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Will Japan need to defend itself? Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/ Getty Images
“They pay in yen, we pay in blood!” Such was the refrain when, after the Gulf War broke out in 1990, Japan’s leaders decided that under the terms of its American-authored postwar constitution they could not send forces to the Middle East. All they could do was write a very large cheque: some $13 billion. This led to the perception, in some quarters, that the Japanese preferred to throw money at problems rather than take risks. When the Kuwaiti government took out an advert in the New York Times to thank the countries that had helped liberate them from Saddam Hussein, there was no mention of Japan. It was a public relations catastrophe.
Ever since the formation of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (SDF) back in July 1954, Japan has argued over its remit and how best to present its role to the public, both at home and abroad. The general approach up until 1990 was neatly expressed by a senior figure in the SDF: “The pheasant would not be shot, but for its cries.” In other words, given worries within Japan and across East Asia that the SDF might somehow be a continuation of the old Imperial Japanese Army, which in the mid-20th century had subverted democracy at home and waged war abroad, the best thing the SDF could do was to keep its head down. That policy, it became clear, would have to change.
The SDF had its roots in a National Police Reserve (NPR), formed in 1950 with the strong encouragement of the American-led Occupation administration. Its official remit was to keep the peace at home while American troops stationed in Japan for that purpose went off to fight in the Korean War. Keen to shore up their Asian ally, the US equipped the NPR and encouraged its enlargement, regarding it not so much as a police force as the nucleus of a future Japanese army. And indeed, it would have been an impressive domestic insurrection whose quelling required the use of the NPR’s bazookas, flame-throwers, tanks and artillery.
The morphing of the National Police Reserve into the Self-Defence Forces — Ground, Maritime and Air — did not alter the official interpretation of the constitution in Japan. While the UN Charter allowed for both individual and collective self-defence, Japan permitted itself only the former. It could not come to the aid of its ally, the United States. Even then, the SDF had to work hard to build up a degree of trust with the Japanese public, taking on roles in civil engineering projects and disaster relief. When, in 1960, Tokyo erupted in violent protest against the renewal of Japan’s unpopular security treaty with the United States, there was a moment when it looked as though the SDF might be called upon to intervene. This would have been disastrous: confirming domestic fears that Japan might be becoming once again the kind of society where the military held the whip-hand.
Fortunately, the moment passed and the SDF struggled on, using the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 to help bolster its reputation. The SDF helped out with security, contributed athletes to some of the events — including the winner of a gold medal in weightlifting — and even dazzled the crowds with an aerobatics show, courtesy of its display team “Blue Impulse”. Three years later, the SDF enjoyed what seemed at first to be a great propaganda coup, when the celebrated writer Mishima Yukio enlisted in the Ground Self-Defence Forces. The moment soured in November 1970, when Mishima attempted to instigate an actual coup from inside a GSDF barracks in Tokyo and then took his own life in grizzly, samurai fashion when it failed.
In the wake of the Gulf War, and the reputational damage done to Japan, the Japanese Defence Agency (now the Ministry of Defence) began to do what countries like the United States had been doing for a long time: seek to massage public opinion surrounding their own armed forces with the help of top PR experts. The advertising giant Dentsū was enlisted and the SDF gained its very own mascot: the cute and inoffensive Prince Pickles, whose story was told in a dedicated manga series. Pickles is convinced that his peaceful, idyllic Paprika Kingdom has no need of its defence force. His father, the king, sees things differently. The prince cannot succeed him, says the king, unless he first learns at first-hand the value of maintaining such a force. Cue a series of adventures, involving a nearby ally, the Broccoli Kingdom and an Evil Empire just next-door, in the course of which Pickles learns that there can be no peace without a deterrent.
Prince Pickles and his love-interest, Miss Parsley, were eventually retired as SDF mascots, replaced by a boy and girl named Takuma-kun (from the Japanese word for “resolute”) and Yū-chan (from a word meaning “kind”). Meanwhile, the Self-Defence Forces have tried a range of other tactics to win over the public, from Miss Air Force Contests to music festivals. Then there are the live fire exercises held each year at the GSDF’s training area at the base of Mount Fuji, which used to attract tens of thousands of spectators before becoming a live-stream only event in 2023.
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SubscribeI like pickles. ☺️
Japan’s problem is China. They would do well to remember that. Their alliance with the Broccoli Kingdom isn’t going to be much help.
The majority of Japanese people were quite happy with their pacifist constitution until the Chinese started claiming chunks of maritime territory by building military bases and general sabre rattling. That and the penchant of the unpredictable North Koreans for missile testing and kidnapping Japanese citizens from beaches and settlements on the coast of Western Japan. And the threats to Taiwan mentioned above.
I have a notion that the Japanese military will be pretty good when they are fully up and running.
Shortly after Trump was elected, then-Prime Minister Abe arranged a meeting with Trump. It was obvious the Japanese government was keen to get a first-hand assessment of the US’ position in the northwestern Pacific.
It seems to me that Abe came away from the meeting convinced that Japan had no choice but to seriously see to its own defences.
The US’ disastrous performances in the field since then – Afghanistan, Syria, now Ukraine, the Red Sea – can only have reinforced Japanese attitudes.
Unlike Abe, Kishida is slavishly on the US line. I can’t make up my mind whether that is the government’s true position, or whether they’re just not ready yet and need more time to prepare before they cut the umbilical cord (or the US cuts it).