THE BEHEADINGS of two Japanese hostages by Islamic State (IS) radicals fuels the debate over Japan’s geopolitical posture as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government prepares legislation which would provide more freedom to use military force.
Mr Abe’s government plans to introduce legislation allowing Japan to engage in ‘collective self-defence’, as a first step. This includes supporting allies such as the United States in regional conflicts threatening Japan’s security, and to come to the rescue of Japanese citizens abroad.
Mr Abe has been pursuing his agenda of restyling Japan as a more muscular actor on the geopolitical stage since taking office in December 2012.
The Japanese hostage crisis garnered enormous attention in Japan and internationally.
The debate divided opinion in Japan. Paying a ransom demanded by IS for the men’s release was out of the question and some argued that the two hostages went to the danger zone of their own freewill. This view has gained ground in the public debate.
IS released a video on January 31, 2015, which showed the beheading of the first of two Japanese hostages, two weeks after demanding a ransom for their release.
Mr Abe’s finely tuned political instincts kept him from taking a clear position and he repeatedly said Japan would not pay a ransom to terrorists in accordance with US and UK policy.
A few critics pointed to Mr Abe’s trip to the Middle East in January 2015 where he offered US$200 million in non-military aid to countries affected by the Islamic State.
The argument was that Mr Abe had provoked revenge from Islamic radicals and a ransom demand from IS for the two Japanese hostages was in direct response.
Mr Abe used the hostage crisis to explain the need for laws allowing a wider range of military options.
This cautious step-by-step approach reflects the resistance of the majority of the population towards using military force to settle international disputes involving the state, which Article 9 of the Japanese constitution denounces.
Mr Abe knows that a rapid re-militarisation of Japan is highly unpopular, and that the wide majority of the electorate is comfortable with the current security model based on the strategic alliance with the US.
However, the sudden evidence of Japan’s complete helplessness on all relevant fronts - politically, diplomatically, militarily - triggered a sense of urgency among the Tokyo elite.
This set the hostage crisis apart from the slow and steady rise of China’s military stature in the Pacific region and occasional confrontations with Russia and the Koreas - regional issues which Japan has to deal with.
The hostage crisis, in contrast, reminded Tokyo of Japan’s strategic Achilles’ heel - its dependence on oil and gas imports.
Japan’s interests in the Middle East are concentrated on the supply of fossil fuels. Japan has assumed that the Strait of Hormuz, the most vulnerable bottleneck for its Middle East oil and gas supply, would always be protected by the US due to American self-interest giving Japan’s tanker fleet a free ride.
However, Tokyo recently faced the unexpected challenge that the abundance of shale oil and gas reserves in the US could result in fewer American forces in the Middle East.
The Japan hostage crisis has exacerbated the need for a long-term strategy to secure energy imports independent from US naval power.
Politically, the key issue Mr Abe has to confront is lack of public support.
Legally, Mr Abe took the first steps to revise the constitution by way of a ‘reinterpretation’ of Article 9 in July 2014. The government’s decision is currently under debate in the Diet, the Japanese parliament.
Should it confirm the reinterpretation, Japan’s military would be allowed to conduct rescue missions abroad under certain conditions, especially consent from a territorial state’s government. The Self-Defence Force (SDF) would exercise ‘police authority’ in this case, not a full-scale military operation which would violate Article 9.
Strategically, Japan has world-class naval capabilities, especially a fleet of brand new helicopter carriers, Aegis guided missile-equipped destroyers and Soryu-class conventional submarines. However, it lacks experience in conducting counterterrorism operations overseas, and has no intelligence-gathering network in areas like the Middle East.
Considering the political, legal and strategic constraints, a rapid, broad-scale re-militarisation of Japan is highly unlikely. Mr Abe may tiptoe towards a soft re-militarisation which, in the first step, includes only hostage rescue capabilities.
The ruling coalition will continue to enhance Japan’s naval and aerial capabilities, but the defence budget will remain moderate compared with the US.
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Publication Date:
Mon, 2015-03-09 06:45
