Sign of the Times
Does Japan face same defense challenges as Britain, France during rise of Nazis?
I once visited the Yamamoto Isoroku Memorial Museum in Nagaoka, Niigata Prefecture. A poem for which Yamamoto, an avid calligrapher, had a special appreciation originated in a Chinese classic on military strategy: "A nation, no matter how great, will perish if it is fond of war/A nation, no matter how peaceful, is in danger if it forgets war."
Having spent time in the U.S., Yamamoto was keenly aware that Japan had no chance of winning a war against the U.S. From the course Japan had taken through the Sino-Japanese War, the Tripartite Pact, and expansion in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, he knew that 1930s Japan was headed straight for the downfall described in the poem's first line.
While the latter line is necessary to compose a couplet, it did not apply to Japan's circumstances at the time and Yamamoto sometimes omitted it when repeating the poem. The latter line is more pressing, however, to us living in the post-war era. Taking peace for granted, will we, too, lose sight of the horrors of war and find ourselves in danger?
History tells us that we cannot afford to be naive. The ravages of World War I led to a rise of pacifism in its wake. Still, in Europe in the 1930s, Hitler took over government and spurred a military resurgence. The British and French public, shirking from war and longing for peace, refused to see Nazi Germany's aggressive preparations for a military breakthrough for what they were.
One man, however, urged the people to take the Nazi threat seriously. The man, Colonel Charles de Gaulle, pushed for the development of a mechanized military and warned that without one, the nation was in grave danger. The French public, however, not only failed to support his argument, it denounced de Gaulle for being a warmonger trying to upset a peaceful order. It took the country's stunning fall at the hands of Nazi Germany to convince the French that de Gaulle had been right all along.
In Britain, the same thing happened with Winston Churchill. While Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was showered with praise for protecting "peace for our time" by signing a non-aggression pact with Hitler in Munich, Churchill, then a member of the House of Commons, was blasted for his remark: "The belief that security can be obtained by throwing a small state to the wolves is a fatal delusion." It wasn't long before history proved that Churchill, isolated for throwing cold water on the public's strong longing for peace, had been correct.
Today, while there is increasing discussion advocating Japan's development of deterrence capabilities that exceed defense purposes in light of threats from nearby North Korea, there remains a great deal of hesitation over any expansion of Japan's military capacity.
The belief that not possessing weapons that could enable Japan to go to war with foreign countries is the key to peace has dominated the post-war era. But such a line of reasoning is accurate only in a specific case, namely, that in which the Japanese military is the root cause of a regional and global menace. Today, with a neighboring country in possession of nuclear arms and missiles at the source of such danger, the argument against Japanese rearmament merely misses the point.
Is Japan facing the same challenges, then, as Britain and France during the rise of Nazi Germany? It probably isn't. What's crucial is that the nature of our current threat be assessed, and that a wide range of countermeasures be considered.
In the next five or 10 years, the risk of a North Korean outburst is likely to grow. North Korea likely acknowledges the success of its brinkmanship, in which it has threatened its neighbors only to be rewarded. The decision to end this game, relinquishing nuclear weapons in return for security provided by the U.S., is one that is left up to a dictator. However, increasing impairment in judgment due to illness and old age and the struggle to establish a successor make such a major decision requiring self-restraint and perspective even more difficult. Plus, it's not easy to give up the hard-line stance that has proven so successful in the past. We're facing a state of affairs where the dangers of this unmanaged game of "chicken" keep growing.
The current situation poses a specific threat to Japan on two levels. The first is that of abductions, spy ships, and subversive acts committed by intelligence agents. It appears that strict measures enforced by the Japanese government in recent years have suppressed the possible recurrence of abductions and the entry of unidentified ships in nearby waters. Japan is able to deal with such factors through their own efforts, such as enhanced information systems and deployment of high-speed missile boats.
Nuclear weapons and missiles comprise the second level of threats to Japan. It is astounding that the missile-defense system Japan decided to adopt six years ago has already attained some level of success. Efforts must still be made to improve the quality of our current system, but regardless, it would be impossible to shoot down all of the more than 200 Nodong missiles said to exist.
It is important that we keep North Korea from shooting the missiles in the first place, and to this end, Japan must engage in diplomacy and international cooperation; develop its own deterrence capacity; and utilize U.S. enlarged deterrence under the Japan-U.S. alliance. Since Japan will not be strengthening its military deterrence capacity for the time being, the alliance between Japan and the U.S. is of critical importance. This alliance is an asset to Japan -- one that both Britain and France lacked during the aforementioned war.
The North Korean threat is a limited one compared to that of Nazi Germany, and can be overcome through the appropriate combination of Japan's self-reliant efforts and international cooperation. The possibility of an outburst exists, however, and what is being sought now is an objective assessment and serious handling of the situation. (By Makoto Iokibe, president of the National Defense Academy of Japan)
(Mainichi Japan) September 15, 2009