Watching the Diet deliberations today yielded a rather surprising installment in the long running security legislation performance (some may say surrealist tragicomedy) being played out in Japan’s parliament.
(A国とB国、時々C国の物語 or the Tale of Countries A and B, Occasionally C, if you will. I don’t think Country D has made an appearance yet…)
The opposition was yet again focusing its energies on Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen who has been found in contradiction of fellow members of the ruling parties as well as his past self on more than one occasion.
The DPJ’s Fukuyama Tetsuro was working through a number of scenarios around when Japan would be able to invoke its right to self-defense (NB: none of these situations were predicated on the concerned scenarios and activities taking place within the territory of another nation).
Situation A: Fighter jets from Country A are attacking Japan. These platforms are being provisioned with fuel or weapons from other vessels/planes from the military of Country A. Does Japan have the right to invoke self-defense against the provisioning platforms of Country A in addition to the attacking platforms?
Answer: Yes (of course).
Situation B: Warship from Country A is attacking Japan. This vessel is being provisioned with fuel or weapons from a civilian vessel. Does Japan have the right to invoke self-defense against such civilian provisioning platforms?
Answer: Yes.
Situation C: Fighter/warship from Country A is attacking Japan. This plane/vessel is being provisioned with fuel or weapons from a plane/vessel from Country B. Does Japan have the right to invoke self-defense against provisioning platforms of Country B?
Answer: Yes, right?
No, because, apparently, Country B is only providing rear area support and not engaging in the use of force. Apparently only against Country A’s platforms would the use of force be justified. Confirmed by both Minister of Defense Nakatani and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.
What?
Because the provisioning comes from the military of another, non-attacking country, then this is special?
Japan would have to sit back and allow Country B to keep provisioning Country A until Country A runs out of attacking platforms?
Of course, the issue for the government here is that in another situation Japan could well be Country B. And admitting that such an action would constitute a hostile action indistinguishable from any other use of force to the point of justifying a counter-attack against the provisioning platform would suggest that Japan’s new security legislation would a) indeed allow Japan to engage in hostile acts/use of force by means of direct military support of an allied nation assailing another nation, and b) would suggest that Japan’s SDF would indeed be at risk of being engaged in direct hostilities due to this legislation.
First, how incredibly naive is it to think that a country would hold off attacking Japan’s provisioning platforms because of some self-defined, self-binding Japanese constitutional interpretive peculiarity? I am sure the government doesn’t believe this, but requires a certain suspension of disbelief for others.
Second, I thought this reversal of the hypothetical situation was the gotcha that Fukuyama was building up to, but Fukuyama was one step ahead (of me at least) and had done his homework, homework that suggests there is a good reason for my surprise.
One LDP foreign minister from times past is on record from 1999 saying that, from the general point of view, the use of force based on Japan’s inherent right to self-defense would be justified against a third country B if it was engaging in rear area activities that constituted an integral part of the use of force/hostile acts committed by Country A. As you would expect.
Now this minister was not simply a relic from the past to tossed away like so many other interpretations, principles and officials, but one current LDP Vice President Komura Masahiko: AKA the godfather of the current set of security bills.
And for good measure, Fukuyama had Nakatani on record as saying precisely the opposite just last month (Apologies for the dubious photography).
This has been a security debate of surreal proportions already. And to be fair, this has been a characteristic of both sides of the debate. But this assertion/distinction could have real implications if not clarified or better explained in the days ahead as I dare hope it will be. Otherwise, in the eagerness to adopt collective self-defense and justify military activities further afield than the East Asia region that directly impacts upon Japan’s security, and make these somehow fit within the current constitutional framework, the Abe government may have just narrowed the range of applications of Japan’s inherent individual self-defense rights.
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