Missile test stirs defense debate
TOKYO — Japan is debating whether to develop a limited preemptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles — ideas that were anathema in the pacifist country before the North Korea missile threat. With revisions to Japan’s defense plans under way, ruling party hawks are accelerating the moves, and some defense experts say Japan should at least consider them.
A possibility of preemptive strike was formally proposed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by his party’s missile defense panel in March, prompting parliamentary debate. North Korea’s test-firing Tuesday of a missile that flew over Japan and landed in the northern Pacific Ocean has intensified fears and stoked the debate.
“Should we possess preemptive strike capability?” liberal-leaning Mainichi newspaper asked the missile test. “But isn’t it too reckless to jump to discuss a ‘get them before they get you’ approach?”
Japan has a two-step missile defense system. First, Standard Missile-3 interceptors on Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan would shoot down projectiles mid-flight and if that fails, surface-to-air PAC-3s would intercept them from within a 12mile range. Technically, the setup can handle falling debris or missiles heading to Japan, but it’s not good enough for missiles on a high-lofted trajectory, those with multiple warheads or simultaneous multiple attacks, experts say.
A preemptive strike, by Japanese definition, is a step preceding the twotier defense. Cruise missiles, such as Tomahawks, fired from Aegis destroyers or fighter jets would target the enemy missile waiting to be fired, or just after blastoff from a North Korean launch site, before it approaches Japan.
Japan’s self-defenseonly principle under the country’s war-renouncing constitution prohibits its military from making a first strike, and officials discussing a limited preemptive strike are calling it a “strike-back” instead. Whatever the language, it further loosens postwar Japan’s pacifist principle and could strain its relations with China, which is suspicious of Tokyo’s intentions.
Some experts are skeptical about how it would work. North Korea’s secretive, diversified and mobile launch system makes it extremely difficult to track down and incapacitate the weapons with Japan’s limited cruise missile attacks, security expert Ken Jimbo at Keio University said in a recent article. A preemptive strike capability would also require trillions of dollars to set up spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, cruise missiles, as well as training of special units, experts say.
North Korea flight-tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July and has threatened to send missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam, home to key military bases. The North already has short-range missiles that cover Japan and possibly has achieved miniaturized nuclear warheads, the Defense Ministry’s annual report says.
“North Korea has demonstrated its capability to hit targets anywhere in Japan,” said Narushige Michishita, a defense expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “It has become even more important for Japan to improve its missile and civil defense capabilities, and seriously think about acquiring limited but meaningful strike capabilities.”
Abe called Tuesday’s missile firing “unprecedented, grave and serious threat.” Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, an advocate of bolstering Japan’s missile and strike-back capability, said more provocations by the North are likely and Tokyo must quickly upgrade its missile arsenal.
Abe, since taking office five years ago, has expanded Japan’s military role, allowing it to take on a greater task in international peacekeeping.