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How Far From a Superpower?
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18142 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1990 |
2,039 Words |
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James E. Auer
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In 1987 Japan's defense budget exceeded on percent of its GNP for the first time since 1967. In 1988 the amount became the third largest in the world, $40 billion, if one gives Japan credit for items not in the defense budget that can be counted under NATO burden-sharing criteria.
Hence, in 1990 Japan's defense budget exceeds the defense expenditures of Britain, France, West Germany, Israel, the People's Republic of China, or the Republic of Korea. Is a return of Japanese militarism just around the corner? Or will Japan's economy become strained by “imperial overstretch,” to use a term popularized by Paul Kennedy and other commentators on the decline of the United States?
The answer to both of these questions is a firm “no.” Japan's defense capabilities did take a quantum leap in the 1980's much to the advantage of the United Stated and other Pacific countries, but Japan is far from a military superpower, and Japan's defense spending does not jeopardize its economic well-being.
In 1981, the Reagan administration decided to stop criticizing its allies publicly and to stop badgering them privately about increases in defense spending. Instead, new policy emphasized burden-sharing roles and missions for the United States and its allies. Nowhere did this approach work better and more quickly than with Japan.
In March 1981, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger met with Japan's foreign minister and proposed a U.S.-Japan division of responsibilities. Two months later President Reagan and Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki signed a joint communiqué stating that such an arrangement was appropriate for both sides. In an address to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, Suzuki clarified Japan's national security policy: the defense of Japan's islands and its air-space and seal-lanes out to 1,000 miles.
It is important to note what that statement implies. By an accident of geography, Japan's main islands, which are only about the size of the state of Montana, stretch out over 1,000 miles. The center of Japan's long western coastline, which stretches northeast and southwest, is perpendicular to and in close proximally to Vladivostok, the center of Soviet Far Eastern air and naval activity in the Pacific.
In 1981 Japan did not have the capability to Soviet its coastline against formidable Soviet Pacific forces. But in 1983, Yasuhiro Nakasone became prime minister and committed himself to achieving the goals of the 1981 Reagan-Suzuki Communiqué as quickly as possible. In 1985 the Nakasone cabinet approved a $100 billion-plus defense program for 1986-1990, which has been fully funded, giving the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) most of the capability necessary to meet Suzuki's defense goals.
Japan's arsenal now includes a high technology anti-invasion air defense and antisubmarine defense network that threatens detection of any significant Soviet military operation from the Vladivostok area. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage in a January 1986 speech to the Honolulu World Affairs Council referred to this Japanese defense network as “the bars on the bear's cage.”
Japan's ground forces consist of 13 combat divisions
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