Transcript Minister of Labour, Health and Welfare, Yanagisawa Hakuo

Heisei
militarisation,
Australia,
and our real
security
needs
Richard Tanter
Nautilus Institute for Security and
Sustainability
Article 9 of the Japanese constitution
(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on
justice and order, the Japanese people forever
renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and
the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes.
(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding
paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other
war potential, will never be maintained. The right of
aggression of the state will not be recognized.
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Prime Minister Abe Shinzo
on upgrading the Defence Agency to
the Ministry of Defence
"a landmark event
that marks the
end of the
postwar regime
and will lay the
groundwork for
building a new
state."
2
Japanese security - old stories
• The weight of history
– The failures of reconciliation and border
disputes
• US alliance
– benefits and costs
3
Japanese security tensions - new
stories
•
•
•
•
•
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•
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Whose version of “Global responsibilities”?
North Korea - again
South Korea
Taiwan
mega-terrorism
sea-lanes and Southeast Asia
oil and gas - China and Russia
the rise of China per se
US extended nuclear deterrence
4
Keidanren’s threat board
5
Major Asia-Pacific Shipping Lanes
6
Japan-centred hemisphere
7
The view from China, Russia and Korea
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What is new?
Heisei militarization
• hollowing-out Article 9
• shift from “defensive defense” to “threatbased defence”
• upgrading and expanding military forces
• willingness to rely on military solutions
• legitimation of use of military force abroad
• closer operational integration with US forces
• growing possibility of weapons of mass
destruction
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New security thinking
• The past:
– Yoshida doctrine
– defensive defence and comprehensive defence
– the culture of Article 9
• The future:
– Proportional (to threats) defence
– “Great power realism”
– The new nationalism
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New policy developments in
Heisei militarisation
Special forces
Intelligence
Overseas deployments
Missile defence
The fading taboo - the nuclear option
• The means necessary
– nuclear device
– targeting capacity
– delivery capacity
• The impediments
– US
– public opinion
– IAEA and NPT
• The pressures
• The chances
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Rokkasho spent fuel reprocessing plant
13
Japanese plutonium-mixed uranium oxide fuel
container reloaded onto Pacific Pintail after
admission by BFL of falsified quality control,
June 2002
14
H-IIA F8 configuration
15
Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS)
16
Strategic contexts for Japanese risk
• Japanese politics - chronic crisis and
democratic deficits
• delegitimising Japanese democracy abroad history, sex and negative soft power
• the brevity of the American “unipolar moment”
• Japan’s choice: US vs. China?
• the delayed American choice on China
• the implausible solidity of Market-Leninism in
China
• the restructuring of East Asia?
17
Japan and Australia military
cooperation
• Japan already Australia’s number 5 military
partner
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intelligence collaboration,
Japanese bases in Australia
maritime cooperation
official exchanges
joint exercises
counter-terrorism activities
joint participation in a wide range of mainly US-led
multilateral activities.
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Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on
Security Cooperation
• Systematises existing arrangements
• "affirming the common strategic interests and
security benefits embodied in their respective
alliance relationships with the United States,
and committing to strengthening trilateral
cooperation”
• Prefigures further bilateral expansion
• Expansion to four-way cooperation:
– United States, Japan, Australia, India
• Nuclear options for both countries.
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Militarising foreign policy: wrong
horse, wrong race
• The anachronism of Great Power
Realism for Japan
• The problem of alliance maintenance
• The problem of nationalisms
• What has been jettisoned in Japan
• The real security imperatives from
regional expressions of global problems
20
Five global problems as security
threats for Japan and Australia
• climate change - sudden or progressive
• infectitious disease pandemics
• energy and resource depletion and
competition
• cross-border pollution
• regressive consequences of
globalisation
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• Webpage:
http://gc.nautilus.org/N
autilus/australia
• Email:
[email protected]
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