Strategic Forum
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SF213_201-887.qxd 11/30/04 9:26 AM Page 1 No. 213 Strategic Forum November 2004 Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University http://www.ndu.edu/inss Japan’s Constitution and Defense Policy: Entering a New Era? by Rust Deming Japan’s postwar defense policy was set by (1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace Key Points the 1947 constitution. Early in the occupation, based on justice and order, the Japanese people hanges in the security environment and General Douglas MacArthur and his staff con- forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the th the rise of a new generation have cluded that the 19 -century Meiji constitution nation and the threat or use of force as a means of Cended Japan’s taboo on discussion of needed to be revised or entirely replaced if settling international disputes. amending the 1947 “peace constitution.” Japan were to become a true democracy, with (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the pre- While many wish to maintain the current the Emperor removed from any political role. ceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as document, the center of gravity in the debate In January 1946, convinced that the elitist and well as other war potential, will never be main- has shifted. authoritarian Japanese establishment was tained. The right of belligerency of the state will The movement to amend the constitu- incapable of producing a democratic constitu- not be recognized. tion is connected to and stimulated by a tion, MacArthur ordered his staff to produce a draft. One week later, an entirely rewritten Ashida later testified that the new phrase parallel debate on defense policy. The at the beginning of the second paragraph Japanese government’s third National De- constitution emerged and was presented to the Japanese. Included in the draft was Article IX: preserved Japan’s inherent right of self-defense fense Program Outline is due in late 2004, and “clearly recognizes that (the article) does and its recommendations will affect the War as a sovereign right of the nation is abol- not constitute the unconditional renunciation ongoing constitutional debate. ished. The threat or use of force is forever re- of military force.”2 This interpretation was far Few Japanese leaders suggest that the nounced as a means of settling disputes with any from universally accepted in Japan, and a nation should become an independent strate- other nation. No Army, Navy, Air Force, or other Talmudic debate developed over the meaning gic actor, and the vast majority of the public war potential will ever be authorized and no of Article IX that continues to this day. supports a nonthreatening posture dedicated right of belligerency will ever be conferred upon to cooperation. Thus, the philosophy behind the state.1 Interpreting Article IX Article IX—that Japan forswears the threat or War and defeat had produced strong When Japan regained sovereignty in 1952, use of force to settle international disputes— pacifist sentiment in Japan, and there had been several attempts were made to amend the is not seriously at issue. Rather, the focus is previous discussion between MacArthur and constitution, including Article IX, but the on the need to legitimize the existing Self- senior Japanese leaders about the possibility of a debate became frozen by the Cold War polar- Defense Forces fully and their right to self- “no war” clause in the constitution, along the ization of Japanese politics. defense; the issue of collective self-defense; lines of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Nevertheless, The Political Setting. The Liberal Democ- and the future direction of defense policy. some Japanese were shocked by the American ratic Party (LDP), representing conservative However this debate plays out, the al- version, which went beyond their intentions. business, agricultural, and bureaucratic inter- liance with the United States almost certainly During the course of Diet deliberations over ests, controlled the Diet and dominated the will retain a central place in Japan’s defense the draft, Hitoshi Ashida, chairman of the Lower policy process. The LDP argued that the best policy. At the same time, the emerging policy House Committee on the Constitution, proposed course for Japan was to focus on economic will likely emphasize expanding Japan’s the addition of two clauses. The clauses, ac- recovery and to align itself strategically with capacity for a more autonomous defense as cepted by both MacArthur and the Diet, have the United States. This meant relying on Amer- well as its wherewithal to participate fully in provided the basis for the argument that the ican extended deterrence (the nuclear um- internationally sanctioned operations. article does not impinge upon Japan’s inherent brella) implicit in the U.S.-Japan Security right of self-defense. Article IX as it now exists Treaty, supporting the basing of American (with Ashida’s changes in italics) reads: No. 213, November 2004 Strategic Forum 1 SF213_201-887.qxd 11/30/04 9:26 AM Page 2 Positions of Political Parties on Article IX acknowledges that Japan’s self-declared three (based on position papers for the July 2004 upper house election) nonnuclear principles and its adherence to the Non-Proliferation Treaty forbid Japan from Liberal Democratic Party Democratic Party of Japan Komeito Social Democrats developing such weapons. Authorize military Stipulate a limited right Uphold Article IX, with Maintain Japan’s OVERSEAS SDF DISPATCH. When the Self- capability for self- to self-defense based possible additional independence by up- Defense Forces were established in 1954, the defense purposes on Japan’s strictly defense- clarifying language holding Article IX; law did not provide for units to be sent abroad, oriented policy oppose any amend- although the government maintained that the ment to the constitution constitution permitted overseas dispatch for Define the right of Specify Japan’s right to missions that did not involve the use of force. collective self-defense* join collective security In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the Diet operations based on a passed specific legislation in 1992 to allow SDF United Nations Resolution units to participate in peacekeeping operations *In a June 27, 2004, television debate, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was more explicit. He said he would like to amend the constitution “so that Japan will in Cambodia, basing its decision on language be able to take joint action with the U.S. in the event of an armed attack against Japan.” in the preamble of the constitution calling for Japan to achieve “an honored place in an international society” and by the obligations forces in Japan, and responding cautiously to Masashi suggested the oxymoronic formula Japan undertook in joining the United Nations. U.S. requests that Japan build up its own self- that while the forces were unconstitutional, In response to September 11, the Diet author- defense capabilities. they were legal since the law establishing the ized, by specific legislation, the dispatch of The Japan Socialist Party (JSP), represent- SDF went through the legislative process. units to Afghanistan and, later, to Iraq for ing labor and the intellectual left, countered But the LDP and its supporters argued noncombat support operations. The Japanese that alliance with the United States and the that while the constitution prohibited “wars of government plans to submit to the Diet in 2005 existence of American bases in Japan were aggression,” the concept of defensive wars was generic legislation to allow the SDF to partici- lightning rods that would only drag Japan constitutional. To assuage pacifist sentiment in pate in similar missions. further into the Cold War and endanger Japan- Japan, however, the LDP adopted the position RIGHT OF COLLECTIVE SELF-DEFENSE. The ese security. The JSP advocated unarmed neu- in 1954 that maintaining “war potential,” even Cabinet Legislative Bureau, which has the trality centered on the United Nations (UN)— for the purposes of self-defense, was not per- responsibility for interpreting the constitution, a stance that appealed to the strong pacifist missible. Thus, it concluded that the Self- maintains that Japan possesses the sovereign sentiment in postwar Japan. Defense Forces are constitutional, but their right to engage in collective self-defense (the The JSP leadership recognized that its armaments must be restricted to “the mini- right to respond to an attack against an ally or party had little chance of winning a majority of mum requirement for self-defense.” against a partner in a UN operation) but that lower house seats and forming a government. The debate between the left and the right under Article IX the exercise of this right ex- Thus the only way it could have any influence has focused on the definition of war potential ceeds “the minimum needs of self-defense” on defense policy was to be the guardian of the and the minimum needs for self-defense. and is therefore unconstitutional. The use of peace constitution by blocking attempts to alter Specific issues have included: the right of self-defense is only permissible if it it and by challenging the constitutionality of WEAPON SYSTEMS. There has been broad involves defending Japan itself. This principle the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) themselves and agreement that Japan cannot possess offensive has proved one of the most inflexible of all the specific defense programs as they developed. capability, but the definition of such capability limitations on Japan’s defense activities, prima- Pacifism versus Pragmatism. The fun- has steadily evolved. For example, F–4 fighters rily because the left in Japan has seen this damental position of the JSP and the intellec- acquired in the 1960s were not equipped with constraint as essential to preventing Japan from tual left has been that Article IX prohibits even air-refueling capability, which was seen as being pressured by the United States into de- defensive wars and the maintenance of defen- potentially “offensive.” When the next-genera- fending American interests.