If Japan's military policy in its present form was good enough to address the challenges of the 21st century the arguments for and against were almost balanced - until this week. Under the constitution, written by the United States some 60 years back, the policy that its self-defence forces would never be dispatched overseas had endured.
Even the most provocative situations, like the one created in Algeria in 2013 when some 10 Japanese engineers were held hostage and then killed, the government of the day had stuck, albeit grudgingly, to its no-overseas military campaigns. Even the tensions generated by the regional territorial disputes in recent years were reacted passively because of the constraints imposed by law on the role of the Japanese forces. But that may be no more the case - thanks to the Islamic State's videos posted online depicting beheading of two Japanese, one after the other, during the last one week or so. "Let the nightmare for Japan begin," said the knife-wielding Islamic State executioner - in his London-accent English - as he finished his work of murdering Kenji Goto, the journalist committed to reporting the plight of civilians in war zones. And addressing Prime Minister Abe, who was in the region a month before and had announced a $200 million non-lethal aid package, the executioner warned that his 'knife will not only slay Goto but also cause carnage wherever your people are found'. It's indeed a dire threat for the government and the people of Japan given that about 1.5 million Japanese work overseas. How to reduce Japan's increasing vulnerability in an increasingly unsafe world, the public discourse has taken the centre stage. Not that the pacifists who caution wait and see are not there but the proponents for a hard-line approach to incidents such as the latest are more assertive, some questioning why Japanese government could not rescue its nationals held by the Islamic State militants a la the Israeli commando operation in 1976 at the Uganda's Entebbe airport.
But this was not possible and may not be feasible for quite some time, given that Japan has neither the legality nor the capability to undertake military missions overseas. Presently, the law doesn't allow the Japanese forces to go to other countries as help to the allies. For this new legislation is required, which may now be easier to enact than ever before as the beheadings tragedy to many is Japan's 9/11. Prime Minister Abe says he would like to discuss a 'framework that would allow Japan's military to rescue Japanese citizens in danger'. Additionally, he would lift ban on fighting overseas to help allies as 'collective self-defence'. At the same time, Japan will have to strengthen its intelligence-gathering services abroad, which at present are said to be bare minimum. However, even if the Japanese parliament agrees to amend the constitution and gives its forces by shedding the country's pacifist foreign posture it will take time for Japan to equip its forces with operationally effective offensive capability. And in the process a war industry would come into being. In Japan, there are cynics also who think the outrage caused by the gruesome videos will die down in some time, and then there would be questions about desirability for Prime Minister Abe's announcement to give $200 million as non-military aid to countries fighting the Islamic State militancy. Never before since the end of World War Two was the public opinion in Japan so heavily tilted in favour of shedding the pacifist posture and acquire offensive military capability - which Prime Minister Abe needs so much "to make terrorists pay the price".
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