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The 34th IFPA-Fletcher Conference on
National Security Strategy and Policy:
Security Planning and Military Transformation

December 2-3, 2003
U.S. Chamber of
Commerce Building
Lafayette Square, 1615 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C.

Transformation and the Japan-US Alliance

Address by Mr. Nobukatsu Kanehara, Counselor for Political Affairs, Embassy of Japan, Washington, D.C.

Introduction by Dr. Charles M. Perry, Vice President and Director of Studies, IFPA

3 December 2003

Mr. Kanehara: Thank you very much. This is a great honor to be here with these distinguished panelists. I wish to share the Japanese perspective, and my personal perspective on what we should do together in the field of transformation to enhance the Japan-US Alliance.

Let me, first of all, explain where we stand before we talk about where we are going. The Japan-US alliance had a very clear focus during the Cold War era. Soviet Military Forces deployed in the Far East were of great concern to Japan. I am not talking about their intent, but capabilities. The Soviet Union had numerous strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, and they maintained 400,000 military forces in the region. It is astonishing that Russian civil population counted only around 8,000,000 in Far East and it is still decreasing by several percent per year. The Soviet Far East was virtually a huge frozen space or vacuum massively filled with the Soviet military forces for half a century.

When the Occupation of Japan and Korean War ended in early 1950s, US forces withdrew from the region. The forward-deployed American forces were basically Army and Air Forces in the Korean Peninsula, and Navy and Air Forces in Japan and the Philippines. The stark contrast with the situation in Europe was that the relatively small size of the US Army forward deployed. The reason might have been that the major US allies in the region including Japan are islanders who have no long land-borders with the Russians, Chinese or North Koreans (except Republic of Korea). There were 400,000 US soldiers in Europe, while only 100,000 in Asia during the Cold War.

At this dawn of the Cold War, Japan needed to rebuild its defense because the Imperial Military Forces were completely destroyed, sunk or disbanded. Consequently, the Self Defense Forces (SDF) were created. During the Cold War era, the Ground Force' s mission was to stop the aggression that could be massive and overwhelming, until the US Army could be transported across the Pacific Ocean to reinforce the SDF. The Air Force would also have to intercept massive enemy fighter and bomber air attacks upon the Japanese Archipelago. And the Maritime Forces responsibility was to protect at any cost the Sea Lanes of Communications not only for energy and food supply but also for the swift and safe movements of the US Forces reinforcing Japan.

Because of these strategic requirements, the Japanese Forces had a very distinctive feature: an exclusive-homeland-oriented-defense-posture. The Ground Force is three times larger in size than the Maritime or Air Force, with heavy concentration of the modern tanks in Hokkaido. The Maritime Force has strong anti-submarine warfare capabilities, for example operating 100 P3Cs, the largest fleet in the world, And the Air Force has 300 fighters, including 200 F-15 fighter/interceptors, again the world’s largest F-15 squadron after the United States. However, the Air Force did not possess refueling-tankers and had only limited transportation capabilities.

To use a metaphor, the Self Defense Force as a whole is like a robot turtle, well-armored, iron teethed, good at swimming and catching enemy fish, but very short-legged, very difficult to go far from the nest. It was quite effective to defend its homeland, unless a big bear crushes it.

All the offensive or aggressive operations against the invaders were and still are left in the hands of US Forces. The Japanese called this division of labor "American Spear and Japanese Shield." As for nuclear weapons, Japan relies on the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States. This was publicly announced by President Ford to Prime Minister Miki in the 1970s, shortly after Japan joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Where are we going from here? I have three points to make. The first is the continuing importance of the Japan-US alliance for the stability of the region. After the end of the Cold War, the contrast between Europe and Far East remains stark. Europeans are integrating themselves into a union or community, preparing to enjoy a new century without war. It is true that the threats posed by the Soviet Army are gone on both sides of Eurasian continent, but the situation in North East Asia is far from that which exists in Europe.

We cannot afford to indulge ourselves in a peaceful dream. Look at Japan’s neighborhood. Almost all the nuclear powers with the largest military forces are neighbors of Japan. The United States, Russia, China, and possibly North Korea are nuclear powers. China, the United States, Russia, North Korea have more than a million-strong military force each, followed immediately by Republic of Korean which has 670,000 military forces. Japan has only 260,000 non-nuclear Self Defense Forces. And political map of North East Asia is very different from Europe too. The United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea are the only industrialized democracies. China and Russia are still struggling with reforms. While economic integration and interdependence are growing, nationalism, which is no longer a driving force of international politics in Europe, is rampant in this region. The sense of rivalry among the nations in North East Asia is still very much alive.

To guarantee the stability, the US commitment as evidenced in the Japan-US alliance together with Korea-US alliance, is vital. Continental Powers would rise and fall one by one in accordance with their own national fate. In fact, China, Russia and India would continue to shape the power balance on the continent in the future. But as long as the Japan-US alliance is solid, unified and cemented by common values such as freedom and democracy, the vicissitudes of the continental powers cannot affect the strategic stability of the region.

More and more, the Atlantic Alliance will become a political alliance, but the American Pacific Alliances will remain, at least in the near future, traditional ones. The focus of US military planners should be moving Eastward. The Far East should remain the only theater for constant attention and review for military planners in this century except for the global war on terrorism. And by maintaining strategic stability, Japan and the Unites States can together cope with difficult regional security issues and flash points effectively, such as the issue of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

The second point to make is the importance of cooperation on missile defense. The Alliance has to prepare for new threats. The greatest one perceived in the region is the proliferation of ballistic missiles. Russia and the United States agreed to cut drastically their nuclear arsenals in the Moscow Treaty. The Proliferation Security Initiative is going on under American leadership. But there are governments which still erroneously think that possession of nuclear weapons is a matter of both national pride and the ultimate guarantee of security. There also are governments which continue to possess biological and chemical weapons as well as those which are developing ballistic missiles to deliver these WMDs or are irresponsibly selling them to third countries simply to make money.

To cope with these trends, missile defense is the answer. To develop robust anti-ballistic missile capabilities, the United States and its allies must cooperate to maximize system effectiveness in order to defend their homelands and military forces. However, how to make a meaningful hardware and software configuration as well as to combine or provide connectivity between the missile defense systems of the United States and its allies is a challenging question in terms of interoperability, operational cooperation, and intelligence sharing.

The third point to be noted is a more proactive role of Japan's Self Defense Forces. After Japan was relieved of the heavy defense burden of the Cold War, Japan became more and more conscious of its responsibility and came to take advantage of their modest-sized but enormously modernized and capable military forces. Japan is departing from its pacifism and traditional passiveness to play and cherish a more proactive role in international affairs.
In 1993, my Government passed a law to allow the Self Defense Forces to participate in the peace keeping operations of the United Nations. Since then, Japanese Forces were sent to Mozambique, Rwanda (Kenya), Cambodia and they are still in the Golan Heights and in Eastern Timor. In 1997, Japan agreed to help US Forces fighting in the region surrounding Japan logistically. This should contribute enormously to the stability of the region. In 1998, my Government passed a new law to that effect.

In 2001, 9/11 occurred. I was watching TV in Tokyo when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Japan lost twenty-four of its best and brightest people. Today, we confront new enemies, faceless, ruthless and merciless adversaries who attack civilians indiscriminately from the shadow. Prime Minister Koizumi decided to participate in the fight against terrorism together with the Coalition of the Willing. He sponsored a new law in the Diet to that effect. Under the new law, for the first time since the Pacific War, Japan sent five warships to the Indian Ocean to participate in the Operation Enduring Freedom and offered C130S and other planes. In 2003, President Bush went to Iraqi war. Prime Minister Koizumi again sponsored a law to send Self Defense Forces to contribute to reconstruction of Iraq.

This new proactive approach of the Government of Japan and the new missions of the Self Defense Forces necessitates the transformation of Japan's military forces. They remain basically in a defensive posture and will not require massive power projection capabilities. But they can no longer remain a mechanized turtle in Far East. They will be smarter, swifter, expeditionary and more capable.

Let me conclude. The continuing importance of Japan-US Alliance, new threats of proliferation encompassing WMDs and missiles, the terrorist threat, and the new proactive approach of Japan's international role require and will result in the transformation of Japanese Forces. They will acquire capabilities to perform more international missions.

My personal recommendation of "Seven Points" for transformation are as follows:

(a) A small fleet of long range transportation aircraft for multiple missions, such as international humanitarian operations.
(b) Multiple mission maritime aircraft to cope with piracy, smuggling, illegal infiltration of agents, maritime search and rescue for one of the biggest maritime zones of Japan.
(c) Comprehensive offshore logistic support capability to enable operations far from the homeland, such as hospital ships, refueling tankers, and oilers.
(d) Special Units to deal with terrorist attacks as well as risk taking and complicated operations, for which Japan needs educational and training support from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other nations.
(e) Enhanced intelligent capabilities, such as information gathering satellites, as well as greater intelligence sharing with the United States.
(f) Cooperation with the United States in the development of a robust missile defense system.
(g) Organizational transformation including enhanced "jointness" in operation. Future operations are not based upon a limited scenario of homeland invasion and regional crisis. To deploy swiftly to other parts of the globe and accomplish various missions, the joint operations of Japan’s three services are absolutely necessary.

Thank you for your patience.

Questions and Answers

Dr. Perry: We have some time for questions now, and I’m sure we’ve got some questions out there to these presentations, all very interesting and compelling. Right here, first question?

Audience: Peter Sharpen, Mider [?] Corporation. General Wagner, one of your slides indicated that, in the retrospective on Operation Iraqi Freedom, one of the areas where we need to do better is coalition information sharing. Could you discuss a little bit the directions in which you think we might move to do that better?

General Wagner: Well, certainly, it is a frustration, not only to the United States forces, but also to our allies and partners who we attempt to operate with. In the past eleven months, I’ve had the opportunity to host twenty-two MoDs—Ministers of Defense, or Chiefs of Defense—from other nations, and, endurably, we get to that topic. In fact, in talking to Australia, their comment was, “We want to be by your side when the war fights start, but we can’t be there unless we’re part of a planning upfront—enabled to see the planning, see the information, and share in the development of it.” That is just one country, who would say the same thing. And in fact, many of our operating forces have had to figure out ways on their own, where they can figure out how to share the information because our systems don’t allow us to do that.

Really, we do think that there are technologies solutions to this. A large part of our information—Of course, we do a lot of our work and a lot of our planning on secure nets—a secure net which has more information on it than you want to share. And so, the question is how do you allow partial access. And there are technologies now that will enable us to do this. Plus, as you know, perhaps, that DEP STEP DEF(?) is just recently authorized, and written provided guidance set(?) enables us to do more information sharing. So, it’s a question of policy, and it’s a question of technology.

This certainly isn’t a question of a lack of desire on the part of either(?) the United States forces or our allies, who we’re working with to share the information. But it is a question of setting the rules, and the business rules, that allow us to share that information. And I think we are making progress, and I think we have reason to be optimistic. This is an issue that is—the importance of which we share it(?) at all levels. And we do have some technologies that we’re working on, that allow us to have somebody have access to the computer and limit the access to where they can go within the information that’s available. So, I think there’s reason to be optimistic, and I think that the DEP STEP DEF(?) has made a first, good step along that line, and I think we’ve got some technologies solutions.

Dr. Perry: There are two questions, back there on that table.

Audience: Wendy Jaffe, General Accounting Office. With the U.S. Army investing in future combat system and network-centric operations, provide through network-centric operations, how is this going to affect U.K. forces and Australian forces, in terms of inoperability?

Dr. Perry: ...[inaudible]) who the question is directed to?

Would you care to address it from your standpoint?

Mr. Brenton: The issue goes slightly wider than network-centric operations. The U.S. is spending—It’s a fascinating fact about U.S. military spending. The U.S. are now spending more on Defence R&D than any other country spending on its entire defense budget. And this is obviously a challenge for those countries that expect to be working closely with the United States in future campaigns, to ensure that we can. And the trick has to be, as these systems evolve, to be involved ourselves, to evolve parallel systems or to have a share in the systems, and to ensure that our doctrines and practices, and equipment, develop in parallel with those in the United States. I quoted the example of joint strike fighter —it’s exactly an application, that sort of approach.

Dr. Perry: Anyone else like to add to that, or—?

We had another question at that same table—one more?

Audience: Ray Stuchohl, a student at Catholic University. In the last three year, there have been several occasions when the U.S. worked hard to involve ally partners throughout the world in operations or goals. One that I can think of is missile defense, then, of course, operations Enduring Freedom and Iraq. General Wagner just mentioned information operations as a possible lesson learned. Can you tell us some other lessons learned for the future, that we might want to look into?

General Wagner: Other areas to look into— and I’m sorry, into which area? Can you—

Dr. Perry: Other lessons learned from the combined operations of the—

General Wagner: Would combine?

Mr. Stuchohl: ...[inaudible] Sorry. More in getting the allies on board to support us, particularly some of the errors that might have been made with First Missile Defense, and then with convincing other countries to work with us on Iraq.

General Wagner: I think that the first thing I would say, for OIF, would be the phenomenal amount of cooperation and support that was provided by other nations in many different ways. There was information sharing; there was logistical support. There was basing. There were nations who were riding the one aircraft that they had or the one courier(?) that they had. There was a tremendous amount of support that did come from other nations, so the first thing to do would be to acknowledge the tremendous amount of cooperation and support that we did get from many other nations, not least of which was seen at CenCom in the planning and the support there.

I think there’s also a lot of operational sharing of how to do things, how to operate in an urban area. There are other forces that have been operating with terrorist forces for a long time. Their forces have been operating in the build-up areas against an organized crime. So, there’s all sorts of information that’s been shared, and tactics and procedures that have allowed us to operate more effectively and to, in fact, save the lives of the soldiers of all countries, as they are operating on the battlefields. So, I think that there are many, many successes, far more so than become a current from what we would normally read in the newspapers. A very strong partnership has been mentioned by General Kelly, not just in CentCom, but on the battlefield, and the support from the nations that we have operated from.

Now, specific other aspects besides the information sharing —Clearly, we were able to engage targets with our aircraft. With the information that we share, we can use precision munitions together. There are many aspects of the battle fight that have been fought, and are very much of a coalition aspect, with absolute sharing of the same training techniques.

And one of the aspects that we’re trying to do is through our joint national training capability, that soleverage(?) the same experience that we found in Iraq, in our training. If you were to take the map of the world and you put on it, Iraq, where do forces come from to fight? They never got together at a given stage, and based and planned. They came from all around the world, and they came to fight on the battlefield. That’s where they first joined for the operational forces. They launched from bases all around the world, and they came to fight. That’s the way we fight. We don’t get together—all gather together at Fort Benning and have a big conference to decide how we’re going to fight. We come from all the bases around the world, whether the naval, ground, or air assets(?), and we join on the battlefield to fight. And that’s what we’re trying to replicate with a global-national training capability, where we replicate that on our training fields, around the world.

So, we feel that we’ve learned a lot and are willing(?) to work together. We have done extraordinarily good job of doing that, but we want to build—
Audience:—and how—what, perhaps—is going on between your forces and U.S. forces or other coalition forces, or might go on, that would improve the chances for coalition combined operations?

Brigadier Kelly: We shouldn’t underestimate the benefits of the ongoing exchange programs that many of us share, in a bilateral sense and also multilateral sense, and the joint combined exercises that our forces participate in, at a variety of time.

If I look back at our experience before going into East Timor in September of 1999, we had done a series of activities with U.S. forces from the Pacific—by naval, marine, and air force—as well as from USARPAC in Hawaii. And in a series of command post exercises and other planning activities that were totally unrelated to the events of September 1999, we actually then had similar personalities come and join our team in that combined force headquarters for the Internet operations. So, the fact that we understood, knew these people, we shared common procedures—these are things that allow you to meet in the dark night before going into an operation and actually work through things in a very balanced way.

But that means that we need that time to continue that sort of remediation training, when we are fully committed to ongoing operations, which global war on terrorism actually presents at the moment. So if we’re dealing with nations that have small defense forces, they need time to remediate themselves; they can’t sustain a level of operation. So, we have to be able to pace ourselves, as I said, and, indeed, Admiral Olson mentioned it yesterday. We’re involved in a marathon, not a sprint. So, our planning has to actually be able to articulate to our coalition partners potentially how long this effort is required, and they may be able to identify certain events in the timeline where they can contribute another niche capability which will actually relieve the pressure from another senior partner.

So, all of that is within the same sphere of the planning required, but also, the relationships that develop during those combined exercises that we’re fortunate to participate in, as well as the exchange programs and the exchange of officers at our respective command and staff colleges.

Dr. Perry: Anyone else? Question, here, in the front.

Audience: Jason Sherman, from Defense News. My question is directed to Kanahara-san. Near the end of your talk, you outlined a seven point initiative that you said reflected your personal views for a set of modernization and policy initiatives that the Japanese self-defense forces might do well to adopt. I’m wondering if you might be able to offer us any insights into the ongoing National Defense Program Outline, the NDPO, that the Japan Defense Agency is undertaking, that is expected to inform new thinking and new decisions in terms of how the Japan military is organized and any new modernization initiatives they may undertake.

Mr. Kinehara: To be clear for everybody here, the Defense Program, ours, is based upon five years programs ...[inaudible] continuous. We are now in the fourth year of that chairman and we have to make a new one next 2005. For several mid five years program, we set big policy guideline that is defense outline, and that will be changed for we are facing new threats and new missions. And debate is going on, in December, I think a decision could be made, but I don’t know, really. This is really hot issue, and my government is working on this very hard. I’m not allowed to discuss anything here; I’m sorry. [laughter]

Audience: ...[inaudible] to discuss enhanced cooperation with the U.S. missile defense capability and a small ...[inaudible] strategic air ...[inaudible]. Are any of those things being discussed and debated? Can you tell us some of the things that are being debated?

Mr. Kinehara: I can give you some basic line of thinking. As I said, our forces are based upon the exclusively homeland defense posture, and this defense posture will not change, because we are still in alliance with the United States. U.S. is a spear, and Japan is a shield. That is our basic concept of our defense.

But, because of that, we have no long legs(?), cargo planes for example. When we started our peacekeeping operation in 1993, we sent our air forces to Rwanda, in Kenya, to have strategic transportation there. But we had only C-130s—still have C-130s only—and our Chief of Air Staff went to Rwanda, made six stopovers. And we think it’s too obsolete; we have to have new cargo planes to have new missions. That does not mean that we’re going to have huge, power-position capabilities like U.S. It’s not our intention. But we have more international missions that were not conceived in 1960s, 1970s, and to cope with these new missions, we have to have suitable instruments to deliver these missions.

Our threats too—the ballistic missiles were luxurious weapons for ships of powers. But, these days, they’re proliferating and the concept of deterrence has changing. It’s no longer the way to defend itself by pointing guns and—but through(?) here. But we see now many people having guns; why not putting bulletproof here? So the concept is changing. We have to prepare new threats and new defense concepts. But, what would be the final decision of the governments is top secret; sorry, can’t tell you.

Dr. Perry: We’ll be waiting for December.

Question, here ...[inaudible]

Audience: Ed Bruner, from the Congressional Research Service—direct a question to General Kelly. I was very much unaware of your coalition planning group, but I applaud the apparent promise that this approach would hold, and wonder if you might share with us a coalition perspective that the group perhaps developed and presented to the commander?

Brigadier Kelly: Just a ...[inaudible]

Mr. Bruner: A coalition—You said, one of your missions was to incorporate the coalition perspective under the overall planning. I’m just curious if you could offer us a type of coalition perspective that might have come out of that process.

Brigadier Kelly: One of the products that we produced on behalf of command of Central Command is a quarterly area of responsibility-wide estimate, which is a bit of a rugged check. It was formerly done by an element within the J-3 Operations Directorate of the headquarters. It’s now solely done by the Combined Planning Group. So, it’s a refreshing perspective for the commander. It looks at his full area of responsibility, not just specific sub-theaters that are active at present, and it provides him with a view drawn from a variety of sources—but quite often, open sources—and gives him just a view as to where we are. It may inform or influence other planning efforts, but it’s presented to his senior staff and himself; it’s an internal document. And he’s certainly been challenged by the view, which is now done by a twenty plus team of coalition officers versus a uniquely U.S.-only product, as it had been done prior to December, last year.

So, that’s one example. The other is within some of the courses of action being developed within the review of the campaign plan. Again, we are drawing on a wide variety of experience, a wide variety of national, cultural, religious, and regional perspectives, and so, different militaries have different ways of dealing with the problem. And so, some of the solutions will be different from a U.S.-only planner’s perspective to the way to conduct the operation. And that’s what this group is being acknowledged as providing other ways of doing business.

Dr. Perry: Question, here.

Audience: Colonel Jim Holzerith. I’m the Canadian Military Attaché here in the Canadian Embassy. My question actually goes back to Admiral Cebrowski’s notions this morning, that he introduced on interdependence versus interoperability. And, I think he introduced to them the joint context, but I would extend it to the multination(?) and coalition arena as well. And I guess, it really does tie back into the notion of design—joint—or design with interoperability in mind, in the first set. My question really is, is to what degree are we able to do that? Perhaps beyond concept development and experimentation, collaborative planning upfront, to truly get to an interdependent or at least a stage of coalitions where you can burden-share and plan on specific capabilities or leverage specific capabilities within a coalition.

Dr. Perry: General Wagner, do you want to—

General Wagner: ...[inaudible] from the standpoint of ally command transformation, NATO, and the operations that are going on there, and say that—I think that that is exactly what you will see happen. That is exactly what should happen. We’ve heard Japan talk about the fact that they don’t have the long legs, but they need the long legs. They have the willingness to participate, but they don’t necessarily need to buy everything they need to do that. We need to share, in doing that. And so, that is an interdependence, just as within our own military. The Army does not need to buy their own transports. We are dependent upon the Air Force for the transport.

That same sort of a concept is what you will see come out of the work that’s being done with ally command transformation and NATO, as they look to the capabilities that they need to collectively and figure out who’s going to buy which piece of the part that is required for the whole. And so, I think you’re 100% right in your direction as to where things will go—is that they will go to a direction of interdependence, not just interoperable. And they should be; it’s an efficiency, and it’s an effectiveness. It’s a partnership and it’s a trust. And I think that we are there to the point where we can do that, and will do that.

Dr. Perry: Tom, perhaps time for one more question? Another one, anyone?

Okay, I think that will do it for this afternoon, and I want to thank all the panelists for wonderful contributions. And, I would ask that—
[Applause]