Angry Planet - Japan's Surprisingly Large Military

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

On paper, Japan is no longer a military power. Article 9 of the Japanese constitution states that “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” and that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” Japan is, on paper, to rely on its allies for military defense and, since World War II, American military bases have dotted its islands. But attitudes and policies are changing and as the South China sea looks more and more like a flashpoint, some are wondering if Japan will amend its constitution and re-arm.Here to help us figure that out is Kimberly Westenhiser is a journalist, photographer and artist. She writes for the Eatonville Dispatch and her work has appeared at The Seattle Globalist, Foreign Policy, War Is Boring and Playboy.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hey there, War College listeners. I just wanted to drop in here at the top to add some context to the conversation. This is Matthew, by the way. There's been some changes in Japan since we recorded this episode.

On May 1, Japan crowned a new emperor. The new emperor is described as being temperate, and has repeatedly said he would uphold Japan's current constitution. So please keep that in mind as the conversation you're about to hear progresses. They just want to make sure that their citizens are protected and also that China isn't going around, you know, bullying smaller nations. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. here are your hosts.

Hello, welcome to War College. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Derek Cannon. On paper, Japan is no longer a military power. Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution states that, quote, The Japanese people forever renounce war is a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of forces means of settling international disputes in that land, sea, and air forces as well as other war potential will never be maintained.

Japan is, on paper, to rely on its allies for military defense and since World War II, American military bases have dotted its islands. But attitudes and policies are changing. And as the South China Sea looks more and more like a flashpoint, some are wondering if Japan will amend its constitution and rearm. Here to help us figure that out is Kimberly Westenheiser. She's a journalist, photographer, and artist who's written for the Eatonville dispatch, and her work has also appeared at the Seattle Globalist, Foreign Policy, Wars Boring, and Playboy. Kim, thank you so much for joining us. Happy to be here.

All right. So I guess the first question is very basic. Is Japan a military power? And what are its military capabilities? Kind of. So they, I would say that, yes, they do have a functional military. They're just not allowed to say that they have it. So it's kind of a, it's a linguistic game, essentially.

In my experience of actually watching the Japanese ground self-defense force operate, they're pretty professional and very capable. They have an Air Force, Navy, Army, but they don't call them that. It's all different terms that are kind of roundabout or really don't. they avoid what we would, the kind of language that we would use in our own military. Yeah, so what is the difference between the, like, the American military and the Japanese SDF? Is it purely terminological? I mean, obviously there's, you know, big differences in terms of numbers and equipment, but as far as what they do... They're not allowed to function overseas.

So there have been some cases where... Their naval forces were sent out to address Somali pirates. But those things don't really occur quite as often. So it's not like our military where we're sending troops abroad very frequently. They're not really allowed to do that. So their primary function is largely tooted to disaster relief and things like that. The Japanese prime minister is a gentleman named Shinsou Abe. and he's, I think we would describe him in America as conservative.

He's also been an advocate for amending Japan's constitution. Do you think that that, and he wants to amend this constitution, to change Article 9, correct? What exactly is his argument? What is he what does he want? What is he trying to do here? I think that he just wants to be honest about what Japan is doing. They do essentially have a military and have a lot of military capability, but they're not allowed to say that. And I think that there are some Japanese that feel like they're being lied to, essentially, and that they also don't really understand what the SDF is or what exactly it entails.

So, example, they're not aircraft carrier. So they do have a vessel that is essentially an aircraft carrier, but they're not saying that that's what that is. I think that he just wants to be honest about what they're doing and not necessarily increase militarization, at least not increasing it any more than anybody else is. All right. But would it also open them up to use the military in a different way? Potentially, yeah. I think that there is a little bit of concern over what China's doing, especially in the East and South China Sea,

because China kind of likes to bully its neighbors a little bit. So sometimes Japan has to step in and say, you know, no, you can't do that. So I think that it may come into play in that interaction and potentially in Korea as well. But it's a little bit difficult to forecast. You mentioned China and you mentioned the South China Sea. I'm kind of interested in that because that is becoming a flashpoint. Do you think that the Prime Minister Abe just making this not doing air quotes here, not aircraft carrier is kind of his future, he's forward thinking that this is eventually going to be an issue where,

let's say the United States puts Japan in the forefront of dealing with it. Do you think that that's what they're kind of looking to do is take over the South China Sea? or at least control the international waterways? I wouldn't necessarily say control, but they may be looking to, let's say, address the issue. Because it doesn't really look to me that Japan is really interested in being particularly aggressive militarily. And there's a whole host of reasons for why that would be one thing being is they really don't have the funding to support a large military. They're facing a major deficit. So I think that their primary interest is in protecting themselves.

And I'm not sure that Shenzhou Avey believes that, you know, the U.S. will continue to support them. Or he's getting concerned about it, rather. That's what I was going to ask, because there's been some, there's been some reporting on that, that Japan is honestly, it's not trusting the current leadership within the White House right now to actually, to defend Japan or even think about Japan's self-interest within the South China Sea or even the Japanese sphere of influence. Do you think the prime minister Abe is he's just going to go ahead, even though there's a deficit, he's just going to, this is kind of like his backup plan is, okay, we'll deal with it. do you think it's something that because there's a trust issue with the United States, that Japan is going to have to force itself to become more militarized? Very likely, yeah. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. I don't think that Shinsawabe has any faith whatsoever in our current administration to uphold their interests. So you can see both militarily and in terms of trade because he's been,

making moves to to thaw things with Beijing, he's kind of starting to sidestep us a little bit. That concern, it really does show in more than one way. Right. So Donald Trump, you know, his trade rhetoric, obviously has not made Sino-American relations very good. And the pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership made serious, you know, other waves in Asia. But you've written that U.S. military relations remain strong. Is that still true? Or is this trade stuff really kind of messing everything up?

I think it's really kind of beginning to mess everything up, or at least kind of make everybody quake in their boots a little bit. Because I don't think that anybody really wants to, you know, sort of make any hard. divisions, at least the Japanese don't. And they previously have wanted to very much delink the trade and defense issues, but Donald Trump kind of likes to smush them together.

But, I mean, we're very invested in Japan and the surrounding islands. We have something like 50,000 U.S. military personnel there, which is, that's not a small number and a significant number of military installation. So it would be hard for us to sort of scale that back. But another issue is that there's also been some local pushback from like the citizens of Okinawa. Their current governor is not necessarily happy about our military installation there. So, and he's he's garnered a lot of support.

So that's, I mean, that's something else to take into consideration that it's not just Japanese government officials. It's also the attitudes of the citizens toward our being there. Okinawa's long been not super happy with the American military presence there, right? I feel like that's a legacy problem that's been going back decades. So what's changed? Do you think it's getting more popular support among the politicians? Plus, you know, the rhetoric in North Korea, it's just a good fertile time for that to be a wedge issue. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I think it's really just kind of the timing of many other events that are compounding that sort of, you know, resentment that might be there to begin with. What's Japan's interest in Korea? Can we, if we can switch to that? They're paying very close attention to these North Korea-U.S. talks. What's their interests within the Korean Peninsula? Well, I think that they're definitely interested in, you know, North Korea's nuclear capabilities. That's a pretty tremendous concern for them. And without American missile defense systems, that's especially, like, a huge concern.

but they're also wanting more communication about abducted Japanese citizens. There have been a few that have been confirmed, but Japan's fairly certain that there are hundreds more that have been abducted than Korea's been admitting to, and they haven't really been receiving much communication or many clear answers on, you know, who is there or why they're they're going to come home, that kind of thing. Just for the listeners that don't know or maybe aren't aware, you were talking about kidnapped Japanese citizens. How were they, what were they doing?

You know, why were they kidnapped? Were they visiting North Korea, like as a tourist kind of attraction or was something different? I'm not sure. I think it really kind of depends on the case. But these citizens were often kidnapped to be made into spies. And there has been some video of them where, you know, they were shown being teachers in North Korea. So I don't really think that their initial plan of making these citizens and despise really worked out quite like they had wanted it to.

But I think it is really a case-by-case basis. All right. So I think aside from just the kidnapped Japanese citizens, Because North Japan is within nuke range of North Korea, too, right? So there's an existential threat there as well, right? Yeah, definitely. And like I said, if U.S. military support decreases and they don't have, like, our missile defense systems, that's a huge, huge concern for them.

And even if they did have that, they're in such close proximity that, that could present them with a major issue. A lot of the ballistic missile tests went straight over the island. There's no way to say that Japan would not be concerned about North Korea's nuclear capabilities and what they intend on doing with that. And how are they reacting to America's diplomatic attempts with North Korea? I think it's making them a little bit. fidgety, but there hasn't really been

any outright statements that I've seen. I think they're just kind of waiting to see what's going to happen. When it comes to dealing with North Korea, Japan doesn't really take an abundance of stock in anything that North Korea has to say because they have signed treaties with them before, like with the abducted citizens. and then, you know, they didn't uphold that. So they don't, there's a lot of, there's not a lot of trust there.

So the Japanese don't really trust North Korea to do anything that they say they're going to do. Does Japan have any interest in developing its own nuclear program? I doubt it. I really don't think that they have the funds to put that together. Like I said, that deficit is massive. And what they've been doing is they've been borrowing off of the savings of their citizens. And because their population is aging so rapidly, that's disappearing. So they really don't have the resources to put together a nuclear arsenal.

And I think also culturally there is a strong resistance to it, not only from some older government officials, but also the population. And is that due to the fact that Japan is quite literally the only country that's ever had an atomic weapon or a nuclear weapon used against them in a wartime scenario? So they remember that and just they remember the results? Is that due to that? Yeah, I think that definitely like is a factor. I mean, that's a pretty like significant national trauma that they went through. and I don't think that there is anyone who has stopped thinking about that.

Do we have any sense of what the younger generation feels about that? I'm kind of curious. Like, is there a difference between, you know, in broad strokes, obviously, because everybody's different. But kind of the way the younger generation feels about nukes and militarization versus the way the older generations feel about nukes and militarization? Yeah. So an example that I would think of.

in like arts and film is Akira. So that film was created for the generation that did not remember the bomb. So I think that it's definitely like it's a shadow there and it does influence the way that they think about things. But there may be, you know, an increased likelihood that they would be a little bit more lenient toward militarization and nuclear weapons just because, because things are changing. How did the younger generation become more, and I'm going to use this word romanticized, but I'm not saying that they're just,

they're drooling to become a superpower. I know that, you know, you were saying that their economy is kind of not doing well. How is, how are they looking at romanticizing the military? I know that they've got bases in the, in Africa. You know, you already mentioned that, Like they have a military establishment over at the Djibouti Naval Yard over in Djibouti Africa. And they've also deployed some of their troops, if we can call them that as part of the United Nations peacekeeping operations within Africa.

Are they starting to see that become more and more of a duty to the country? Because I know Japan is an honor-based society, correct? Yeah, it is. And that's, you know, obviously a pretty. important decision-making factor is cultural values. I think that, you know, it's largely a response to global events and changes in global attitudes and things, kind of them wanting to participate a little bit more in things.

Kind of like a nation of the willing. I want to use the old term back in the George W., kind of the allies of the willing. they kind of want to be a part of something that's going to be happening. And is that because how does that, how does the current, I keep, we keep going back to Trump, but I think because of the Hanoi talks that broke down, China really doesn't trust anything that's coming out of the North Korea, US, you know, denuclearization talks. They seem to kind of want to be like, all right, we're going to take care of ourselves or alongside of a superpower. Obviously it's going to be the United States. But how long is that going to last?

Like, how long are they going to, are they just going to wait it out until 2020 and see what happens there? It's hard to say. It really seems like Japan isn't really, they're not really wanting to make, you know, a lot of forward steps because they really do just want to, like, see what happens and then make a decision about what they're going to do because I don't think that they want to lose any footwork. with either the U.S. or whatever foothold they have with North Korea or, yeah, I think they're very afraid of any negative consequences that might come from, like, I don't want to say, like, behaving in the way that our administration is, but they don't, they really don't want to be brash or forward in any way. So on top of that, we mentioned China and the South China Sea, and China, you know, China has been pretty aggressive in that region. How are there,

How's their relations? Is it, obviously, it's openly cordial, but what's the, what's the scuttle butt on this, you know, what's the talk on the street? Like, how does your average, and maybe I shouldn't say average Japanese. What's, what are the, what's the Japanese government? What's their actual thought process to China? Because they don't want to upset China, because it is a superpower. But they also don't want to ally themselves with China because that would upset the United States. So are they kind of caught in this mom and dad kind of scenario, sort of speak with the child when it come to South China Sea? Yeah, I think that's an excellent way to describe it. They, yeah, they definitely don't want to upset anyone that might put them in a compromise position in both upsetting China or the United States would potentially put them in a very compromised position with either of them. As far as Japan's attitudes toward China, I wouldn't necessarily say that Japan is particularly trusting of China. with China's like massive defense spending and like the massive increases that we've seen which are actually slated to go down a little bit this year by like 1%. One thing that Japan is really upset about is the fact that China doesn't have any transparency on what they're spending all that money on.

So that's something that they have said that they really want to see is like where are you allocating these funds to. And so, yeah. Kind of like how the United States and Russia has like that open skies treaty where they can fly non-weaponized planes around specific areas to kind of see what the, how their military and military industrial complex is expanding, correct? China and Japan don't have that kind of relationship. Okay. I'm just interested. Japan would would really like to have that, I think.

I think it would be important for building trust between the two nations. But what were you going to say? I just, it's interesting because you just said that. I think Japan really is desperate to kind of look behind the velvet curtain to kind of see what, I think most of us would. I think the United States and most of the West would like to kind of look behind the velvet curtain of China and see what China's actual plan is. Do you think if Japan got an opportunity to do that, would that become common knowledge with the West?

Would China allow Japan to kind of share that information? Or would this kind of be like a secret backdoor dealing of, hey, we won't put anti-ship, anti-aircraft missiles on, you know, the Spratleys for X amount of time. And then you can come and look. Is that kind of like how Japan and China would do that? Potentially, yeah. I don't really see being especially secretive with this. but it's I mean it's also like hard to say because a lot of that is really contingent upon

China and and what China wants and what they negotiate between themselves but I think that if China was to sort of reveal what its defense plans were and where it was putting money and this and that then it would likely become public knowledge and that may actually be something that they're concerned about is that if they do open up that idea to Japan, that it would become not just Japan's knowledge, but everybody's knowledge, right? The United States has special operations, again, I'm going to tap in my old life, so apologies. The United States has special operations forces stationed specifically in Okinawa.

And we've already discussed how the people, you know, the population of Okinawa is just kind of sick and tired of having a U.S. base there for various awful reasons, obviously. And they also have, and Japan also helps with the United States and enjoys, you know, a robust intelligence collection apparatus, you know, the five eyes, if you will. Can you kind of discuss how that works with Japan? How good is, I mean, I'm sure Japan is amazing at this, but can you kind of touch on that a little bit? They're not actually. They're really lacking in cybersecurity and in terms of their capabilities. We will have people from the Air Force go over and tell them, you know, the 100 million things that they're doing wrong.

So they're really lacking in intelligence capabilities, which has been a major question in, you know, like if you are a part of this. network, then is this information going to be safe? But on the other side of that, Japan could potentially be very valuable given its proximity to Korea and China and the linguistic similarities and the fact that they have a lot of Korean and Chinese linguists, it would give them an edge in collecting that information. But yeah, their cybersecurity capabilities are really pretty lacking. I've heard this. I know that they don't really focus on cybersecurity. I know that they do a lot of tech, but I was actually, I'm actually impressed that they aren't as good at the intelligence collection as I thought they would be. Because, because even though they don't have an offensive military, meaning that they don't have a deployable military due to their constitution, we do train them, as you just kind of said, in intelligence gathering and. special operations too. Again, I'm going to do air quotes here as home defense, because that's basically how the SDF is set up, correct? So there is a concern through the Five-Eye community that if

they pushed Japan further into collection due to South, the South China Sea and the, you know, the Spratly Island expansion by China, that the intelligence that they would kind of share with the fusion cell there would be completely open to attacks from Chinese hackers. from the high nines, right? That's something interesting because it's not really well talked about, correct? I mean, no one really talks about the massive amounts of U.S. support and training that we're doing to kind of build this up, right? Yeah, yeah. And I think that that's definitely like a concern that Shinsou Abe has in, if there is a diminished presence in diminished U.S. presence in East Asia, that they would lose

that because really like the SDF doesn't have a lot of practical experience like our military does. It's it's all it's primarily just just been training with the exception of you know any actions that have taken place in Africa or the Philippines. So yeah, that they're I think they're concerned about losing that base of knowledge that we're offering them. I mean, I don't know if you know this guy. George Freeman, he was a, he was the, he's a former founder of Strat 40. He kind of writes for geopolitical futures. Have you ever heard, read anything that he's ever written about Japan? Okay. Well, he's a big, since the, since the breakdown of the Hanoi's talks from the U.S. and North Korea, he's been a very big advocate of, uh, Prime Minister Abe amending the Constitution. He feels, and you're kind of going against what he said. I kind of want to agree with you more. It seems like you have a finger on the pulse is that since Japan, this has the third largest economy in the world, which we can debate in a second here, they have an enormous capacity to increase their militarization, their force to become more of a deployable offensive threat. And not only that, he feels completely that Trump has destabilized

Japan's strategy within the region wholeheartedly and that he, He, that his, now this is his hypothesis, his summation is that Japan should do not, do not stop, do not collect $100 completely amend the Constitution and become a military force within the region. Do you agree with what he said? Obviously, the economy, you have a better finger on the pulse. Do you agree with what he's saying there? Should Shinsu Abe amend the Constitution? Yes, but not to that extreme end. Like, I really don't think, like, they can't, they, I think that he's wrong in, and the fact that they can't support that.

Like, they can't support a military like we have, for example, that's very large and has a wide range of capabilities. So, yeah, I, and I don't think that Japan really wants to do that. Like, I don't, what they're interested is in. protecting themselves. They are not necessarily interested in branching out to any particularly large degree. They just want to make sure that their citizens are protected and also that China isn't going around, you know, bullying smaller nations. So, yeah, I would definitely disagree with him in terms of that. I think it's, it seems a little bit extravagant to me. And it's, That's not really kind of how I have come to known the Japanese as functioning.

They don't want excess. And they can't have excess when it comes to the military. I just find it interesting because, you know, it seems like you know more about their economy. And Hich just keeps pushing this. They have this enormous capacity to expand militaristically. And it seems like if they needed to do that, they would have to get some sort of support package from, let's say, the United States. And that's going to have to pass through Congress. But then there's also going to have to be some sort of imminent threat, right?

For that? There's going to have to be some sort of imminent threat to the Japan sovereignty. Is that going to be a complete breakdown of the nuclear talks with North Korea or another missile test that flies over Japan? what's it going to take for us to start looking at the South China Sea with a more of a microscopic look? What's it going to take? I have no idea. I mean, given the fact that this administration is really difficult to predict and also just Trump seems to ignore, you know, what would previously have been considered pretty like pertinent issues. And off of like, ostensibly.

very random logic. But if we were operating in a universe where, you know, he did sort of have more of a I don't want to say traditional, but did have a like a thread

of logic that he was following with foreign policy, I think that there would, like you said, there would have to be an imminent threat or something like a red hot coal that would make Congress be like, yes, this is absolutely something we need to do.

This needs to be addressed. But, like, I don't see another North Korean missile test being that because I think that Donald Trump is going to have, like, a very, I don't want to say nonplussed, but not necessarily adequate response to that. But one thing I wanted to point out is Japan amending its constitution does not necessarily. indicate that there will be in like a sharp increase in militarization. It just may mean, you know, like I had mentioned previously, that there's going to be a change in language about it. And there's going to be a different understanding in the public of what the SDF is and what they're doing. So it's kind of like a nonverbal, right? It's like, hey, I took the gloves off kind of thing, right? It doesn't mean I'm going to increase. It just means I can fight if I wanted to.

Let's talk very briefly here as we're kind of going out about direct defense ties and where Japan gets its weapons. They're purchasing mostly from the U.S., right? Mm-hmm. And there's also a lot of joint military exercises with the SDF. Mm-hmm. So what is that, what's the relationship like between the soldiers there? You know, is that we were at bitter, bitter war two generations ago. How do the soldiers get along, I guess is what I'm asking?

And do you... Great. They do, really. Okay. What's that like? Yeah, awesome. Yeah, they, nobody had any complaints when I was at the Yakima training center for Rising Thunder. They both had a lot of commendation and both said that they were both professional and actually

operated very similarly. I'm not sure how, because they had just started training together, I'm not sure how much that attitude would have changed had we have interviewed them, like, a few days out after they had been doing their urban assault training for, like, a few days. But, yeah, like, they had a sniper competition. The JGSDF had dinner with the NISA Association in Seattle. They get along great. Yeah, there's not, like, a lot of.

of derision over, you know, past events that I could see. I mean, it's still kind of there, but it's not necessarily like a leading factor in how they interact and what they think about each other from what I could tell. So do you think that if they amended the Constitution, they would buy more arms? I mean, it's hard to say. Like, when you ask that, I just think about their deficit. It is likely that there might be a small uptick. Yeah, they really don't have a lot of funds to be devoting to that.

And another thing is, they did re-enter the arms trade. Okay, so it's not like that they're not going to be a huge growth market. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily forecast that. The most recent Japanese Godzilla movie came out in 2016, and it largely focused on the SDF disaster response, and also a lot about the way Japan views itself, and there's a line from the movie that's kind of always stuck with me, and I want to get your read on it.

One of the characters says that Japan is essentially a tributary state, that it's in some ways subordinate to the United States and that some of the younger generation are starting to feel the pressure of that. Do you think that's true, and do you think any of that plays into the stuff we've talked about, day. Definitely. I think that's that's definitely like a pretty, pretty accurate way of describing things. I think I'm not sure that there, I'm not sure if there's any resentment surrounding that, but there definitely is like a sense that they are very much under our

umbrella. And while the older generations may have been more ready to accept that, I think that some members of the younger generation are beginning to think about that more critically. So that movie actually had lots of really fascinating aspects to it. Not only in terms of like explaining what the SDF does,

ideally to the public because I really don't think that they understand entirely what it is, which kind of adds to their low recruitment levels in addition to their like aging population. But one thing that comes to mind when I think about that movie is wait, is it like is it okay if I spoil things?

Yeah, no, the movie's been out. Yes. People should see the movie. But yeah, it's feel free to spoil. So when you know Godzilla is like he's like turned into a

like blithic monument in the center of Tokyo he's still like a potential nuclear threat right so they're kind of

cut between that monster and also like if it if he comes back than another U.S. nuclear strike. So that kind of like harkens back to me of like the shadow of nuclear weapons kind of always hanging over everything because there's always that potentiality of like another

massive nuclear disaster occurring in that film as it stands. But I think very much they're still existing in like a dialectical relationship with that event where there are many thoughts and acts. actions that are determined by that trauma. Kimberly Westenheiser, thank you so much for coming on to War College and walking us through Japan's not quite military. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to War College.

The show is me, Matthew Galt, Kevin O'Dell, and Derek Gannon. It was created by me and Jason Fields, who keeps trying to get me to visit D.C., even though I've told him I don't like to summer in the South. If you like the show, please drop us a comment. and a rating on iTunes, it helps other people find the show. You can always follow us on Twitter at war underscore college and on Facebook at Facebook.com forward slash war college podcast. We will be back next week with a conversation with Amnesty International

with a special guest host. And we've also got a show coming up that's all about some of my very favorite CIA projects. Until then, stay safe out there.