Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia

December 12, 2007

SPEAKER
Richard J. Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science; Director of the Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PRESIDER
George R. Packard, President, United States-Japan Foundation

Richard Samuels of MIT spoke about Japanese security policy and his new book, Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia.

"Foreign policy grand strategy in Japan has always been contested. There has always been an argument. So, when people say the Japanese are this, the Japanese do that--when the Japanese, such as one can say that as a collective noun, do anything, they do it only after--like every other country does it, after lots of argument, lots of battles," began Professor Samuels.

There was a moment of consensus during the late 19th century, captured in the slogan "Rich Nation, Strong Army," that "Japan needed to catch up with and surpass the West," he observed. As World War I ended, that consensus began to come apart--but then "re-congealed alas in a new grand strategy in the middle 20th century that led to the devastation not just of Japan, but of many of its neighbors."

After 1945, there arose a new debate; and "the national image of Japan changed and it changed very radically and it changed for obvious reasons. It didn't work under the other circumstances."

This post-World War II period "was characterized by a number of things, in particular the fear that--I call it Yamagata's ghost; I'm referring here to Yamagata Aritomo, the great military strategist of late 19th, early 20th century Japan--the idea that the military again would dominate the politics of Japan. It was a matter of great fear and great concern for many in Japan, not just pacifists, but for the liberal internationalists" and mainstream conservatives as well, Professor Samuels said.

Under Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, a new and very enduring consensus emerged, he continued. "What you got was a sort of a cheap riding realism," a consensus that Japan's Cold War policies under the American security guarantee should be connected back to the Small Japanism of Ishibashi Tanzan in the early 20th century, "to the folks who believed that Japan should not be dai nippon, great Japan; it should be a small island trading nation."

And "to sort of ensure it, really to reassure the domestic public that was anti-war and to reassure their neighbors, they tied Japan's hands behind its back," he said.

"They declared Japan would not have nuclear weapons, although they did allow as how they were not unconstitutional should Japan make the decision to do so."

"Defense budgets would be limited to 1 percent of GDP"; defense exports would be banned; "there'd be no defense ministry, and the defense agency that would be in its place would be dominated by bureaucrats."

"Japan would have what they call--this is a direct quote from the white paper--'a reliable and warm-hearted self-defense force.' It's very reassuring. And that's the point. And so the military would be cute. There would be Prince Pickles," a youngster with a sweet smile and rosy cheeks, as mascot of the military forces.

"I urge you to read Sabine Frühstück's wonderful book on the masculinity/femininity of the Japanese," he said. "She's an anthropologist and she actually did basic training with the ground self-defense forces. I don't know anyone else outside Japan who's done that."

Starting in earnest with the end of the Cold War, Japan's pacifism began to undergo a series of changes, a "strategic salami slicing" that came about for several reasons, Professor Samuels said.

Domestically, "the 'normal nation'-alists consolidated power" within the LDP; and "the left left. This is an extraordinary fact, that the left does not exist as an organized political force in Japan today," he said.

After the First Gulf War, Japan perceived itself--perhaps more as a matter of rhetoric than reality, Professor Samuels suggested--as having fumbled its response to the U.S. call for assistance; and "the LDP split; Mr. Ozawa took his people away."

"Meanwhile in the rest of the world things had changed. In particular there was and there still is no balance of power in the world. Europe is not balanced against the U.S. China is not able yet to balance against the U.S. The U.S. is doing what it wishes to do. I don't think that's a good thing for world politics, but that's where we are. And the Japanese have had to deal with it. And part of the way they have dealt with it is to hug the Americans as closely as possible. That's sort of a British response," a Tony Blair response, he remarked.

Moreover, North Korea and the rise of China create a new balance of power in East Asia, he said.

So, piece by piece, the terms of Japan's security doctrine and posture have changed, Professor Samuels recounted.

In 1996, "when it was clear that there was less to the alliance than we all would have wished--this is in the wake of the first Korean nuclear crisis--there was a redefinition of Japanese security doctrine away from simply homeland security, senshu boei, to the areas surrounding Japan."

In 1997, Japan developed an independent spy satellite system, breaching a Yoshida rule against military use of space.

"More important in a sense was in 2001, right after 9/11, an unidentified ship, declared a suspicious ship, a mystery ship, [fushin sen], was taken down by the Japan Coast Guard in the first use of force by uniformed Japanese since 1945. And the world went on and the neighborhood went on. And this was very important symbolically, much less substantively. It was a North Korean ship. I should point that out. As it turns out it was a North Korean ship. They claim it was scuttled. I have good information that suggests otherwise. It was sunk."

Japanese planes flew sorties into Afghanistan; Japanese tankers were sent to refuel U.S. and British war ships. "The ground self defense forces in Iraq have come home, but there are air self-defense forces flying a shuttle from Kuwait City into Baghdad every day and fortunately, touching wood, without casualties. But they're there and it's not a safe place."

The consensus of Yoshida is "coming apart. It has come apart."

What will replace the Yoshida doctrine? Professor Samuels asked. "Where I think it's going, I'm calling, just to sort of let you see the last slide first, the Goldilocks consensus. I think Japan will find it in its interest, Japanese actors will find it in their interest, to get a little bit more distance from the U.S. and to get a little closer to China, if that's possible."

Meanwhile, "practicing remote island defense is something that the Japanese military would not have been doing five, 10 years ago. And Japan has declared--its Coast Guard has declared itself as having new military power."

"Now, in this audience I can use the Japanese, arata na senryoku. I fell out of my chair when I read it. I read it in the Coast Guard white paper."

"Why did I fall out of my chair? Well, because senryoku is what Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution says Japan can't have. Now, they have arata na, new military power. This is in the form of a Coast Guard," which in Japan is in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, not the Ministry of Defense, just as the American Coast Guard for years was in the Treasury Department, he noted--although "the Coast Guard in the U.S. uses dot mil as its extension on its website," whereas "the Japanese Coast Guard does not identify with the Ministry of Defense."

The new consensus, the Goldilocks consensus, will cast Japan as a "normal nation," Professor Samuels stated. "It will be a Japan that can say no and sometimes will say no to the U.S. And it seems to me that's what makes Japan normal, because that's what Canada does, that's what Germany does and God knows that's what the French do."

"Goldilocks is pulling a bit away from the U.S., gaining a few more degrees of freedom, using the alliance to create options for yourself down the road should the U.S. go away. But also not continuing so openly to antagonize China and trying to find some better place with the Chinese."

Mr. Koizumi was "the last non-Goldilocks," Professor Samuels added. "He's the one who went out on a limb" to keep the U.S. close, with Japanese troops in Iraq, and China distant, with the visits to Yasukuni.

Mr. Abe--"if you read the literature, the newspapers, the last guy you would expect to sort of try to get some distance and get closer to China--the last guy did it," visiting China and Korea within a few days of taking office, announcing his acceptance of the Murayama apology of 1995 as government policy; and this announcement "is very important," said Professor Samuels, "because this was the apology that when it was being made, Mr. Abe led a group out of the Diet in opposition to it and the Diet never voted to approve it. He approves it now and he identifies his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, as partly responsible for the Pacific War. A very important statement, and one that we didn't expect he'd make."

"And then there are the Goldilocks twins," he said: Mr. Ozawa, whose opposition led to the end of Japanese participation in Afghanistan and who has just returned from a visit to Beijing, and Mr. Fukuda, who'll likewise be visiting Beijing, and who last month permitted a Chinese guided-missile cruiser to call at the port of Yokosuka in Tokyo Bay.

"This is a different kind of normality than the other one, which is the Tony Blair normality. It's a Japan that is armed. It's muscular. It's strong. Not nuclear-armed so long as the alliance is in place. But it's armed for deterrence. Who? Well, it's deterring China, of course, but you can't say that, so you say North Korea. Actually I was at a meeting recently with the former Japanese ambassador, who said, 'We would arm for deterrence of Ch--North Korea.' And I turned to him and I said, 'Gotcha.' You don't say that in polite company. But here we are."

***

Mr. Packard launched the Q&A:

Suppose there had been a tragedy involving some of the 600 troops in Samawa, Iraq--how much would that have reversed the trajectory that you're seeing towards a normal nation, if at all?

"In the event of a catastrophic loss of life, or even a loss of a couple of uniformed soldiers trying to do good things," building roads and schools--"a grenade lobbed into the camp, an explosion inside the camp in which uniformed Japanese ground self defense soldiers had died, would have set this thing back for a very long time, and it would have been maybe a generation," answered Professor Samuels.

You've talked a lot about the leadership of Yamagata, Yoshida and others. I don't know that Ozawa or Prime Minister Fukuda has that kind of strength, that kind of backbone, that kind of support to actually lead Japan to a new consensus. Tell me if I'm wrong on that.

"If we were having this conversation in 1953 about Yoshida they would have laughed at us for talking about him as a man of vision," Professor Samuels responded. Yoshida "was seen as weak and vacillating, and his people corrupt, and it was just the standard--no one appreciated what he was building."

"At first blush, Mr. Ozawa looks like he's got the vision gene in a way that Mr. Fukuda doesn't. Not just because that's the way he's described in the press, but because of what he's done," he continued.

Mr. Ozawa "walked out of the LDP in the early 1990s. He was the one who invented the word normal nation. He's fought for it. He's defined a way to get at it that is a bit odd, which is to say that Japan can participate in all these things, but only under United Nations auspices. So, he's a man of real ideas."

"Whether a man of real ideas also has enough, sort of that packet that includes charisma and the ability to convince people to follow him when he starts running in one direction, is another question. He hasn't demonstrated he has that."

"Mr. Fukuda looks more the bureaucrat. On the other hand, he's got a very steady hand and he represents a part of the party that's had a very steady hand and great success."

"So, let's come back to it in about five or 10 years and see where we are."

Audience members joined in the conversation:

Your assertion that Japan has a strategy begs the question, does it have a strategist, and if so, who?

"It would be nice if you did, because political leadership at the end of the day would really ensure the changes and solidify the changes," said Professor Samuels. But in this case, "I don't look for individuals, although there are individuals. I look for an institutional base. In this particular case that base was in the Japan Defense Agency. And it was created right after the end of the Cold War."

Going back to 1990 and 1991, "Mr. Hatakeyama, who was then the Administrative Vice Minister of the Japan Defense Agency, took his best and brightest mid-career folks and put them to the task and said the world is changed, what do we need to do. And they put together a list. Then they tested the list out on a group of politicians and journalists and they worked through it."

"And it's an extraordinarily far-sighted list and it's the work of strategists, but it's the work of strategists acting collectively."

So "identifying what needs to be done--that work is being done inside institutions in Japan," including institutions, for example within the prime minister's office, the Kantei, "that didn't even exist 15 years ago."

It seems, to me at least, that the public is still very wary about military Japan. And given the importance of nemawashi and consensus building, what role does public opinion have in this debate?

"This whole notion of consensus, particularly in foreign policy and particularly in difficult issues of foreign policy, shouldn't be in the mix anymore, in my opinion," Professor Samuels said.

"For evidence I point us to the weeks and months after 9/11 and the way Mr. Koizumi pulled together at very short notice a group of extraordinarily talented politicians and bureaucrats and said we're standing with the U.S., let's make it happen."

"They dragged public opinion with them. In fact, public opinion never really caught up" while this was happening; "it was not until the ships were there for some significant period of time, and then subsequently when the soldiers were in Iraq for some period of time doing good things--demonstrably good things, that the Japanese public began to turn in favor and celebrate the accomplishments and the achievements."

Everyone always talks about the risks if a Japanese soldier were to die on a deployment. What about the other way round? What if Japanese forces were sent to Afghanistan and were to kill civilians accidentally?

"I actually want to use this opportunity to amend the answer I gave to George" at the beginning of the Q&A, that if Japanese solders were to die while on such a mission, it would set things back for a generation. "I think that was an overstatement."

"I think if Japanese are killed it would set things back, but some would say--they would begin the debate about how that's the cost of doing business if you're going to be playing a global security role."

"But killing innocent civilians--that's a different story. Of course it would be accidental and once that happens I think you're talking now about generations before the Japanese could become comfortable with the role."

The visit to India--is this right down the center of this grand strategy, or is it a peripheral item?

"It can be down the center of this strategy, and parts of it suggest that it has been," Professor Samuels answered.

Then Prime Minister Abe visited New Delhi in 2007, "but before he went, a succession of Japanese Ministers of Defense and Directors General of the Defense Agency made visits to New Delhi--Coast Guard commandants. It's a long way from the Japanese coast," he remarked dryly.

"Mr. Abe was selling it as values-based diplomacy," though "it's my understanding that [Mr. Fukuda] has pulled the plug" on this particular rhetorical strategy, he said.

"Now, I'm a realist. I don't believe in value-based diplomacy. I believe in interest-based diplomacy."

"The Indians--they're democrats, but they're also quintessential realists. Nobody has it better--in that region, maybe in the world, nobody has a better relationship with Iran than the Indians do. The Indians are exercising with Russians and sometimes even playing with Chinese nicely. They're not going to be used by anybody, much less in some concoction called an arc of democracy and freedom."

"On the other hand, they're happy to have the investment and they're happy to engage and to indulge whatever--to scratch whatever itch the Japanese have on this point."

How would this grand strategy affect the U.S.? What is it that the U.S. would want, and how would they push that agenda?

"There are opportunities now for the U.S. to rethink, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, the relationships in the Far East," Professor Samuels replied.

"On East Asia and the Pacific, the State Department has been all North Korea all the time, and when it hasn't been that, it's been China."

"Then again, you've got to be careful what you wish for if you're Japanese, because the Americans are going through a transformation of their forces. They would like to get the Marines out of Okinawa and off to Guam," he continued.

"Part of the reason why that's a problem in the short term is that there's no one left in the government in Washington who really wakes up in the morning and worries about the Japan relationship."

"Mr. Armitage has left; Michael Green has left. There are folks there, very competent and very good folks, but they've got other fish to fry."

"One hopes, and I think one should expect, that a commitment to the alliance will remain in place. The real question is whether or not the Japanese will believe that the commitment to the alliance is as 14-karat gold as they need it to be to avoid going off in a completely different direction. So, I guess wait and see."

--Katherine Hyde