The Best Defense

... is a good offense. Or, in some cases, a good missile defense system.

The Japanese government is slowly drifting (being pulled?) away from its Constitutionally mandated (since 1946) stance on national defense, which requires that the nation will neither develop nor sustain a standing military, but is instead limited to a Self-Defense Force (SDF) that is responsible solely for protecting the Japanese islands from direct foreign attack.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, leveraging the relative political freedom his post is allowed in international affairs by the Japanese Constitution, has wisely chosen to tie himself to President Bush and the United States. Koizumi recognized at the beginning of the Second Gulf War in 2003 that the U.S. would likely have to invest significant resources in the Middle East for years to come. Furthermore, he also recognized that such financial, material, and human investment by the U.S. government would require a simultaneous investment of political capital by U.S. government leaders, on behalf of the United States as a whole. That is, Koizumi rightly foresaw that the United States would be investing massive amounts of political capital into its rapidly expanding (exploding?) Middle East policy, including the war in Iraq. And, since the U.S. is still the global hegemon, U.S. investments in the arena of international affairs always pay off.

For the next fifty years, at least, there is no wiser policy for a wealthy, industrialized, and ambitious country than "team up with the United States." Continental Europe is missing the point, but Koizumi sees it, and the rest of Japan is beginning to get the message.

Back to Japan. PM Koizumi knows that if Japan is to become a world super power, it will need a full blown military, not just a Self-Defense Force. To the extent that Koizumi can make the war in Iraq a good thing for Japan, politically and economically, he will also be able to undermine domestic opposition to the eventual creation of a Japanese military. Article IX of the Japanese Constitution (promulgated in 1946) prevents the creation of such a military, but Constitutions can be amended, and some in Japan think it is time to revise or repeal Article IX. Pacifism is not deep-seeded in Japanese culture, after all... In a culture characterized by more than fifteen centuries of isolation, homogeneity, and civil war, sixty years of outward-facing pacifism is not enough to establish a tradition. Article IX is going to go. And Koizumi is showing it the door.

With respect to the more immediate issue of the joint missile development project undertaken by the U.S. and Japan, well, that's just another sign that Japan is beginning to recognize the potential collateral benefits of having a well-funded military-industrial complex.

Given the concerns expressed in the article, though, it will be interesting to watch the Japanese reaction to what inevitably will become an over-budget, behind-schedule aerospace project riddled with myriad political and/or legal and/or technical complications. From the tone in the article, the author, at least, does not fully appreciate the significance of the term "spiral development".