Japanese Defense Burden-Sharing: The Persian Gulf Crisis And Beyond

The Center for Security Policy expressed concern over reports of Japan’s sputtering effort to share adequately the burden of the multinational force in the Persian Gulf. This behavior is all the more worrisome in light of new indications that Tokyo is exhibiting fresh hesitancy about fulfilling its May 1981 commitment for the defense of Japan’s air space and sea lanes out to a distance of 1000 nautical miles.

In a paper released today, entitled Japan’s Next Five Year Defense Plan: Whither the 1000-Mile Mission Commitment?, the Center warns that recent progress in improving U.S.-Japanese relations could be jeopardized by the combined effect of Tokyo’s woefully inadequate efforts to date to share the burdens associated with the Gulf crisis and the serious shortcomings of the new five-year Medium-Term Defense Plan (MTDP) now taking shape.

"Japan now seems poised to inflict a double-whammy on near- and long-term Western interests in the midst of the Persian Gulf crisis," observed Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., the Center’s director. "First — despite its enormous stake in achieving a satisfactory resolution to the threat now being posed by Saddam Hussein to roughly seventy percent of Japanese oil imports — Japan has yet to shoulder its fair share of the costs entailed in securing such a resolution. Second, it continues to balk at acquiring military hardware from the United States essential not only to meeting a nine-year-old 1000-mile commitment, but also to backstopping U.S. forces and allowing them to be deployed far more flexibly in future contingencies."

On the latter point Gaffney added, "In a future crisis, Japan could be in a position temporarily to assume missions currently assigned to U.S. forces in the Western Pacific, thereby freeing up precious American assets like Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) for rapid redeployment to out-of-area hot spots. Certainly, it would be far easier, under such circumstances, for Tokyo to allay U.S. congressional and public concerns about the adequacy of Japan’s contribution to burden-sharing than is the case at present."

The Center believes that the unacceptability of this "double whammy" should be stressed by Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady during his current visit to Tokyo dealing with burden-sharing in the Gulf crisis. It should also be impressed unequivocally upon a delegation of prominent Liberal Democratic Party members of the lower house of the Japanese Dietcongressional hearings be held forthwith on the adequacy of Japan’s next Medium-Term Defense Plan, especially with regard to the provisions made in the MTDP for the 1000-mile mission. visiting Washington early next week. Moreover, the Center recommends that

Copies of Japan’s Next Five Year Plan: Whither the 1000-Mile Mission Commitment? may be obtained by contacting the Center.