Japan eyes more active defense posture in new guidelines

Sunday 05th December, 03:17 PM JST

TOKYO —

Japan is expected to introduce a new defense posture emphasizing security around the Nansei islands in Okinawa Prefecture while flexibly addressing terrorism and guerrilla attacks, rather than preparing only for external invasions, a draft of its forthcoming policy guidelines showed Saturday.

Under the new concept, called ‘‘dynamic defense capability’’ to be stated in the National Defense Program Outline for fiscal 2011 to 2015, Japan will also enhance defense cooperation not only with the United States but also with South Korea and Australia.

While expressing concerns about the rise of China’s military and North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, the draft, to be approved by the cabinet later this month, calls for suppressing the growth of Japan’s defense expenses at zero percent or lower from their fiscal 2009 level in the next five years in the face of the nation’s dire fiscal situations.

The Defense Ministry has requested a 155,000-quota for the Ground Self-Defense Force—downwardly revised from its previous request of 157,000—but it may be further cut due to strong calls for the reduction within the Democratic Party of Japan-led ruling bloc.

The draft describes terrorism and guerrilla attacks as ‘‘new threats,’’ and indicates that Japan will shift toward a more multifunctional, resilient and effective defense capability to help contain threats to regional security and avoid a situation in which Japan would be a power vacuum in the region.

To achieve this, Japan intends to reform the chain-of-command structure in the Self-Defense Forces troops in the hope that they will function more flexibly, while improving their daily training so they will be able to tackle various kinds of contingencies at any time, according to the draft.

Moreover, a draft appendix states the Defense Ministry will increase the number of its Maritime Self-Defense Force submarines from 16 to 22 and accelerate studies for procuring new main fighter planes for the Air Self-Defense Force.

Acting on this, the ministry will seek the procurement costs for the planes, most likely the F-35 fighters, in its budget request for fiscal 2012 after narrowing the list to three types of planes. The two other prospects are the Eurofighter from Europe or the F/A-18 from the United States.

Meanwhile, it is soon to be decided whether the draft policy guidelines will refer to the review of the current principles for participating in the U.N. peacekeeping operations and to the creation of a new government entity to beef up the intelligence functions of the prime minister’s office.