Commentary | Tom Le, A Japanese Security Sea Change? Let’s See Change First
In a slew of announcements in mid-December 2022, the Kishida government initiated some of the biggest changes to Japanese security policy in the post-war era. Or that is at least what the international media headlines say concerning Japan’s decision to increase its defense spending to 2% of the GDP by 2027, to acquire counterstrike capabilities, and to clearly identify national security concerns. Pundits and scholars conclude these aspirations “break away from decades of pacifism,” are a “major step toward rearming the nation,” and most bluntly, show that “Japan abandons pacifism.” According to these sensationalist reports, not only would these policies have the potential to significantly augment the qualitative and quantitative strength of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), but they would do so at “lightning speed.”
To be fair, one can find more nuanced pieces that strike a balance between capturing the significance of these policy changes and tempering concerns of renewed Japanese militarism. Yet, the persistent “end of pacifism” argument is a strawman framing that results from overlooking, or even worse, misunderstanding, the longstanding domestic security policy debates in Japan. Increases in defense spending after a decade of decreases, acquisition of defense-oriented technologies, maintaining and upgrading long-ignored infrastructure, and ensuring the JSDF has the logistical and hardware support necessary for defending the homeland are not inconsistent with the pragmatic interpretation of Japan’s constitution. Put simply, since the inception of the JSDF in 1954, Japan has not been a pacifist country.
“Since the inception of the JSDF in 1954, Japan has not been a pacifist country.”
Kishida’s policy aspirations remain aspirations until they are fully funded and address Japan’s most significant security liability, its aging and declining population. Changes to Japanese security policy will remain deliberate and incremental as to not violate core tenets of anti-militarism.
Breaking through the One Percent Defense Spending Norm
The most attention-grabbing announcement may be the plan to increase defense spending to 2% of the GDP over the next five years, which on its surface appears to be not only a violation of the traditional 1% of GDP cap on military spending but also a doubling of Japan’s defense budget. If successfully funded, Japan would become the third largest defense spender behind China and the United States. This would place Japan on par with NATO guidelines – albeit less than half of NATO countries actually meet that minimum.
Yet this narrative overlooks the fact that the 1% cap was never a law but was a longstanding policy and powerful symbol of constrained militarism in the post-war era. Japan long had one of the top 10 defense budgets but fell out of the top 5 beginning in 2012 – coincidentally during the “hawkish” Abe Shinzo years. Abe announced his intention to break the barrier in 2017, yet saw little success in substantially increasing defense spending. The 2023 budget request alone would be a 26% increase over the previous year, which would amount to 1.3% of the GDP. Nevertheless, the focus on the final figure detracts from why the 1% norm was so telling about how Japan debates security policy. The politics of debating and maintaining the appearance of 1% was almost as important as the line items in the defense budget itself.
When the 1% cap was first introduced by Prime Minister Miki Takeo in 1976, it was not even tied to GDP but to GNP. And the 1% cap was breached four times since the policy was abandoned by Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro in 1987. When considering Host Nation Support (HNS), Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO), and supplementary budget spending, Japan regularly broke the 1% barrier. Over the last ten years, supplementary budgets have played an increasingly large role in funding the Ministry of Defense (MOD). In 2022, the final defense budget was 1.09% of the GDP. In recent years, the supplementary budgets made up over 10% of the overall budget in some years.
The 2023 budget request places particular importance on defense equipment procurement, which is consistent with MOD policy papers highlighting the importance of cyber security, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and surveillance along with missiles and ships. Increased spending is also necessary to keep up with the rising costs of Foreign Military Sales (FMS), which have increased almost 10-fold between 2010 and 2021. The increased budget might not go as far as Japan hopes. From 2010 to 2022, the yen fell 60% against the dollar and as far as 79% just this last October.
The Japanese government is also adopting a new defense budget calculation that will include line items that traditionally were placed in non-defense ministries and agencies, such as defense-related infrastructure, R&D, and Coast Guard, among others. Thus, new defense spending will be considerably less than doubling the defense budget.
If breaking through the 1% defense spending norm is nothing new, then what has been a meaningful change is the government’s willingness to openly discuss security spending. This whole-of-nation security discussion shows a growing securitization of the economy – one that includes supply chains, private industry, and other ministries in government – although tying the economy to security is not a new phenomenon. In a sense, the defense budget is more transparent because getting past 1% has historically been achieved through accounting tricks and supplemental spending that evades headlines. The public will now have insight on all defense-related expenditures. Hence, the topic of security debates has shifted from the arbitrary 1% barrier to the public’s willingness to pay for national security. Pundits may point to polling data that shows a public increasingly concerned about China and North Korea, but academic scholarship has shown for well over a decade that the public has always had an eye on regional threats.
Fully funding the new budgets may prove difficult. Kishida’s funding plans, or lack thereof, have drawn criticism from the media and from within the LDP. A Kyodo News poll found 64.9% of respondents disapprove a tax hike and 74.5% oppose the government’s plan to divert tax revenue earmarked for 2011 disaster reconstruction for security. Other options include cutting expenses elsewhere, which will draw their own political fights. Plans to tax corporations despite warnings of a global recession, and taxing cigarettes, which have seen a 50% drop in sales volume in the last ten years, may not go as far as the government needs. Levying taxes and selling bonds to an aging and shrinking population have been fraught debates in the past.
For every new policy announcement that will turn Japan into a “normal” military power, there are setbacks such as troubled withdrawals from UN missions, failed submarine export deals, public protests, and defense minister resignations. In sum, changing the discussion around the 1% norm has been incredibly difficult and signals an important change in the security bargaining context, but it may have been the easiest obstacle to overcome.
Motivations
A second common narrative of recent headlines has been, “Japan scraps pacifist postwar defense strategy to counter China threat” and “How Putin’s spooking Japan further away from pacifism.” In this regard, the transparency behind defense budget calculations is matched with a forthrightness in identifying threats to Japanese security.
Japan’s National Security Strategy identifies China, Russia, North Korea, and Taiwan as important security concerns that warrant a whole-of-nation security strategy. Realists are quick to find causality here, claiming a changing balance of power has forced Japan to forego pacifism for rapid militarization. One wonders why increased global defense spending over the past few decades has not made the world secure enough to not warrant even the most peaceful nations to pursue increased defense spending. But the timing of increased defense spending in relation to perceived threats is less of a reflection of a sudden shift in global power balance, and more of a continuation of debates that Japan has with every new budget.
North Korea’s missile tests have been alarming as of late, but it has possessed nuclear weapons for over a decade. Besides, this is not the first time the country has conducted multiple tests in a short period, with 2014 and 2017 being particularly active years. China’s rise should have been alarming in 2004 when it overtook Japan in defense spending, yet the Japanese defense budget actually decreased from 2002 to 2012. China’s tough talk on Taiwan is concerning, so much so that Taiwan will extend its mandatory military conscription period. Still, Japan has not been spooked enough to implement conscription, initiate an aggressive recruitment campaign, or significantly increase the JSDF’s personnel budget (only 1% increase in the 2023 budget request).
China has been a key concern in Defense of Japan White Papers for over a decade and discussions of Taiwan greatly expanded in the last few years. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major development, one that shows up several times in the new security papers. Yet, this invasion has little to do with Japan’s immediate security, and if anything, Russia is likely to leave this war far weaker than when it entered. A small country such as Ukraine holding Russia to a stalemate with no end in sight is not exactly a radical shift in the global power balance. If Russia’s actions were a real trigger, then there should have been a greater response from Japan when it annexed Crimea in 2014. The claim that these security challenges have led to a sudden shift in Japanese security policy does not address why the changes did not occur earlier, nor explain why Japan does not spend more than 2% and adopt more offensive-oriented technologies.
These three specific security concerns can be collapsed into a need to protect a “rules-based order.” In a sense, a well-functioning global system has allowed Japan to gain prosperity and security without an over-reliance on the military, which constructivists have always argued was part of the security calculus in addition to norms. The new guidelines maintain that “Japan under the Constitution has adhered to the basic precept of maintaining the exclusively defense-oriented policy and not becoming a military power that poses threats to other countries, ensured civilian control of the military, and observed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. Japan under these basic precepts will ever not change the course it has taken as a peace-loving nation.” “Peace loving” has never meant pacifism, but a preference to limiting the use of force whenever possible.
Defense-Oriented Technology
A third sensationalist narrative in response to the recent announcements has been about how the intention to acquire long-range missiles that will provide counterstrike capability seems like a slippery slope towards greater power projection. Coupled with the recent agreement with the United Kingdom and Italy to develop a next-generation fighter by 2035, Japan reportedly seems ready to develop and acquire new hardware. China has expressed opposition to greater Japanese capabilities, and state-sponsored media has bitterly reacted, claiming “Japan may completely get rid of its post-war pacifist image…to become a country that poses a threat to its neighbors, develops its military industry, and is likely to use force abroad.”
However, debates over the interpretations over the limits on the use of force, the scenarios warranting a counterattack, and the rules of engagement have been core elements of Japanese security debates since the inception of the JSDF – especially since the very existence of the JSDF may be a violation of the constitution. Over time, self-imposed restraints on the use of force led to an underdeveloped defense sector that make rapid remilitarization difficult. Japanese military contractors lack the development experience and talent pipeline for a fundamental shift in JSDF capabilities. Japan’s defense-oriented technology is the result of legal, technological, economic, and normative constraints. Regardless of what hardware the JSDF possesses, it lacks the bodies to become an offensive-oriented force. An accurate description of the adoption of new defense technologies is not rapid militarization or the end of pacifism, but the attempt to fill in widening gaps in Japan’s defense as it also tries to fend off the consequences of a stagnant economy and aging and declining population
Conclusion
Any adoption of more defense spending or new strategies will seem immense when arguing against a premise that “Japan’s culture of pacifism was immutable.” But this is a view that few, if any, mainstream scholars share. Yet, pacifism was never a hegemonic viewpoint in government or society, and Japan has debated the use of force for the entirety of the post-war era. These debates are not new and will be bounded by longstanding antimilitaristic restraints and demographic constraints that make rapid militarization very difficult. Despite the obvious concerns over the security environment, the authors of the new National Security Strategy make clear that the new policies are made within the senshu boei (exclusively defense oriented) principle and are not a departure from the “peace state” posture. These changes will not come easily and a lot will have to go right for Japan to meet Kishida’s goals. The economy will have to grow during a global recession and pandemic, some groups and corporations in Japan must be willing to pay new taxes, joint weapons development must be completed on time and within budget, the LDP needs public support in the next election, and Kishida needs to remain in power. 2027 can’t come soon enough.
Dr. Tom Le is Associate Professor of Politics at Pomona College. His current work includes examinations of the impact of demographics and technology on security, antinuclear movements and the environment, and war memory and reconciliation. Le is the author of Japan's Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century (Columbia University Press, 2021). Hina Tanabe (Pomona College ‘23) provided research assistance for this article. The author would like to thank Sebastian Maslow (Sendai Shirayuri Women’s College) and Tristan Grunow (Nagoya University) for their feedback.
To cite this essay, please use the entry provided below:
Tom Le, “A Japanese Security Sea Change? Let’s See Change First,” criticalasianstudies.org Commentary Board, January 4, 2023; https://doi.org/10.52698/WAJO6699.