5 countries.

An African Region Non-Nuclear Weapon Treaty was agreed in 1996 (the Belindaba Treaty), but has not been ratified yet. In 1998, Mongolia was recognized by the General Assembly of the United Nations as a Non-Nuclear Weapon Region, and in 2000 through related domestic legislative moves achieved ‘Non-Nuclear Weapon Status’. These non-nuclear agreements share the following common points :

1. The non-existence of nuclear weapons and their non-proliferation – their development, testing, manufacture, production, receipt, possession, storage and conveyance are forbidden. This is the basic and fundamental condition of Non-Nuclear Weapon Status;
2. The principle of “Non-Aggressive Security Agreements” – based on the principle of prohibiting nuclear attack or the threat of nuclear attack. Non-Nuclear Weapon Regions append a protocol to this effect to their agreements and seek to obtain the assent of countries which possess nuclear weapons; these NSAs are a powerful tool for freeing people from the fear of nuclear weapons – moving them from under ‘the nuclear umbrella’ to the ‘non-nuclear umbrella’;
3. The obligation to create a framework and system of checks for the strict observance of the non-nuclear agreements.

The Reality of the East Asian Non-Nuclear Weapon Region : 3 Plus 3 Non=Nuclear Weapon Region

The NPO ‘Peace Depo’ has developed a model agreement for an East Asian Non-Nuclear Weapon Region. The initial document has been revised numerous times – in response to the development of the 6-country talks and other aspects of the international situation – since its original conception in 2004. The most recent (fourth) draft was published in December 2008. Next, we will consider this document as a basis on which the three non-nuclear weapon principles mentioned above could be applied in the region to free East Asia and Japan from the vicious circle of security policy engendered by nuclear weapons and the threat of their use.

–> The three currently-non-nuclear countries as the core of the region. The three non-nuclear countries in East Asia that will form the heart of an East Asian Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone are North Korea, Korea and Japan. With the political will, the formation of such a zone is possible. Japan has held to an its 3 non-nuclear principles ( “not to make, not to possess, not to bring in” ) since 1968. The military application of atomic technology has been forbidden in Japan since 1955. North and South Korea have had a non-nuclear policy since their joint declaration in 1992 ( a promise “not to test, construct, produce, admit, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons” and “to use atomic energy for only peaceful purposes” ). These represent sufficient qualification for these three countries to take the lead in the formation of an East Asian Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone.

–> Moving the three main Nuclear Countries to a Non-Aggressive Security Agreement. The three main nuclear-armed countries that are deeply involved in East Asia are America, Russia and China; persuading these countries to adopt Non-Aggressive Security Agreements will seal the future of East Asia as a non-nuclear zone. NPO ‘Peace Depo’ proposes that these three nuclear countries should be signatories to the East Asian Region’s Non-Nuclear Agreement itself (rather than to a separate NSA).

–> A ‘Non-Nuclear Weapon Region Council’ should be formed to guarantee the maintenance of the zone. The Council should monitor and assess the strict observance of the conditions of the non-nuclear agreement and the harmonization of non-nuclear political policy – its presence would give the agreement legal force.

This ‘3-plus-3′ (3 non-nuclear countries and 3-nuclear countries) agreement would continue on where the 6-country agreement of 19th September 2005 – which called for a ‘non-nuclear Korean peninsula’ – left off and take the matter further than that agreement has managed to.

–> How a Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone would open the way to Cooperative Regional Security. The establishment of a Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone would not only contribute to the de-nuclearization of East Asia, it would also bring about a breakthrough in the broader calming of military tensions in the region. Through the validation of Non-Nuclear status and the adoption of Non-Aggressive Security Agreements, the Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone would provide a foundation for greater mutual trust with vastly-diminished threat levels. The de-nuclearization of North Korea and China would remove the justification for Japan moving to strengthen its conventional military capability and, from the North Korean point of view, a Non-Aggressive Security Agreement with the US would remove the incentive to develop a nuclear deterrent and missile technology.

The realists can be heard beginning the next sentence with a ‘but’… Isn’t a Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone a mere pipe-dream while the US-Japan Security Agreement remains in place? And our answer : “US-Japan Security does not have to be based on the concept of the ‘nuclear umbrella’”. The US-Japan Security Agreement makes no mention of this ‘nuclear umbrella’ – Japan must decide the course of policy from here on. It is possible for Japan to exchange the nuclear umbrella for a non-nuclear umbrella. The Japanese government claims that the reason for continuing dependence on US military strength is ‘to stand firm against the threat from nuclear weapons’. If the threat from such weapons were removed, dependence on military force would also cease to be a necessity.

“But isn’t North Korea running from the 6-country talks and into nuclear weapon development?”, asks our next realist. “Look at that second nuclear test – North Korea has surely lost the non-nuclear status it claimed in 1992. Of course, this is an important thing that must be accepted. But there is still time before North Korea becomes a full-fledged nuclear weapon-equipped power with the ability to launch missiles with nuclear warheads like Pakistan or India. This time must be used to prevent the situation being allowed to get worse. It is time for suggestions on how to guide North Korea away from the path to nuclearization.

North Korea feels the threat from the Security Agreements between Japan, Korea and the US with perhaps greater intensity than Japan feels the threats facing her. Without even having concluded a peace treaty with its neighbour after the Korean War, North Korea feels surrounding threats more than we can imagine. As a strong step to remove this sense of intimidation it is time to bring a proposal for an East Asian Non-Nuclear Weapon Zone to the negotiating table. Japan must give up its dependence on the US nuclear deterrent as a guarantee of its own security.

Should Japan get involved in foreign conflict zones?

The question here is whether Japan can stop sending the SDF on foreign missions and contribute to international peace purely by financial contributions. Whether Afghanistan or Somalia or Sudan, the major conflict zones of the world are regions that have been ‘abandoned’ by the world. Poverty, famine, the crushing of human rights – it cannot be denied that from these regions spring the terrorism, violence, drugs, etc., that are threatening us all over the world.

The majority of these conflicts and ‘crimes’ are brought about through moves at self-preservation by the local people in these regions. Without a sense of security for individual people in these regions, it is not going to be possible to bring about true peace. So, how should Japan get involved in these regions?

Review of Police Powers

Against most threats facing our societies – global warming, food shortages, the spread of new viri and diseases, global financial crises, earthquakes, tsunami, local conflicts, terrorism, piracy, crime – military strength is is not funamentally useful.

The first reason for this is that conflicts can no longer be resolved in the military-centred way that dominated up until the end of the last century. The age has changed – with the end of the Cold War, state-led conflicts have been replaced with local conflicts between groups within societies. The aim of conflicts has also changed from territorial expansion and competition for natural resources (or incitement to revolution as in the Cold War) to ethnic, religious struggles for independence or struggles arising out of state bankruptcy and crushing poverty. Thus, as the reasons for the conflicts change, so the ways of dealing with them change – conflicts involving large armies using WMDs have become few and, generally speaking, the size of operational military groups has decreased and weapons have become smaller. As wars involving WMDs disappear, so the need for a nuclear deterrent loses its meaning.

Now, it is not military force that will resolve internal or domestic conflicts, but policing force. The Police have a negative image in Japan for various historical reasons, but it is time to reconsider the significance of police forces. While military forces ultimately aim to destroy or seriously diminish their enemy, police forces aim to control criminal elements based on the law – thus in that they seek to preserve a state rather than destroy one, their methods with regard to the use of weapons will be different.

Up till now, military force has always been used ‘externally’ and police forces ‘internally’, but we have to take into account the ways in which conflicts are changing. More often than not the non-military techniques of police forces are more effective than the use of the kind of weapons considered essential to military action.

Of course, there may be situations where military strength is required to deal with armed terrorist groups, but such action is usually only necessary in the first year of conflict resolution. The disarmament, investigation of war crimes, arrest of criminals, legal trials and imprisonment that may follow this period are not best managed by military forces. What are required are police officers, legal officers, prison officers, and other members of the civilian administration enforcement establishment.

Furthermore, the causes of conflicts are not going to be removed through even these means. The young people caught up in military-type conflicts need a process to re-adjust their lives to peaceful living – they need work, they need an amnesty so they can surrender their weapons to be destroyed, they need work training. New sources of income must be devised to replace the drug export and sex industries that tend to spring up when military control weakens the value of human dignity – it is not enough to simply seek to abolish these. Economic reform must be attempted.

While conflict zones are getting smaller, the damage and harm caused to civilian populations seems to be increasing. Civilian deaths, destruction of infrastructure, break-up of families, starvation, the movement of refugees, and spread of disease among humans and animals at refugee camps, general environmental destruction. A military response to conflict situations through the use of weapons leads to an increase in the cost to human life and communities.

If we abandon weapons?

The use of military force in war and conflict resolution attracts people’s attention through the media. But the use of military forces in peace-keeping activities receives very little attention.

The December 1997 Anti-Personnel Mine Ban signed in Otawa, Canada outlawed the use, storage and production of Anti-Personnel Mines, required the destruction of all existing such mines in storage within 4 years, and the clearing of all uncleared minefields within 10 years. It represented an epoch-making ban and example of international cooperation and support with the aim of ridding the world of this kind of weapon and extending support to its victims. This small, extremely cheap weapon was – prior to the ban – manufactured in 56 countries and minefields were known of in over 70 countries with an estimated total of over 230 million mines buried in them. The estimated number of victims stood at around 500,000 people. With the signing of the agreement, the number of countries producing mines fell by 41 to a total of 15 countries, and 65 countries destroyed their stores of mines. Japan’s SDF also destroyed their stocks.

Following after the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban came the Cluster Bomb Ban Agreement signed in Oslo, Norway in 2008.

These examples show encouraging steps made by mankind towards true ’security’ for people.

A Militarily-Minor Country – the Power of NGOs

The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty, or Otawa Agreement as it is also called got its initial momentum from the members of 2 NGOs in favour of abolishing Anti-Personnel Mines. An international campaign was started in 1992 to raise the profile of the issue and the resulting organization saw the issue spread to government levels. The countries that took up the issue were not the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council or the major military powers of the world, but militarily-minor countries like Australia, Belgium, South Africa, and Canada. In a sphere usually assumed to be the exclusive preserve of governments, it was the action of NGOs in making proposals to individual countries that led to an international agreement coming into being. The 1997 ICBL (the international campaign mentioned above) was selected for the Nobel Peace Prize due to its being ‘a leading example of international efforts towards peace and military down-sizing’. The Cluster Bomb Ban Treaty followed a similar pattern, with no sign of support from the military giants of America, Russia, Israel or China.

The time has come when international politics is beginning to be led not by the military superpowers but by militarily-minor countries or NGOs. Most of the examples of such activity given in this article are equally realizable in the case of Japan.

Faith in military might has great power, not only in Japan, but in many countries in the world. But the application of military force is rarely ever beneficial after the first year of a conflict – it cannot be used to bring about long-term, real peace. The Japanese can hold their heads high that their international activity based on Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan to contribute to the cause of peace without resort to military force is both important and necessary and Japan need not take to heart criticism of its non-contribution to military activity.

East Asian Security Research Council reports in June issue of Sekai.

Key premiss : recent deployment of PAC3 systems in response to North Korean missile threat (intelligence info about which was supplied to Japanese gov’t in first instance by US Satellite Early Warning Centre) was an act of public misdirection with regard to the true nature of the threat and bluster with regard to the effectiveness of the US-designed trillion dollar Patriot Missile Defense System.

[ unofficial and unlicensed translation of content from June 2009 edition of Japanese current affairs journal 'Sekai' ]

INTRO (unabridged) : At around 11am on 5th April 2009, North Korea is believed to have launched a long-distance cruise-type missile of Taepodong-2 type specification from a facility on its Japan Sea coastline. The Japanese government speculates that the missile passed over the northernmost prefectures of Honshu with the first stage descending around 280km west of Akita in the Japan Sea and the second stage coming down over the Pacific. The Self-Defense Forces (SDF) made the judgement that the missile stages would not come down over Japanese territory and did not take aggressive countermeasures using Missile Defense (MD) systems. For the government as well as for the general population, it was most fortunate that no reports were confirmed of parts of the missile coming down on Japanese territory and also that there was no damage caused to planes or ships.

Meanwhile the whole country was shaken up by a kind of fever about North Korea’s long-distance cruise missile – ‘the Tepodon’. The MD system ‘operationally deployed’ for the first time by the Japanese governement, unable as it is to accurately project the course of and therefore intercept incoming missiles, amounted to little more than a gesture of reassurance for the public. The MD systems – whose cost to date has reached 1 trillion yen – were moved to the northern prefectures with no greater mission than to serve as an alibi. In the highly-unlikely case (according to SDF estimates) of the missile actually coming down on Japanese territory or (quite likely) of the MD system being engaged and failing to intercept the incoming object, there is no doubt that criticism of MD being ‘useless’ would now be considerably more intense. The Aso administration, struggling with dwindling support ratings, was working round the clock to release spot reports on the situation but ended up by releasing painfully inaccurate information on 4th April to the effect that the missile would be coming down or passing directly over Japan and that ‘there could be no escape’. We search for an explanation for this farce.

To whom to pass the buck?

The decision over which legal procedure to implement in response to the reported threat – that is, the manner in which the decision was taken and the final decision itself – was the true source of the public fuss created by the situation.

The Defense Ministry asserted – in response to North Korea’s announcement of its preparations to launch a satellite on a Tepodon-2 missile – that the Cabinet should issue a ‘Destruction Measure Order’ based on SDF Law Article 82, part 2, clause 1. The SDF Law literalizes two courses of legal action in such cases:

1. in the case of air space breaches by cruise missile or other hostile body, the Defense Minister can issue a Destruction Measure Order after receiving Cabinet approval (Article 82, part 2, clause 1);
2. when the certainty of a breach of air space by such a hostile body is not clear, preparations may be made in case of a sudden change in the situation leading to a certain breach and the Defense Minister may issue a Destruction Measure Order directly to the relevant forces (Article 82, part 2, clause 3).

The key difference between these two courses of action is that (1) requires Cabinet approval and subsequent action would be reported in the public domain, whereas (2) according to clause 3, would be executed without being made explicit to the public. In either case, of course, defensive countermeasures would be possible in the case of a hostile body coming down over Japanese territory.

But there are further finer points of difference between the two legal paths which are relevant to the discusssion here :

1. In the case of (1) above, Cabinet approval is required and therefore the Cabinet Secretary would be the key responsible figure, whereas
2. in the case of (2), the Defense Ministry would be the principal.

The North Koreans reported to the International Maritime Organization that between 4th-8th April they would launch a satellite on a rocket. According to that report, the first stage would come down over open territory in the Japan sea, with the second stage bearing the satellite proceeding over the north-eastern regions of Japan and coming down in open territory in the Pacific. The Defense Ministry asserted that the apparent risk of an accident or mis-launch leading to an impact on Japanese territory proved the need for the government to indicate its will to the public by making preparations for the implementation of counter-measures.

In the case of such an order being given, it was speculated that PAC3 Patriot missile systems would be mobilized to Akita and Iwate prefectures and that counter-attack SM3 missile-bearing Aegis destroyers ‘Kongo’ and ‘Choukai’ would be ordered to the Japan Sea. The Tepodon-2 missile is presumed to have a range of over 6000 kilometres and if it followed a typical flight path it would not normally be considered to be targetted at the Japanese mainland. If it was felt that the first stage of the rocket might come down over Japanese territory countermeasures would be justifiable but it is very difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty the flight path of such an object. That is to say, it is a fact that the kind of situation in which aggressive counter-measures can be openly justified are very few and the government adopting a firm ‘counter-attack’ stance (even in the defensive sense) resulted in North Korea (who, it will be remembered, were all along claiming no more than a ’satellite launch’) becoming more staunchly defiant.

The PAC3 systems are based in Saitama, Shizuoka and Gifu prefectures and not in the north-eastern regions. The Defense Ministry proposed a plan for the Shizuoka-based systems to be transferred to Akita and Iwate.

The dillemma was whether a Cabinet resolution on preparations for the issuing of a ‘Destruction Measure Order’ as a deterrent would not in fact lead to the North Koreans hardening their position. In the case of the Maritime SDF, ships are on patrol as a matter of course and moving them to an alert status would not require any particular extra preparations or public announcements. The PAC3 systems, however, could not be moved without attracting public attention. If orders could be given on the basis of a Cabinet resolution (according to clause 1), the movement of the PAC3 missile systems would have been made easier since the action would be made public and the government could appeal to public support for its resolute response to the North Korean threat.

On the other hand, if it was judged that the missile – or parts of it – would come down over Japanese territory and the countermeasures had failed to prevent this, faith in the defensive capabilities of the MD system would be shaken and, still worse, this failure would be blamed on a dysfunction in leadership from the PM’s residence leading to the political risk of direct public criticism of the present administration.

Perhaps as a result of such fears, it was the Cabinet secretary – one of the aides closest to the PM’s residence – who opposed the Defense Ministry’s proposal and argued for the application of the clause 3 option which would allow the SDF to take countermeasures without the need for public disclosure. The true fear was probably that public disclosure of countermeasures of this nature would have necessitated the planning and preparation of evacuation and other ‘guidance’ procedures for the general populace (which would require cooperation from a number of government departments) and that this would have led to the situation ‘getting out of hand’.

The Defense Ministry, however, reluctant to follow a course which would leave it with full responsibility for any failures, would not yield on its insistence that action should be taken under clause 1 (ie., through a Cabinet resolution). From the general public’s point of view, it must have seemed that a good deal more energy was expended on the debate over legalities than on the counter-measures themselves or on explaining the situation to the general public. It was the same old story of bureaucrats battling each other to avoid responsibility in a decision-making process in which the public do not exist.

The Foreign Ministry swung its support round to the Cabinet Secretary on the basis that ‘a Cabinet resolution of the sort proposed by the Defense Ministry may stimulate an unhelpful response from North Korea.’ On this matter, their interests coincided. There remained, however, the difficulty that action taken under clause 3 – as proposed by the Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Ministry – would not be disclosed to the public and so the discreet mobilization by the SDF of the PAC3 MD systems from their current 6 locations to the areas where they were needed would be made much more complicated. There was a very high chance that the movement of the PAC3 systems to new locations would be noticed by the civilian population and the intended secrecy of the operation would result in some kind of breakdown in public order (eg., panic flamed by media anxiety).

Confidence in the counter-attack capabilities of the PAC3 systems themselves is not high and their defensive radius is limited to around 20 kilometres. Nevertheless, if the systems were not moved to the areas over which the missile was predicted to pass – Akita and Iwate – and a stage or part of a stage of the object had come down over land, the government’s crisis management would be called into question.

The outcome of this debate was that although the Cabinet Secretary prevailed in that action would be taken based on clause 3 of the SDF law in question, a half-hearted compromise was made so that the Defense Ministry would not have to take full responsibility for the consequences by providing for the set up of a Security Group which would make all the decisions. Thus it seems that the Defense Ministry submitted to the Cabinet Secretary (by taking final responsibility for military counter-measures) in return for the government being prepared to take responsibility for the public relations aspect of the movement of the PAC3 systems (ie., their movement would be publicly disclosed).

It was only later that the uniformed services queried the wisdom of the media publicizing military operations that should be conducted secretly. The reason that this most basic of military principles (keeping the enemy in the dark about one’s intentions) was not properly observed was the inevitable result of the PAC3 systems being fairly eye-catching and very unlikely to pass unnoticed en route around the country and also of compromises made by the government in an internal battle to avoid responsibility. As if that were not enough, the whole purpose of clause 3 – to give the SDF freedom of action in critical situations – was actually undercut by the government’s decision to allow public disclosure of the operation after all – (translator’s note : the implication being that the Cabinet Secretary wanted to pass the matter off on the Defense Ministry for reasons other than military rationality). In other words, the discreet and secret dispatch of the Aegis ships to ensure national security without mobilizing the PAC3 systems – regardless of the greater wisdom, or not, of such a tactic – was rendered impossible; this was one of the indirect results of the struggle within the government over which legal course to take.

The government’s basic principle of maintaining an illusion of disbelief with regard to the likelihood of hostile bodies coming down on Japanese territory is covered by explanations of measures to be taken ’should the unthinkable occur’; but from the military or diplomatic point of view, was it really necessary to reposition Aegis ships and the PAC3 systems to Akita and Iwate?

To put the point briefly, the military rationale behind the countermeasures was rather thin. One at least has to ask whether there was any explicable military purpose for the positioning of the PAC3 systems, which only have a range of around 20 kilometres. The Patriot MD systems are designed to repel attacks on specific locations (for example, a military base or government installation) and cannot (except in fairly ridiculous numbers) protect entire regions. In this case, where the precise target of the incoming object was unknowable, one could argue that the mobilization of the Patriot systems was little more than an alibi for the government – striking a defensive pose to reassure the public. The government was left to pray that the missile did not come down on Japanese territory and prove the critics of the PAC3 system right about its ineffectiveness. Of course, from the military point of view, there was a sense in which this was a good chance to practice deploying the systems to new locations under ‘real’ conflict conditions.

What was even stranger about the PAC3 deployment was that one system was positioned in the grounds of the Defense Ministry in Tokyo. Aerial photography of the 4-missile array showed the marking ‘INERT’ on the missile bodies – in other words, the missiles were not armed. Media images of this sight seemed like a black joke – was the intention to send some kind of message to North Korea? Or was it merely a sign that the SDF have not bought enough live missiles from the USA to charge 4 systems? There was the additional embarrassment of the SDF trailer carrying one of the systems taking a wrong turn and getting lost en route. The author wonders what international society will have made of this farce – brought about through a struggle between politicians and bureaucrats to evade responsibility in Tokyo.

International Opinion

US Minister of State Clinton expressed her understanding of the course of action taken by the Japanese government in this issue, but let’s not assume that this reflects the true opinion of her government. Was not the main aim of any action to prevent North Korea from launching any missiles? Was Japan in line with this mission when it deployed PAC3 systems to new locations around the country? Of course, it is very unlikely that not deploying the PAC3 systems would have stopped the North from firing any missiles, but there was always the risk that a deployment would rile North Korea and be used by them as an excuse for their own belligerence.

One must also always consider how Japanese actions will impinge on the unresolved issue of abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents. It is not hard to see the MD deployment as a kind of expression of desire to escape from the whole issue. The Foreign Ministry toed PM Aso’s line this time round, but there must have been a good deal of opposition within the department to the course of action being led by the Defense Ministry.

What did international society make of the Japanese action? One would not be surprised if international opinion were that Japan always loses its cool over North Korea and swings its fists wildly in some kind of reasonless rage – unable to draw up a roadmap for future reconciliation and resolution of differences.

In such a way, the Japanese position with regard to North Korea is not strengthened but weakened. Such a situation is only further compounded when, as recently, a group of LDP politicians follow the North Korean missile launch with calls for aggressive strikes on their military bases. How is the situation – or our international reputation – ever going to improve with reactions like this?

Furthermore, government officials commented on the defensive response to a North Korean ballistic missile launch to the effect that “you can’t shoot down a pistol bullet using a pistol” – implying the impossibility of the PAC3 system being able to defend Japan in such a situation. There were also statements revealing the government’s true feeling regarding tests of the missile defense system to the effect that “the only reason the enemy missile is able to be intercepted is that we get a message telling us they are about to launch.”

In response, defense minister Hamada argued that “all efforts have been made to ensure our defensive preparedness; I do not think along the same lines [as those quoted in the previous paragraph ]” and Cabinet Secretary Kawamura also moved to quell panic by saying that “the government is rising properly to its duty of ensuring the safety of the Japanese population. I do not share [the previous commenters'] fears.” Of course, either argument fails to engage properly with the military and political strategic reality of the situation and are no more than superficial arguments; one might say they symbolize the low level of consciousness of our political representatives with regard to the guaranteeing of national security.

Behind the Mistakes : Changes to the Information Flow

Amidst such internal confusion in the corridors of power, the government’s Conference on National Security held on March 27th concluded a ‘Response to North Korean Missile invasions of air space’ document to address the threat of long-distance missiles from that country. It was decided, amongst other things, that Defense Minister Hamada would issue a destruction order based on SDF Law 82, Paragraph 2, Clause 3 and that if it were executed, reports of the result would be immediately publicy revealed. Within 5-10 minutes of a North Korean launch local governments would be notified using the national emergency communications network and media organizations would also be notified. Within 30 minutes to an hour of launch the government would release data on the projected target area of the missile.

On 4th April, the North Korean government announced its intention to “launch a man-made satellite”. At 12:16 that afternoon the government released a statement that “an object seems to have been launched from North Korea”, followed 5 minutes later by a correction that this information was based on “a detection error”. Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Kawamura was forced to make a public apology for “causing concern among the public”. The reason he gave for this incorrect information being passed to media outlets and local government bodies was that the US Satellite Warning Centre had passed information about a launch to the Defense Ministry who had passed it to the PM’s residence, where the person in charge of monitoring such reports passed it on to the public.

This also seems like a simple case of human error, but we would like to show that it is another case resulting from internal government struggles to pass off responsibility.

April 4th 12:16, the Central Command Centre in the basement of the Defense Ministry receives an audio communication from Airforce General Command (Tokyo) : “Meshioka Tracking. Satellite Early Warning Centre (SEW) detection. Launch.” This would mean that the SDF radar tracking station at Meshioka (Chiba prefecture) had confirmed an aerial anomaly and an American satellite with infrared sensors had detected a launch trail. However, the section “SEW detection” is complete misdirection – a communications officer at the Airforce General Headquarters had just blurted out the phrase, no doubt due to having rehearsed it so many times.

Furthermore, the Internal Command Planning Agency officer who received the communication at Airforce headquarters interpreted and announced news of “SEW detection” as meaning that a “Launch” had been confirmed. This announcement, being monitored at the PM’s residence was passed to local government agencies and media organizations via the “Em-Net” emergency communications network, and then, as a consequence, this false information made its way onto international networks.

One minute later, at 12:17 Airforce Headquarters communicated to Central Command that “FPS5″ had lost track of the target object and that SEW was not registering any evidence of a launch. It took four minutes for the PM’s residence to start the job of correcting their previous warning.

Launch information, the release of which presupposes satellite detection and ongoing tracking, is passed from the US Military Command in Japan (Yokota base, Tokyo) simultaneously to both the Air Defense Control Corps (attached to Airforce headquarters) and Central Command. Although satellite detection and tracking data, if confirmed, should have been passed to Central Command, the official at Airforce General Headquarters took the information he received uncritically and furthermore added the announcement of a ‘launch’ without any prior checks. A lack of check and confirmation procedures and a lack of cool-headedness led to a deeply unprofessional series of mistakes.

A further problem was a sudden change to the rule for information flow in such situations introduced on the night of 3rd April. Previously, such communications would be checked for veracity and intelligence value by the Defense Ministry before being passed to the PM’s residence; under the new rule the information was passed to the PM’s residence without this checking stage. There was also the fatal administrative error which led to Defense Minister Hamada not even being notified of the announcement.

As a result, Defense Minister Hamada first hears of the North Korean “missile launch” watching NHK’s programme ‘Telop’ in the temporary “Operations Room” on the 11th floor of the main building of the Defense Ministry. This before the communication arrives from Central Command. Command Planning Council Head Tokuchi astounds Minister Hamada after the dissemination of the false information about a North Korean missile launch with the information that “the reporting system was changed at the instruction of the PM’s residence on 3rd (April)” and is left holding no little sense of distrust for Tokuchi and his colleagues on the Planning Council. Indeed it seemed that the Defense Ministry had ceased to be an organization with a Cabinet Minister at its head and turned into a live reporting system for the PM’s residence – except that it had not even managed to perform that task satisfactorily.

Thus, the whole ‘false detection’ problem saw the Defense Ministry too adrift in a system that had changed without its knowing. The situation could not be put down to a problem as simple as a mere sequence of human errors. This was an event that exposed the deeper problems of organizational rot and spiralling incompetence within the Defense Ministry as a whole.

Thus Prime Minister Aso’s move to improve public confidence in the government’s crisis response capabilities with a speedy provision of information ended up flying wildly off course. The government’s over-reliance on instant reporting caused it to over-reach itself in its response – a procedural and systemic aberration that will become a touchstone for future challenges to national security.

The Prime Minister, receiving the ‘launch information’ on 4th April, was soon walking out to answer the probing questions of waiting journalists at a hastily-arranged news conference; Cabinet Secretary Kawamura was on the phone to warn him of the inadequacy of the intelligence, but the Prime Minister was already outside the building. Directly before the questioning started, an aide accompanying the PM received the information from Kawamura, passed it on to PM Aso, whose expression turned grim as he turned on his heels and set off directly for the Crisis Response Centre. Had the Prime Minister completed his interviews, with no-doubt scathing criticism of North Korea, shame would have been piled on the Japanese government in spades.

“Bring me some accurate information. What the hell are you doing?” – Hamada faced off with the Defense Ministry official who had come to inform him of the inaccuracy of the initial intelligence and subsequent nationwide reporting. Hamada’s anger was clearly compounded by a conviction that “the chain of command has been overturned”, based on the knowledge he now possessed that one of the main reasons for the misjudgements in the situation were down to information being passed directly to the PM’s residence without passing through his hands first.

“This is the Defense Ministry’s responsibility. I expect everything to be running as it should from tomorrow.” It was all Kawamura could do in response to Hamada’s telephone call to stammer that “We are only human, but will be sure to work with a proper sense of responsibility”; he knew that the main part of the responsibility for this fiasco rested with the PM’s residence.

In addition to heightening civilian anxiety with unnecessary confusion, a heavy responsibility is to be borne for damaging the international reputation of and trust in Japan’s security operations and intelligence handling. Despite this being a situation where the dispersal of accurate information ‘even one second faster’ would have changed everything, the instant reporting system showed itself to be the weak link. So then, what were the organizational and systemic causes leading to such a fundamental and important failure? In fact, we have already touched on the core of the matter.

Chronology Disorder and the Pathology of ‘Instant Reporting’

According to government sources the trauma caused to government officials by the delay in communications to the Defense Ministry and PM’s residence on the day of the tragic accident involving the Aegis destroyer ‘Atago’ and a small fishing vessel (a collision on the morning of Feb 19th 2008; the fishing vessel was sunk and the two men on board were never found; an inquiry blamed inadequate lookout for nearby vessels) led to the spread of an obsession with “instant reporting”. When it came to internal communications there developed a culture of witch-hunting for anyone guilty of holding up the flow of information. This is what led to the disastrously panicky mindset of ‘instant reporting good, careful checking bad’.

Responsibility for the advent of this bankrupt situation must lie with Shigeru Ishiha, then Defense Minister, with his avoidance of responsibility, over-delegation to, blaming and punishment of subordinate staff and shuffling of personnel. Ishiha loudly declaimed the importance of political leadership and always insisted on all information being reported to him personally, but whenever it came to an accident or unfortunate event the first words on his lips were that “I have heard nothing of it”, followed closely by a promise “to severely punish those responsible”.

The pessimism and gloom now enveloping the Defense Ministry has been brought about by government officials ‘masquerading’ as politicians – acting to evade responsibility and win popularity. One cannot disallow sympathy with the majority of ministry officials but from the tax-paying public’s point of view this is a matter of collective responsibility.

Further, the line of communication in matters regarding missile defense operations runs from the Defense Ministry to the top brass at Airforce General Headquarters and the senior staff officers who support him. In the regular personnel changes in March, the individuals serving as senior staff officers changed, and the key post-holders serving at Airforce General Headquarters also rotated. It is also a fact that personnel affairs had stagnated somewhat at the Defense Ministry and SDF due to a delay of about a year in rotating previous General Senior Staff Officer Ito from his post. Having said that there were voices raised from within the Defense Ministry and related ministries at personnel rotation being carried out at such a critical time for national security – with reliable information already in about a forthcoming missile launch from North Korea.

On 5th April, North Korea announced that its ’satellite launch’ had been a success. On the other hand the North American Air and Space Defense Command (NORAD) released a report clearly denying the success of the launch stating that “nothing made it into orbit. The payload fell into the Pacific.”

Although Prime Minister Aso took the chance to put before the permanent members of the UN Security Council a draft resolution demanding ‘the cessation of all activities related to ballistic missile development and planning’, stolid opposition from China and Russia saw that limited to a statement from the Secretary General. In response, North Korea stated its intention to withdraw from the six-nation talks.

Was this launch a missile, or a rocket aiming to put a satellite into orbit? This question was raised and debated by the mass media, but bore little conclusive meaning as either answer would indicate the use of a system capable of conveying WMDs beyond the country’s borders. Rather, it was the government’s complete preoccupation with this question that raised the fear of Japan releasing information unavailable to North Korea which could have been used or manipulated by them. As initially feared, the problem with which Japan is left face-to-face after this fuss is the risk of a restart of the North Korean nuclear programme.

The 5th April launch could have been handled without the mobilization of the Missile Defense systems. The Transport Ministry had announced no risks to aviation or marine transport. Although it is little known, the SDF were dismissed from barracks the following day.

Although it may seem that this 24-hour delay was to test the reaction of North Korea, this was not the case. We hear that the Defense Ministry had been so busy dealing with the PM’s residence and mass media that “no thought had been given to the SDF leave order”.

Thus Command Planning Control decided to use the leave order as an opportunity and Administrative Vice-Minister Masuda spoke of it at his regular news conference that day to create an impression of normality. While Defense Minister Hamada debated whether or not to rescind the order, this impression of normality had obviously affected the individual regiments as they had already begun to leave their barracks. Those in SDF uniform had lost all trust in Command Planning Control and none were ready to follow orders from them.

Thus, it is the military that end up getting the bashing when in fact it was they who were sacrificed for the sake of political convenience and were clearly the victims of incorrect intelligence. From the SDF point of view, not only were they caught up in a bizaare “communication game” but also forced into a stage-show of an operation that ignored all concerns of military rationality. They must have been enraged.

As it happens, the Defense Ministry also released incorrect information the same day.

An announcement was made that the second stage of the missile was predicted to come down around 1270km east of Japan in the Pacific Ocean, but was almost immediately withdrawn. This was at the request of the head of the Situation Management Department. But that withdrawal was then in turn withdrawn and a statement released to the effect that “the content of the announcement is real and the actual crashdown point is currently being analysed and confirmed”. This of course, contributed to further confusion.

Cabinet Secretary Kawamura referred so many times before the press to this ‘1270km’ distance in the announcement that the Defense Ministry was unable to deny it and ended up having to deny instead that an attempt had ever been made to withdraw the announcement. Another episode, one might say, revealing how far the actions of government bodies can be overly focussed on ‘higher matters’ and insufficiently focussed on the civilian population they serve. Prime Minister Aso’s government looks to have taken unprecedentedly decisive action in response to a highly unlikely – though threatening – possibility, but at the heart of the matter was this political manoeuvering – out of sight of the general populace – to evade responsibility and the desire of officials within the administration to put on – for some reason – a performance.

[ Translator's note : An angry article - the residual feeling being one of frustration with the situation that the government has been put in by over-bearing US arms dealers, military planners and clever-ambitious politicians keen to take the chance to force an advantage over a weakened opponent, and a slightly defeatist note with regard to Japan's international reputation. For one thing, one cannot help but conclude that Japan was coerced into buying the PAC3 MD systems from the US. While certain individual officials (eg., former Defense Minister Ishiha) come in for severe criticism, the sense is very much one of 'and how could things really be any different?' - a sign of deep-rooted pessimism within government institutions. For those familiar with Japanese working habits and attitudes to social responsibility, it remains a mystery why American intrusion into issues of national security and policy-making is so despairingly tolerated. One is left to assume that, hopelessly devoted to certain ethical tenets with regard to social behaviour, and burdened with a profound sense of pacifism (also constitutionally-enshrined), the Japanese still find it difficult to play the game of international real-politik with any conviction (ie. as irresponsibly as their counterparts). Unfortunately, the humiliation resulting from events such as that outlined in the translation above are sure to only lead to a louder voice for the right. Having said that, we may see a resurgent DPJ in the next election thanks to new party Chairman Hatoyama's Asia-centred politico-economic vision for future Japanese foreign policy. America has for too long ignored popular sentiment against it in Japan and it may just be this groundswell that sees a change in government, with greater democracy and self-determination as its consequence - and no credit for either given to the land of Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney (which will surely tighten the military thumb-screws in response). ]

[ Asahi Shinbun : 25th July : morning edition ]

In a conference with Yokohama mayor Takada in Tokyo, Osaka governor Hashimoto reported that around 20 local governors have agreed to form a group pressing for regional decentralization from Tokyo in the next election and are ready to announce which party they will back.

According to information received by the Asahi Shinbun from governor Hashimoto, also present at today’s meeting with Nakada were Matsuyama city mayor Nakamura and Shinagawa prefecture Kaisei town mayor Roki. These four men are the driving force behind the decentralization campaign and are intending to win more support for their arguments. They are also appealing to Miyazaki governor Higashikokubaru to take part in their campaign. Hashimoto commented, “We want to make this a political movement that is not limited to only governors, or only mayors, or only town representatives – we want an inclusive campaign. Today was the kick-off.”

Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru – TV and film comedian and actor turned politician – responded to questions from journalists with Election Campaign Chairman Koga of the LDP after a meeting between the two men on 23rd June, reports the Asahi Shinbun (24th June : morning edition). Higashikokubaru commented “unless there is a change in ruling party, there will be no change in this country” and Mr. Koga explained that he had asked the governor to stand in the next elections because “the LDP needs a new energy”. The following are the main exchanges between the journalists and both men which has been major news on all media since the press conference.

[ translator's note : Higashikokubaru has increased his popularity even more since becoming Governor of Miyazaki; largely thanks to him, and this is why the LDP is moving to harness his popular influence, the possibility of real change in the lives of individuals, prefectures and the country as a whole has become a vibrant current in the popular media. Japanese find his confidence surprising, but his humour and sensitivity to local feeling are deeply appreciated. ]

■ the Governor

——What was the topic of your discussions today?
Election Campaign Chairman Koga and the LDP have asked me to stand for the LDP in the next elections.

——How did you respond?
Today I came here with the intention of listening. And I also had some opportunity to give several indications as to my ideas, convictions and – shall we say – hopes. One was about the position of the National Governors’ Commission on decentralization and the source of local government tax revenues. And I asked that our ideas be placed without alteration in the LDP manifesto and that I would require a promise that these plans would be implemented within 4 years. In addition, I sought approval for the bills submitted by Miyazaki Prefecture and the hopes of the people of Miyazaki. One more thing was to ask whether the LDP was prepared to fight the next election with me as a candidate for the next leader of the party.

——How did Mr. Koga answer?
He responded to the effect that he had heard my remarks.

——If your requests are accepted, will you run?
I think that is going to depend on further discussions. I had a chance to make it clear that I would give my political backing to the party that backed the National Governor’s Commission’s Manifesto; the rest is a matter of translating words into action.

——When will a conclusion be arrived at?
I don’t know. I’m very sorry to speak so bluntly, but this is the most important period for the LDP as to how it can transform itself, reform itself. Unless the ruling party changes, the country will not change.

——Where will you stand?
No specifics have been decided.

——What will you do if the LDP is not ready to support you as its next leader?
I can’t comment on speculation. I want to think about everything after I get a response from the LDP. I suppose it depends on what you might call the ability of the party to purify itself, but from where I’m standing it looks to be falling apart. In such a case, it is no longer a question of changing the party from within – new air needs to be let in from outside… I don’t think that minor changes proposed from within the party are going to get anyone anywhere.

——Do you have a message for the people of Miyazaki prefecture?
We have to request that the state will reform the allocation and management of local government revenues as proposed in Miyazaki prefecture’s bill – I would like to lead those reforms.

——Do you think you can get support for this?
I think I will probably have to have people let me explain things during the next few months.

——Would you offer the same conditions to any party that approached you in this way?
If by the same conditions, you mean acceptance of the finance bill and my publicly-expressed opinions, then, yes, the name of the political party is irrelevant.

——Did Mr. Koga talk to you about any other ministerial positions?
No, that didn’t happen.

■Mr. Koga

——What did you talk about today?
I invited Mr.Higashikokubaru in direct terms to run in the elections for the LDP

——How did the governor respond?
He may have been a little surprised. Of course, he feels the responsibility of the expectations of the people of Miyazaki prefecture. Standing as he does on the front lines of prefectural politics, he probably has various feelings towards the people of the prefecture. The LDP must show its ability to revivify itself and the party has to change. Above all, to be frank with you, we need a new energy – and one that we do not have in the party now. So, I presented to him our wish that he stand in the elections.

——And how did the governor answer?
The governor thought carefully and explained that he wished to talk openly in front of the press to all the journalists about the outcome of the request.

——What was your gut feeling?
It could be fairly difficult. (Comment by Upper House Member Chuuichi Date who was accompanying Mr. Koga.)

[ Asahi Shinbun : 23rd June, morning edition ]

Saitama Police have revealed that a 46 year-old man taken in dead drunk at around 2:20am on 19th June, later set fire to his shirt (after taking it off) using a lighter he had on him. Thanks to surveillance cameras the fire was promptly extinguished; the man claimed that he had set the fire because it was ‘cold’. As there was no damage to the building, the man was released and allowed to return home the same day.

According to the police, when he was taken into custody, the man’s belt was removed for safety reasons, but officers did not notice that he had a lighter on his person. A directive has been issued to all 39 police stations in the prefecture to conduct thorough body checks on all individuals taken into custody.

[ Trans. note : Saitama prefecture has been in the news almost continuously for the past few years with seemingly endless violent crimes. No-one who believes what they read in the newspapers would willingly move to Saitama, such is the apparent level of crime there. ]

[ Asahi Shinbun, 22nd June '09 ]

A nationwide survey of the opinions of business owners/managers re: the local economic situation in the regions has revealed that over 70% believe local business conditions are getting worse. This is a considerably worse result than for a similar survey conducted at the same time with 100 top companies. It would seem feeling in the regions is that government talk of things having got as ‘bad as they are going to’ may be a little presumptuous.

A summary of the results :

• 51% of respondents confirm that business conditions are still getting worse;
• that figure rises to 71% when adding the category of those who feel things are ‘gently getting worse’; this up on the 38% of respondents to the previous such survey in June 2008 who felt the economy was in decline, confirming the extent of the effects of the global economic downturn experienced from the autumn last year;

The survey was conducted between 29th May and 16th June in the form of face-to-face interviews with local heads of business/financial entreprises with a total of 94 respondents.

The head of the Okayama Chamber of Commerce commented that “there is no feeling that we have reached the bottom yet – things are continuing to get worse” and “the promised improvements in demand are not to be seen and we expect things to get continue getting worse until the last quarter of the year”; these comments could be said to be representative of the opinions of many of the respondents in the survey.

With major corporations cutting investment in facilities and machinery, 82% of respondents report that demand from their core customer base has collapsed. 63% expect orders to further decrease over the next year.

With regard to the government’s handling of the business situation, 74% report that the lowering of highway tolls has had a positive effect with numbers of tourists increasing. However, 47% report that the recent government cash handout (conducted in the first half of the year; all taxpayers received around ¥10,000 in cash) has not had any effect, against 36% claiming it has.

Asked about the possibility of the dissolution of the current government followed by an election in which the main parties change power, 27% replied that they believed it was ‘possible’ against 13% believing it to be ‘impossible’ revealing a similar trend as the survey of 100 top companies.

44% of respondents stated their belief that the rise to power as regional governors of individuals originally from the entertainment (and other ‘non-political’ ) worlds will lead to reforms in local government. Most rated the performance of Higashikuni (Miyazaki governor) and Hashimoto (Osaka governor, formerly a lawyer) positively.