Defending Postwar Japan

...These are the most advanced aircraft in the Air Self-Defense Force arsenal, and Hyakuri?with 1,500 officers and airmen who fly and service these 40 planes as well as maintain the base????is a Martin Weinstein, currently in Tokyo on a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Fellowship, is doing research on Japan's postwar defense policy...

...We were free to photograph anything we wanted to...

...But external conditions cannot be counted upon to remain permanent...

...It might eventually lead to a sharp curtailment of American military commitments in the Far East...

...In fact, the two squadrons of F-104's at Hyakuri are armed with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, rockets and machine guns that clearly represent "war potential...

...I pointed out that Japan is now spending proportionately less to support the Self-Defense Forces than a decade ago, and I wondered whether my Japanese friends considered the current defense outlay too much, too little, or just right...

...article 9, Constitution of Japan Tokyo Twenty years after the promulgation of Japan's postwar Constitution, on May 18, 1967, I visited the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force's Hyakuri Base...

...Such developments would present Japan with a whole new set of security problems...

...and the USSR, Japan probably has the best equipped and most powerful air force in the Far East...

...I noted that during the tour I had not seen any planes on scramble alert, and asked whether this was normal...

...The airfield was clean, efficient-looking and bustling with activity...

...There are 145,340 men in the Ground Self-Defense Force, while the Maritime Self-Defense Force comprises 32,937 men and 235 vessels????mainly destroyers, destroyer escorts, patrol boats and auxiliary craft, plus several conventionally powered submarines...

...Thus, outside of the U.S...

...Right now, the Defense Agency is merely an adjunct of the Prime Minister's Office and its civilian Director-General enjoys only a quasi-ministerial status...

...They were also startled to learn that while in 1955 Japan spent close to 2 per cent of its gnp for defense, in 1965 the figure hovered just over 1 per cent...

...Yet despite all this, the defense establishment is operating within Japan's unusual constitutional restrictions...

...The uniforms and flight suits of the Air Self-Defense Force are similar to those of the United States Air Force, and standing out on the apron in the hot May sun, surrounded by F-104s, it was easy to imagine myself at a base in Texas...

...Japan," he said, "has no enemies...

...Public opinion will not tolerate a huge defense budget," he agreed, "not only because it would hit people in the pocketbook, but because there is a sincere feeling of moral disapproval against a military force that has even the slightest potential for being used for anything but self-defense...

...The government moves softly on all defense authorizations, and the Defense Agency just has to be patient...

...Communist China, despite its domestic difficulties, is still straining to arm itself with nuclear missiles, and no one knows what effect the war in Vietnam may have on United States policy...

...Japan does indeed maintain air, land and sea forces...

...None of the aircraft have the range or capability to attack overseas targets, he elaborated...

...Clearly, the military in Japan is not threatening to wrest power from the elected, civilian government...

...But after a day there and an evening talking to Japanese intellectuals with whom I toured the base, I came away convinced that while the letter of Article 9 is being violated, the spirit is still very much alive...

...We were treated not as intruding civilians but as honored guests, and were even provided with oshibori (hot face towels) and green tea at the briefings...

...Public opinion polls show that a majority of the Japanese people think as this gentleman says they do...

...In short, we were given to understand that the planes at Hyakuri were not going to fly off to China, Korea or Southeast Asia...

...Colonel Yoshimoto explained that Hyakuri is not yet legally operational...

...Several others, among them a charming young lady, came to his support, adding that by building its armed forces Japan was only inviting trouble and looking for enemies to fight...

...The Japanese government is currently putting the finishing touches to the Third Defense Build-up Plan, which will serve as the basic guideline for defense spending through fiscal 1971...

...At Hyakuri the group of young intellectuals I was with was greeted and briefed by the base commander himself, Major General Aoki Hideo, and his deputies and staff...

...Most important, however, is the United States-Japan Security Treaty, and the American forces in the Far East which back up this treaty...

...Atour of Hyakuri Base is itself substantial evidence that this last purpose is being fulfilled...

...Even he, however, was hesitant to discuss any defense build-up...

...major link in Tokyo's air defense system...

...The government's official position coincides neatly with public opinion, and as the modest Third Defense Build-Up Plan suggests, it has no intention of challenging this view for another five years...

...defense budget for the same year was $55.7 billion...

...The right of the belligerency of the state will not be recognized...

...At first sight, the very existence of Hyakuri Base seems to nullify the Constitution's prohibition against re-establishing the military...

...I turned the discussion to policy matters and began asking my own questions...

...On the contrary, they suffer from a political inferiority complex and would be most happy simply to be recognized as a ministry on the same level with the Ministry of Construction or Communications...

...We need the Self-Defense Forces, as well as the alliance with the United States, to protect ourselves from invasion threats or intimidation...

...In any case, unless the Far East becomes much more stable and peaceful than anyone now anticipates, it will require all the ingenuity the Japanese can muster to keep Article 9 relevant to Japan's future defense policy...

...After a Western-style lunch, we visited the control tower and the radar center, then returned to headquarters and our briefing room for more green tea and a 40-minute question-and-answer period...

...I was asked to give my impressions of Hyakuri Base and my views on Japanese defense policy...

...THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER OF THE CONSTITUTION Defending Postwar Japan By Martin Weinstein Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

...If anything, Colonel Yoshimoto's remarks understated the restrictions the Japanese government has imposed upon use of the Defense Forces under Article 9. So strong is the public opposition to deploying Japanese forces overseas, that Tokyo has repeatedly stated it will not contribute troops to United Nations peace-keeping operations, nor even send military observers...

...A tanned young engineer rose to argue that spending even one per cent of the gnp for defense is a waste...

...The plan envisages only slight increases in personnel and aims primarily at modernizing equipment with new planes, tanks and missiles to be manufactured in Japan...

...This network will coordinate the air defense of the Kanto plain around Tokyo with the Kansai region, including the Osaka-Kobe port facilities and industrial complex...

...In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained...

...One of us asked the Colonel, who is on flying status, how the older pilots like himself, trained in the slow, propeller driven planes of World War II, could master the mental and physical skills necessary to fly an F-104...

...He smilingly replied that the principles of flying are the same whether the planes are slow or fast...

...That Japan now has the third most powerful industrial economy in the world????first in shipbuilding, second in automobiles, third in steel production????makes its low defense budget still more remarkable...

...They accept the forces they are now supporting as a legitimate means of self-defense under the Constitution, and they believe that Article 9 should be kept as it is...

...In the evening, back in Tokyo, our group met again informally...

...They were quite surprised at these figures...

...Such an exchange between a young civilian and a senior military officer would have been unthinkable in prewar, pre-Article 9 Japan...

...From the briefing room at headquarters we went on to visit the hangars and runway, and to look at the Starfighters...

...the remainder are largely jet trainers, with a small complement of transport and radar reconnaissance planes, air-sea rescue craft and helicopters...

...Located close to the farming town of Ishi-oka 50 miles northeast of Tokyo, it is the home of the Seventh Air Wing, composed of two squadrons of Lockheed F-104 supersonic jet fighters...

...Finally, it represents the revulsion of most Japanese against the arrogance of the military in prewar Japan, an arrogance compounded of traditional samurai pride and the belief that the armed services were the Emperor's personal forces and best represented his will...

...Moreover, the base is but a small fraction of the entire Air Self-Defense Force, which consists of 37,913 men and 1,083 aircraft...

...A young business executive held the opposite view: "The Soviet Union and Communist China are not basically friendly to Japan...

...For Article 9 is much more than a prohibition against building military forces: It is intended to keep the Japanese government out of internal power politics and away from the kind of foreign military adventures that led Japan into World War II...

...The Defense Agency goes out of its way to invite community groups, including women's clubs and youth organizations, to inspect its facilities and to meet the officers and men...

...In addition, the Air Self-Defense Force mans 24 radar stations in Japan, and at the moment it is busily engaged in constructing and learning to operate a Base Air Defense Ground Environment (badge) computer system...

...The answers given to our questions also revealed the vitality of Article 9. When queried about the mission of the base, Deputy Wing Commander Colonel Yoshimoto Seishi emphasized that "The Air Self-Defense Force will only protect Japan's air space and operate over and immediately around Japan...

...These forces give Japan a formidable defensive shield, eliminating the necessity for any dramatic expansion of the Self-Defense Forces...

...Japan's Ground and Maritime Self-Defense Forces are not quite as impressively armed, but they also look very much like "war potential...

...Since the base has its full complement of men and planes, this came as a surprise and someone asked exactly what "non-operational" status meant...

...He added, however: "It is hard work to keep up with these young pilots, and I plan to stop flying next autumn...

...Of these, 181 are F-104 Starfighters and 398 are Korean War vintage F-86 Sabre Jets...

...It is intended to preserve Japanese democracy by preventing the resurgence of militarism and military government...

...An act of the Diet is required to activate Hyakuri Base, we were told, and while a bill to that effect has been pending for some time, there seems to be no rush to pass it...

...Based on the ratio of the defense budget to the gnp, United Nations statistics show the level of Japanese expenditures to be among the lowest in the world, below that of peaceful, tiny Switzerland (2.9 per cent), and neutralist India (1.9 per cent...

...It turned out that the members of the group, all of whom were generally well informed, were unacquainted with the amount of their defense budget????which was $946 million in 1966 (the U.S...

...no one is threatening to invade us, and the money could better be spent for housing or education...