Tag Archives: Japan

Russia Mirrors China’s Activity in the South China Sea…. Moves Weapon Systems to the Kuril Island Chain

Reuters reported earlier today, March 25, 2016, Russia will deploy its Bal and Bastion weapon systems, which are new generations of the Eleron 3 drone, on the disputed Kuril island system North of Japan..

Reuters reports, “The Bastion is a mobile defense system armed with two anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 300 km (188 miles). It has also been deployed in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Bal anti-ship missile has a similar range.”

Last year Russia began the construction of two military compounds on the eastern islands in the chain. This buildup, along with the current decision to put weapon systems on the island, are primarily done by Russia to force Japan into a peace agreement. Russia has tried in the past to work out an agreement, but has only been willing to let go of the smallest islands in the chain.

The Islands in dispute are surrounded by rich fishing ground, mineral deposits, and most importantly a possible offshore deposit of natural gas and oil. The Japanese mainland is not rich in natural resources, and they are forced to import most of their oil and natural gas. Being able to claim offshore deposits just off their coast would allow them to be less dependent on foreign markets.

Sovereignty over the Kuril Islands has been disputed since the end of WWII. Russia gave the four most Southern islands, Shikotan, Habomai, Kunashiri, and Etorofu, to Japan in 1855. The Japanese recognized this territory as apart of Japan, and since considered anything North to be the Kurils. The Soviet Union claimed control over these islands in 1949, after being promised the territory in Yalta. In 1951, the Japanese agreed to give up any claim to the Kurils in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but this never meant anything as Russia never signed the treaty and Japan did not consider the contested islands as apart of the Kurils. Since then the islands have been in dispute, and neither side seems to be willing to relent.

Russia’s move to arm its controlled islands closely mirrors China’s current militarization of its artificial islands in the South China Sea. Both nations are seeking to push out the competition by a show of force. China and Russia have much larger militaries than the nations they seek to push out, and both Russia and China expect little opposition to their moves. By continuing to build up arms, both nations may be seeking to reach a point where they can assert their will on others despite treaties and formal agreements.

Late last year Japan stepped up its military force in the East China Sea to counter China’s growing presence. The Japanese will position a line of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile batteries along 200 islands stretching 870 miles from the Japanese mainland towards Taiwan along with 10,000 soldiers. With the Japanese military budget seeming to grow by the year, it would not be surprising if the Japanese placed more military equipment on areas near the Kurils.

Russia’s continued militarization of the Kuril Islands will further complicate their instable relationship with Japan. Neither side is likely to give in to the others’ demands or propose a solution that is agreeable to both sides. With China posing an increased threat in the South and East China Seas, along with the current power plays by Japan and Russia in the Kuril Islands chain, trading will be even more difficult.

Shinzo Abe’s Speech to Congress Marks a New Era in U.S. – Japan Relations

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a masterful speech to a joint session of Congress yesterday.  It was a speech by the leader of one of America’s closest friends who wants to move beyond the past and confront the economic and security challenges of today.

Abe expressed “deep repentance”  for World War II, offering “eternal condolences to the souls of all American people that were lost.”  He also expressed “feelings of deep remorse over the war” and acknowledged that “our actions brought suffering to the peoples in Asian countries, we must not avert our eyes from that.”

These gracious and heartfelt words drew a standing ovation.

Abe was the first Japanese Prime Minister to address a joint session of Congress.  (His grandfather, Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, spoke to the Senate in 1957.)  Previous prime ministers were not invited to speak to Congress because of a belief by some members of Congress that Japanese officials had not apologized enough for World War II.  This week’s speech by Prime Minister Abe indicates that the U.S. Congress has finally moved beyond the war and realizes we must work with our Japanese friends on the security and economic threats of 2015, not 1941.

Japan is the key to America’s security and economic interests in the Asia-Pacific.  Tokyo and Washington are concerned about China’s rapidly growing military efforts to claim vast areas of the South China Sea as Chinese territory.  Abe recognizes this and has begun to move beyond the restraints of the country’s pacifist constitution.  This includes a security reform that was unthinkable just a few years ago: forming a Japanese intelligence service to collect foreign intelligence and defend the nation against aggressive intelligence operations against Japan by China.

The Washington Post recognized the importance of Abe’s security policies in an editorial this week which said “America should welcome Japan’s moves toward a more assertive role in the world” and noted that the Japan of today is “a peaceable democracy, a reliable U.S. ally, and a good neighbor to other Asian countries.”

The Prime Minister pressed Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact between the United States and 12 Asian nations.  This agreement will significantly improve trade between the United States and Japan and open the Japanese market to U.S. products.  The TTP is important for Japan given domestic economic problems and efforts by Chinese to dominate the regional economy.   TTP is crucial to the U.S.-Japan relationship and should be approved by Congress ASAP.

Professor Yoichi Shimada, a friend of mine who teaches international politics at Fukui Prefectural University, has described Prime Minister Abe as “the Ronald Reagan of Japan.”  I could see why he believes this as I listened to Abe’s speech yesterday which showed same kind of optimism, vision, and decisiveness of President Reagan’s speeches.   Although Prime Minister Abe has some difficult challenges ahead of him, based on the warm reception he received from Congress this week, I am hopeful there is a strong bipartisan majority in the U.S. Congress that is ready to support him.

Obama Should Stand Up For America

The Washington Free Beacon today captured several more instances of a curious – and troubling – aspect of President Obama’s international travels. He seems to be hardwired to bow to those he meets.

In some cultures, this is a common practice, particularly when meeting with royalty or other heads of state – not just as a sign of respect, but as a symbolic gesture of subservience.

The leader of our powerful, free nation shouldn’t behave submissively towards anyone, however.

Yet, Mr. Obama has previously bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, the emperor of Japan and China’s top communist.

During his current trip to Asia, he has bowed again to Japan’s emperor – and even to a Japanese robot!

President Obama must stop diminishing our country. One place to start is by literally standing up for America.

Obama’s One-War Posture Invites Two

The latest manifestation of Barack Obama’s serial national security fraud is on display at the moment in East Asia.  For much of his presidency, Mr. Obama has contended that the defense budget could be dramatically reduced because, henceforth, the United States would only need sufficient military capability to fight one war at a time.

Predictably, the sorts of geostrategic realities that have argued historically for a two-war capability are intruding on the President’s dangerously false representations.  The concept is simple:  By having the ability to fight and decisively win two nearly simultaneous conflicts in different parts of the world, you discourage any potential adversaries from thinking they can act with impunity once the United States has become engaged in one distant war.

Ronald Reagan called this sort of posture “peace through strength.”

Now, however, we confront a Middle East that is becoming more explosive by the day.  That is due, in part, to Mr. Obama’s earlier acts of malfeasance and fraud, including his woefully deficient nuclear deal with Iran – which is only beginning to reverberate throughout the region – and the destabilizing dynamics engendered by the ongoing Islamist uprising he has supported from Tunisia to Bahrain.

Meanwhile, China is acting increasingly aggressively towards its neighbors in the Western Pacific, most of whom have relied for decades on the sort of American protection that – thanks to the Obama military-wrecking operation – is no longer assured.  Beijing has obviously concluded that the United States has neither the muscle nor the will to interfere with Chinese bullying of our allies.  It may, by design or by miscalculation, precipitate actual hostilities with Japan over the contested Senkaku Islands controlled by the latter.

China’s latest lurch in that direction occurred last week when it declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) covering those islands.  The Obama administration has sent mixed signals in response, defiantly flying without the required advance notice unarmed B-52 bombers and other aircraft into the PRC’s new ADIC.  Yet, its FAA has directed U.S. commercial carriers to conform to Chinese requirements for filing flight plans. The latter guidance has, understandably, infuriated the Japanese who asserted their sovereignty by telling Japan’s airlines not to file such plans with Beijing, and who see in the American move yet another indication of our unreliability.

Those concerns are likely to be heightened, not allayed, by Mr. Obama’s dispatch of Vice President Joe Biden for consultations in Tokyo and Seoul and meetings with China’s president, Xi Jinping.  For one thing, Mr. Biden’s interlocutors are sure to have noticed that he is regarded with derision by his own countrymen.  It seems unlikely that reflexively xenophobic Chinese will respect him more.  For another, the message he seems likely to convey to China’s new leader – with whom the Vice President has spent considerable time in previous home-and-home visits – is one of accommodation, not resolve.

Even if Joe Biden could find it in himself to demand that China rescind its ADIZ declaration and, while he’s at it, insist that his Communist hosts renounce their outrageous claims to sovereignty over most of the South and East China Seas, the message would be as incredible as the messenger.  In the absence of the actual capacity to project American power in East Asia, China will seek to fill the vacuum created by Barack Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of the United States from the dominant force in that region to a middling, unreliable and wasting one.

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has long warned that, “Weakness is provocative.”  Consequently, we are sure to confront not just further encroachment by China on the territory and natural resources of its neighbors.  We will also witness Chinese bullying that may well translate into shooting wars.

China is going to great lengths to ensure that, if it comes to that, a United States that is still militarily superior by most measures will suffer greatly at its hands – and probably thereby be deterred.  For example, Beijing is introducing precision-guided, conventionally armed ballistic missiles designed to destroy aircraft carriers at sea, together with anti-satellite weapons intended to give the PRC space control.

In addition, high-speed torpedoes with the capability to circumvent our countermeasures and advanced stealth fighters will pose a formidable threat to whatever forces we may still be able to muster.  And, as Chinese media recently boasted, nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missiles are now poised to kill between 5-12 million Americans through attacks on Western U.S. cities and radioactive fallout downwind stretching as far as Chicago.

As in the Middle East, the perception among friends and foes alike of American disengagement and unilateral disarmament will probably translate into the proliferation of nuclear weapons in nations from Saudi Arabia to Japan.  Such a development would, of course, complicate the plans of aggressors, like Iran and China.  But it will also contribute to the growing volatility of some of the world’s most explosive tinderboxes and, in the case of the Saudis, result in the migration of nuclear arms to jihadists.

President Obama has contributed materially to the heightened danger the Free World now faces with his abandoning of the Reagan philosophy of peace through strength.  His underfunded one-war capability leaves us exceedingly vulnerable to the ambitions of our enemies.  And, tragically, the next war – or two – may, like so many in the past, have been preventable, if only we had not relied on hope rather than strength to keep the peace.

By slashing our nuclear weapons, Obama ignores Asia threats

President Obama meets today with the Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. Both men will be at pains to emphasize the U.S. commitment to its most important ally in Asia and the confidence the Japanese have in America’s longstanding security guarantees.

Unfortunately, this spin is utterly belied by: the Obama administration’s hollowing out of our military; its cynical machinations that ensure sequestration will make further, devastating cuts in our ability to project power; and the President’s incipient announcement that he will cut by one-third the obsolescing U.S. nuclear arsenal.

At a time when Japan is facing threats from China and North Korea that grow literally by the day, closing America’s nuclear umbrella and disengaging from the Western Pacific will only serve to undermine our friends there and embolden their enemies – and ours.

Top National Security Leaders to Obama: Stop the Unilateral Denuclearization of the US

For Immediate Release

For more information, please contact
Ben Lerner (lerner@securefreedom.org)
at (202) 835-9077

(Washington, D.C.): A group of former senior military and civilian national security professionals today called on President Barack Obama [PDF, 2 pages, 129Kb] to abandon his reported intention to make further, deep and apparently unilateral reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Press accounts indicate that the President was planning on announcing a cut of as much as one-third of the American deterrent during his State of the Union address on February 12th. He evidently decided to postpone the unveiling of this initiative, however, when North Korea conducted on that same day it latest nuclear test – an event that underscored the fact that only the United States is, under his administration, engaging in denuclearization.

The authors, who include two former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and seventeen others with “decades of experience with national security policy and practice,” declare:

It is now clear that, as a practical matter under present and foreseeable circumstances, this agenda will only result in the unilateral disarmament of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. That will make the world more dangerous, not less. In our professional judgment… America’s “Triad” of nuclear-armed land-based and submarine-launched missiles and bomber-delivered nuclear weapons have promoted strategic stability and discouraged proliferation. Steps that raise uncertainty about the viability, reliability and effectiveness of our deterrent will have the opposite effect.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy which facilitated this letter, observed:

As President Obama meets today with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he is expected to emphasize the United States’ commitment to its most important Asian ally at a time when the threat to Japan from China and North Korea is growing by the day. The single most tangible thing Mr. Obama could do to give substance to such rhetoric would be to eschew further weakening of the U.S. nuclear arsenal – and the extended deterrent or “nuclear umbrella” it has constituted for nearly seventy years. The signers of this letter have rendered an incalculably important service by challenging the myth that doing otherwise in pursuit of a “world without nuclear weapons” is either achievable or desirable under present and foreseeable circumstances.

The full text of the letter is below, and a PDF is here.

 

22 February 2013

Hon. Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.  20500

Dear Mr. President:

The latest North Korean underground nuclear test represents both a danger and an opportunity.  The danger is obvious:  One of the most unstable regimes on the planet is continuing to amass the skills and the capabilities to produce, weaponize and perhaps use the most dangerous weapons known to man.  The fact that Pyongyang is doing so together with other nations hostile to us and our allies – notably, Iran – raises the possibility that the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons technologies will soon metastasize around the globe.

The opportunity this ominous turn of events offers is the chance to reconsider your pursuit of the goal of “ridding the world of nuclear weapons.”  It is now clear that, as a practical matter under present and foreseeable circumstances, this agenda will only result in the unilateral disarmament of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.  That will make the world more dangerous, not less.

In our professional judgment, born of decades of experience with national security policy and practice, America’s “Triad” of nuclear-armed land-based and submarine-launched missiles and bomber-delivered nuclear weapons has promoted strategic stability and discouraged proliferation.  Steps that raise uncertainty about the viability, reliability and effectiveness of our deterrent will have the opposite effect.

According to published reports, you are considering further, draconian and perhaps unilateral cuts in the numbers of nuclear weapons in our arsenal.  We respectfully recommend that this plan be abandoned in favor of the fulfillment of commitments you made at the time of the New START Treaty to: modernize all three legs of the Triad; ensure the safety and deterrent effectiveness of the weapons with which they are equipped; and restore the critical industrial base that supports these forces.

Doing otherwise will put our country, its allies and our peoples at ever- greater risk in a world that is, far from nuclear-free, awash with such weapons – with increasing numbers of them in the hands of freedom’s enemies.  It is unimaginable that that is your intention.  It must not be the unintended result of your actions, either.

Sincerely,

  • Adm. Thomas B. Hayward, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Naval Operations
  • Gen. Carl E. Mundy, Jr., USMC (Ret.), Former Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps
  • Adm. Jerry Johnson, USN (Ret.), Former Vice Chief of Naval Operations
  • Adm. James “Ace” Lyons, USN (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet
  • Vice Adm. Robert Monroe, USN (Ret.), Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency
  • Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, USAF (Ret.), Former Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force
  • Hon. R. James Woolsey, Former Director of Central Intelligence
  • Hon. John R. Bolton, Former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
  • Hon. Douglas J. Feith, Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
  • Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman, General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, 1981-1985; Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, 1986-1989
  • Lt. Gen. E.G. “Buck” Shuler, USAF (Ret.), Former Commander of the Eighth Air Force (Strategic Air Command)
  • Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, USA (Ret.), Former Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army, Pacific
  • Rear Adm. Robert H. Gormley, USN (Ret.), Former Chief of Studies, Analysis and War Gaming, Joint Chiefs of Staff
  • Hon. Kathleen Bailey, Former Assistant Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
  • Hon. Fred Celec, former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs
  • Hon. Henry F. “Hank” Cooper, Former Director of the Defense Strategic Initiative (SDI); Former U.S. Representative to the Defense and Space Talks
  • Hon. Samantha Ravich, Former Deputy National Security Advisor, Office of the Vice President
  • Hon. Troy Wade, Former Director, Defense Programs, Department of Energy
  • Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
  • David J. Trachtenberg, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy

 

National Security Policy Proceedings, vol. 6: Fall 2011

This is the sixth issue of the Center for Security Policy’s National Security Policy Proceedings.

From Ben Lerner’s Editor’s Note:

National Security Policy Proceedings represents the Center’s compilation of transcripts of remarks given by featured speakers at these gatherings. In some cases, speakers have chosen to submit their remarks to Proceedings as original articles. Additionally, Proceedings includes book reviews of recently published national security-themed books, reviewed by eminent scholars in the field.

In publishing Proceedings, the Center has sought to provide the reader with authoritative yet accessible commentary on the most pressing issues of national security, foreign affairs, defense policy, and homeland security. Because the speakers and those in attendance are routinely in contact with one another and are often collaborating on analytical and educational efforts, it is our intention that Proceedings give the reader a unique window into how those in the national security policy community convey and exchange ideas with one another, among friends and colleagues.

 

National Security Policy Proceedings

Vol. 6: Fall 2011

 

 

 

Download the PDF

BEN LERNER
Editor’s Note

JACK SPENCER
After Japan
(Assessing Nuclear Energy)

AMB. ROGER NORIEGA
Ignoring Latin America

MICHAEL BRAUN
Terror & Drugs at the Southern Border

SAMARA GREENBERG
To the Arab Spring, Lessons from Lebanon

 

Converging Interests and Shared Values: The U.S.-Japan Bilateral Alliance Enters the 21 st Century

 By Eric Sayers

Mr. Sayers is a graduate student in political science at the University of Western Ontario, and is an editorial assistant at the Center for Security Policy.

 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, leaders in Washington and Tokyo questioned the continued viability of the US-Japan alliance. Washington’s desire to benefit from the newfound “peace dividend” led many in Tokyo to fear that the United States would discontinue its security commitments to Japan. Further complicating the alliance was Tokyo’s decision to assist only financially in the Gulf War and to deny Washington intelligence and logistical support during the 1993-94 North Korean nuclear crisis.  However, a series of events in the mid-1990s, including the growing strength of China and the continued belligerence of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), forced Japan to rethink the direction of its foreign policy and its relationship with the United States. Although formal steps to strengthen the alliance were initially slow, the events of September 11th , and the subsequent Japanese response, helped prove to both states that a strengthened alliance was in their mutual interest.  In analyzing the relationship between the US and Japan, this paper will attempt to demonstrate how a convergence of interests since the mid-1990s in relation to the threat from rogue states and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the rise of China have forced the two nations to reformulate their strategic relationship into a more “normal” alliance that can effectively cope with the challenges of the 21st century.

In order to analyze the reasons for the reemergence of the bilateral alliance, as well as the steps being taken to ensure its success, this essay will be divided into four sections. The first section will briefly outline the strains on the relationship following the end of the Cold War. The second section will focus on the security issues that helped drive Japan back towards the United States. These include the concern over China’s growing military build-up, which culminated with the Taiwan-strait crisis of 1996, as well as the threat posed by North Korea, specifically its test of a Taepodong 1 missile in 1998. The third section will look at the reemergence of the relationship after September 11th. The final section will discuss the challenges and opportunities both countries face as they work to reformulate the alliance for the 21st century. This section will also outline the work of the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee (SCC) during the past five years, in its efforts to shift the alliance from the traditional “shield and spear” concept, to a more balanced and integrated strategic relationship that will allow both states to ensure “a balance of power that favors freedom,” both globally and regionally.

A Strained Alliance

In September 1951, United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Japanese Prime              Minister Shigeru Yoshida signed the Security Treaty Between Japan and the United States of America. Under this treaty, the United States agreed to defend Japan against foreign acts of aggression, while Japan, now bound by the restraints of its new Constitution (specifically, the pacifistic Article 9), which disallowed its right to collective self-defense, agreed to allow the United States to establish military bases on its territory. This treaty established the beginning of the strategic bilateral alliance that has bound the US and Japan for the past half-century.

During the Cold War, Japan followed what became known as the Yoshida Doctrine. Under this doctrine, Japan chose to remain dependent upon the US security guarantee, while continuing to develop economically. However, by the 1970s and 1980s Japan’s situation in relation to the United States had changed considerably. In addition to becoming a major economic power, Japan was also responsible for financing much of the US debt and benefited from a large surplus in US-Japan trade relations. Relations were strained even further due to the inability of US businesses to access the Japanese market. By the end of the Cold War many in the United States, concerned with the concept of what Paul Kennedy called “imperial overstretch,” began to feel that Japan was exploiting the relationship by free-riding on US security guarantees.1 To its credit, Japan did increase its defense spending so as to allow it to maintain the world’s third largest military budget in absolute terms.2

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