The Alliance and the Two Navies: 2001–2022

Abstract

This chapter explores the post-Cold War naval relationship between Japan and the United States from 2001 up through 2022, and traces the ups and downs in the alliance that occurred in those years, focusing mostly on bilateral navy-to-navy relations. With the end of the Cold War, Japan had to make changes in light of the new international security environment, including nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. The importance of strong Japan-US naval relations are highlighted in the response to the Ehime Maru sinking, in Japan’s support of its US ally after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in relief operations the US military and Japan Self-Defense Forces jointly provided after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The chapter concludes by sketching out developments in Japan’s security policy amid uncertainties such as the rise of China and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

This chapter was reworked substantially for the revised English edition.

The JMSDF Today

Time flies. In 2022, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) celebrated the 70th anniversary of its establishment in 1952. The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) lasted 73 years, from its establishment in 1872 until its disbandment in 1945. Thus, by the end of 2025, the JMSDF will have existed for longer than the IJN.

Twenty-one years have passed since 2001, the year that the first edition of the original Japanese version of this book was published and the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place. This time span corresponds to nearly a third of the history of the JMSDF. In these years, the JMSDF’s missions, roles, and capabilities have expanded significantly, arguably more than they did during its first 49 years.

For example, the JMSDF in 2022 operates two new helicopter destroyers, each with the standard displacement of 19,500 tons: JS Izumo, commissioned in 2015, and JS Kaga, commissioned in 2017. Their carrier-like structure with a flat flight deck from bow to stern permits each to carry as many as 14 helicopters. Taking advantage of this structure, the 2022 defense budget provided for the cost of making JS Izumo and JS Kaga capable of allowing the (STOVL)¹ F35B combat aircraft to take off from and land on their flight decks. Thus, these two ships will start functioning as fully-fledged light aircraft carriers, as well, in a few years, symbolizing the JMSDF’s entry into a new era.

The JMSDF also operates eight Aegis ships, more than any other navy in the world except for the United States Navy. Developed and deployed by the US Navy, the Aegis system is an air-defense system integrating high-performance radar, information-processing devices, and missile-launch capability. It has the revolutionary capability to track more than 200 targets simultaneously and intercept more than ten of them at once. Japan’s first Aegis destroyer, JS Kongō (standard displacement of 7250 tons), was commissioned in 1993, while the two newest Maya-class Aegis ships with more advanced capabilities, JS Maya and JS Haguro (standard displacement 8200 tons), were commissioned in 2020 and 2021.

In addition, the JMSDF now operates 12 Sōryū-class non-nuclear submarines with their highly advanced capabilities, including an air-independent propulsion system that uses Stirling engines. This system allows the submarine to stay submerged for an extended period of time without taking in atmospheric oxygen. In addition, a new Taigei-class submarine with even higher capabilities was commissioned in 2022, with five more scheduled to be built and commissioned in the next 5 years.

With this series of reinforcements, the JMSDF has become a world-class navy today. As the JMSDF has improved its capabilities, it has expanded its cooperation with the US Navy, including in fields that are critical but less visible, such as communications, intelligence, and information technology. The two navies have also increased their joint focus on new domains of war, such as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. These efforts are to deal with significant shifts in the security environment.

Yet, an observer of the trajectory of the Japan-US alliance would notice that not everything has gone smoothly. Over the past two decades, the alliance and defense cooperation have faltered at times. There were even periods of crisis when the basis of the alliance was severely shaken. This chapter traces these ups and downs in the alliance that occurred in those 21 years, focusing mostly on bilateral navy-to-navy relations.

Japan-US Naval Relations in the Post-Cold War Period

The biggest turning point in the 70-year history of the JMSDF was the ending of the Cold War. Before that watershed event, Japan’s defense policy was firmly based on two presumptions. One was that the Cold War would continue for many years to come. The other was that US armed forces would deter the Soviet Union from attacking Japan and, in the event, defend Japan with every means available including its nuclear weapons. After that turning point, the first presumption disappeared, and the second did not seem as solid as before. As a vital element of the Japan-US alliance, the relationship between the JMSDF and the US Navy had to adjust to this entirely new reality.

This book covers this naval relationship during the Cold War period in Chaps. 1–8, while Chap. 9 describes Japan’s and the JMSDF’s response to the Gulf War, the first major international security crisis in the post-Cold War period, focusing on the post-combat dispatch of minesweepers to the Gulf. Chapter 10 touches upon some aspects of the relationship during the first decade of this period in a summary fashion up through 2000. Before turning to the post-Cold War naval relationship between Japan and the United States from 2001 up through 2022, let us take a brief look at what took place after the dispatch of minesweepers to the Gulf in 1991 through 2000.

The end of the Cold War did not lead to the arrival of lasting peace. In reality, a series of security threats that had been suppressed during the Cold War emerged in new forms in the developing world, as well as international terrorism. With the Cold War’s end, threats did not disappear, they proliferated. The search for a proper response to this fundamental change in the security environment started in earnest.

The first major challenge Japan faced in the post-Cold War era was the Gulf War; Japan’s considerable financial support was roundly criticized as all but failing to contribute to the cause of the multinational forces. So, Japan started to take part in the United Nation’s peacekeeping operations (PKO) to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and order. Japanese PKO troops, mostly from the JGSDF, were first dispatched to Cambodia in the fall of 1992, under the recently passed Act on Cooperation for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and Other Operations (the PKO Act).

The second post-Cold War challenge was the 1994 North Korea crisis. The United States was on the verge of attacking North Korea over concerns about North Korea’s nuclear development. For Japan, the emergency on the Korean Peninsula represented an incomparably greater threat to Japan than the Gulf Crisis. Nevertheless, it could do almost nothing under its security and legal systems of the time. There were no laws or preparations whatsoever in place regarding, among other issues, the rescue of Japanese nationals abroad, the handling of mass refugees, the support of the United States as a party in conflict, or the maritime blockade in accordance with the UN economic sanctions.

Driven by this sense of crisis, Japanese and US experts, including JSDF personnel, held numerous meetings, mainly to deal with the possibility of an emergency on the Korean Peninsula and to review the post-Cold War Japan-US alliance. That led to President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto issuing the Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security during the president’s visit to Japan in April 1996. Although, as Chap. 9 describes, Japan-US relations had become strained, even in the security realm, during his administration’s first term, President Clinton came to understand the importance of the bilateral alliance through the North Korea crisis and the subsequent Taiwan Strait Crisis.²

Following the Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security, the new Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation, drafted by Japanese and US experts, were issued in 1997. In 1999, the Law Concerning Measures to Ensure the Peace and Security of Japan in Situations in Areas Surrounding Japan was enacted to give the Guidelines a legal basis.

The third challenge after the Cold War was North Korea’s launch of its Taepodong ballistic missile in August 1998 and the incident involving unidentified ships on the Sea of Japan off the Noto Peninsula in March 1999. These two incidents represented direct threats to Japan. Moreover, these were the first cases in which Japan faced national security problems of its own that featured the new threats of the post-Cold War world: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and irregular warfare such as terrorism and guerrilla attacks. Japan’s security and legal systems, however, were utterly inadequate to deal with these incidents. In the case of the unidentified ships, the minister of defense ordered the JMSDF to undertake a maritime security operation (provided in the JSDF Act as a police action on the seas) for the first time. JMSDF destroyers, JS Myōkō and JS Haruna, as well as P-3 antisubmarine patrol aircraft took over the pursuit of the unidentified ships from MSA patrol vessels and aircraft, which had been unable to keep up, and kept firing warning shots.

Following this incident, the MSA and the JMSDF examined and implemented various countermeasures to deal with threats falling into the gray zone between police and military actions. It accelerated the preparation of what came to be called contingency legislation (including the Armed Attack Situations Response Act), which had been a long-standing issue since the establishment of the Japan Defense Agency and the JMSDF.

The Clinton administration in its second term showed its firm commitment to the alliance through the Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security, responding to Japanese urging and to the changing security environment in Northeast Asia. Nevertheless, the administration never seemed truly enthusiastic about the alliance with Japan throughout its 8 years in power, occasionally showing a tendency to lean toward China. It also substantially cut the US military budget, which resulted in fewer joint exercises and operations between the JMSDF and US Navy.

The Ehime Maru Incident

As this initial decade following the end of the Cold War was drawing to a close, the alliance confronted yet another challenge: the Ehime Maru incident. People tend to forget that the incident was a major crisis for the Japan-US alliance, partly because the 9/11 terrorist attacks 7 months later were so shocking, and the alliance thereafter became closer than ever. What prevented the Ehime Maru incident from getting out of hand and damaging the alliance before 9/11 was the friendship, trust, and respect that had long been cultivated between the JMSDF and the US Navy.

On February 9, 2001, at 1:45 p.m. local time, 18.5 kilometers south of Oahu, Hawaii, the US Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine USS Greeneville (6080 displacement tons) performed an emergency ballast-blow surfacing maneuver and collided with the Ehime Maru, a tuna longline training ship of the Uwajima Fisheries High School, a prefectural high school in Ehime, which happened to be sailing nearby. The Greeneville’s vertical rudder hit the hull of the Ehime Maru, causing a huge crack, and the Japanese vessel immediately began to sink; in about 5 minutes, the training ship was underwater. There were 35 people aboard the ship, including 13 second-year students in the marine engineering course and two teachers. Twenty-six people (12 of them with minor injuries) were soon rescued, but nine, including four students, went missing despite a frantic search.

The US submarine had been navigating underwater with 16 civilians onboard for a Distinguished Visitor Embarkation (DVE) mission. Its commanding officer, Commander Scott Waddle, had ordered, among other maneuvers, an emergency surfacing to show the submarine’s excellent maneuverability. The lookout for surface ships was reportedly neglected, with everyone distracted by the civilians. Clearly caused by human error, the incident drew criticism not only from the families of the victims lost aboard the training ship but from citizens all over Japan as well.

A week after the incident, the Ehime Maru was found on the seabed roughly 900 meters away from the collision site, at a depth of 620 meters. The bereaved families demanded the US Navy salvage and search the ship, because the bodies of those who had been unable to escape due to the speed with which it sank likely remained inside. They were angry and the atmosphere was tense. However, the US Navy was initially reluctant to undertake that task.

The Ehime Maru incident happened only 20 days after the George W. Bush administration had assumed office on January 20, having stated it intent to reinvigorate the alliance with Japan. Tokyo and Washington both seriously considered the possibility that the incident would harm bilateral relations. Aware of that risk, the Bush administration accepted responsibility and set out to meet, to the fullest extent possible, Japanese requests on how to respond to the incident.

After performing a technical survey, the US Navy promised to lift the Ehime Maru from the ocean floor, move it to a shoal where divers could work, and search the ship for the missing. A workboat of a Dutch salvage company commissioned by the US Navy transferred the Ehime Maru roughly 26 kilometers from the grounding site to a point which was approximately 2 kilometers off the seaside runway of Honolulu International Airport (at a depth of 35 meters) (Fig. 11.1).

To support the US Navy’s salvage operation, the JMSDF decided to send its newest submarine rescue ship, JS Chihaya (5450 displacement tons), to Oahu. How the JMSDF should respond to the Ehime Maru incident raised a difficult question. The accident had occurred off Hawaii, far from Japan, and the JMSDF was not a party to the incident. Hence, the JMSDF was not obligated to assist. Its involvement carried a risk that the JMSDF might find itself facing unwarranted domestic criticism for siding with the US Navy, whose submarine had caused the accident. At this time of crisis that shook the foundation of the alliance, however, the JMSDF could not help but support its naval ally facing difficulties. With this rationale, the JMSDF leadership decided to send JS Chihaya.

JS Chihaya entered Pearl Harbor on August 20. As soon as it arrived, the US Navy commenced the salvage operation for the Ehime Maru. The Chihaya launched an unmanned submersible to survey the ocean floor. Initially, the lifting and transfer were expected to be completed by the end of August, but the operation faced hard going. All sorts of difficulties occurred including two incidents in which the wires lifting steel plates inserted between the ship’s bottom and the seabed snapped. The operation began to fall behind schedule, with no end in sight.

In the meantime, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred in New York and Washington, D.C. Following this unprecedented incident, some within the US Navy demanded that the salvage of the Ehime Maru be discontinued, arguing that the Navy should concentrate all its energies and resources on taking countermeasures against the terrorist attacks. The operation continued, however, at the insistence of Admiral Fargo, CINCPACFLT.

The lifting and transfer of the Ehime Maru were finally completed on October 15, far behind schedule. The following day, with the ship now in shallow waters, US Navy divers commenced the onboard search. The bodies of eight of the nine missing members were found and recovered, and their identities were confirmed.

At the end of October, as the search for the bodies drew near the end, the US Navy brought the bereaved families to the salvage area in a chartered commercial boat. They could just make out the yellow beam floating near the surface that was lifting the Ehime Maru, but not the sunken training ship itself. One by one, they tossed flowers into the sea.

When the time came to leave the salvage area, and the chartered boat was preparing to move, a family member asked the JMSDF liaison officer, Commander Hideki Hayashi, in a voice choked with emotion, to convey their gratitude to the divers working on the dive platform. He radioed the message to the US Navy officer in charge; the divers on the platform answered that they would continue to do everything they could for the families. When he relayed the divers’ reply, the families spontaneously began to wave toward the platform; the divers on the platform all waved back. At this point, everyone in the salvage area began to cry, the family members, the US naval personnel, and Commander Hayashi, too.

The US Navy concluded the search on November 7 without finding the body of the last trainee student, despite their unrelenting efforts. Based on the original agreement, the JMSDF divers conducted the final onboard checks from November 8, the day after the US Navy’s search was completed, to November 16. They, too, were unable to find the last body. Upon completing their final search, the divers wept on the deck.

For Commander Hayashi, the 9 months following the accident that he spent frantically coordinating as liaison officer between the JMSDF, the US Navy, the bereaved families, and the media with no chance to rest were more demanding than the 17-years’ worth of his other experiences as a JMSDF officer. He saw it through to the end for the sake of the families, the JMSDF and the US Navy, the Japanese and US governments, and the alliance. He wrote in his memoir (Fig. 11.1):

Fig. 11.1

Map of the Ehime Maru Incident. (Courtesy of Hideki Hayashi)

Japan and the United States have many differences in our values and sentiments. Our understandings of history often collide, and at times the gap feels unbridgeable.

Despite these differences, Japan and the United States must interact with each other as allies. I think it requires the accumulation of shared experiences above all else. Only after overcoming difficulties and problems together will we start to empathize with and trust in each other.

When he finished his 2-year term in Hawaii and headed home, he sent an email to about 600 US Navy officers and sailors with whom he had worked, stating, “I’ll never forget that I learned about ‘honor,’ the US Navy’s most splendid tradition.”

One last episode of the Ehime Maru incident. Soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a few of the Ehime Maru family members whose loved ones were still missing came to see Commander Hayashi. Entrusting him with some money, they requested that he convey the money to Admiral Fargo, CINCPACFLT. They explained how grateful they were to all the US Navy personnel who had been working so hard to find the bodies of their loved ones. Now that the 9/11 attacks had occurred, they were certain, they said, that the families of those US Navy people who were killed on 9/11 must be experiencing pain and suffering just as they had. Thus, they wanted to express their sympathy and love to the families of those who died on 9/11 by giving them the donations that Japanese American citizens in Hawaii had raised for the Ehime Maru families.

Commander Hayashi visited Admiral Fargo, expressed the families’ wish, and handed him an envelope with their donation. The admiral remained puzzled as to why the families of the students had to donate money to the US Navy. As Hayashi further explained the families’ feelings, Admiral Fargo’s eyes gradually misted over: he seemed to have gotten the point. He thanked Commander Hayashi, then asked him to shut the door on his way out. The episode stuck with Hayashi. He later learned from the admiral’s flag aide that, after Hayashi departed, the admiral had been weeping in his room, apparently needing some time alone to regain his composure (Fig. 11.2).

Fig. 11.2

US Navy divers send off the submarine rescue ship JS Chihaya, departing Pearl Harbor. (Courtesy of Hideki Hayashi)

The War on Terror and Japan’s Response

The multiple terrorist attacks simultaneously carried out in the United States on September 11, 2001, shook the US government’s and the nation’s views on national security. US citizens were dismayed to learn that the US armed forces, the mightiest in the world, were unable to prevent the attacks by highjacked jetliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.³

Following this unprecedented incident, President Bush declared the launch of the “War on Terror,” a conflict that has lasted for 20 years. In the early period of the war, the United States received sympathy and support from all over the world. NATO member countries promised to join the United States in fighting in the War on Terrorism. To do so, they passed a joint resolution to exercise, as necessary, the right to collective self-defense for the first time since World War II.

Japan’s response to the 9/11 attacks was quick. A former member of the Maritime Staff told me that he and a few of his colleagues at the Operations and Plans Department, MSO, got together a couple of hours after the attacks occurred, late at night on September 11 Japan time. They discussed what impact these terrorist attacks in New York and Washington would have upon the alliance. They agreed that the JMSDF needed to act promptly.

About a week after the attacks, the Jun’ichirō Koizumi cabinet issued a statement on “seven immediate measures,” including dispatching JMSDF ships to gather information and to provide support, such as medical services and transportation, to US forces.

According to press coverage, when USS Kitty Hawk was about to make an urgent departure from its homeport of Yokosuka, the JMSDF destroyers JS Shirane and JS Amagiri left the same port at roughly the same time to escort the US carrier out of Tokyo Bay. If terrorists had hijacked a commercial aircraft and turned it slightly left as it was landing at Haneda Airport, they could have crashed it into the carrier anchored at the US Naval Forces Japan’s Yokosuka base in a few minutes. The very fact that USS Kitty Hawk departed under fears of such a possibility shows how abnormally tense the atmosphere was at the time.

The JMSDF sent the two destroyers as a gesture of sympathy for the US Navy. A CNN broadcast of the JMSDF destroyers navigating Tokyo Bay as they accompanied USS Kitty Hawk evoked a considerable response in the United States. Michael J. Green, who served in the White House during the George W. Bush administration as special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Asian affairs, told me later that the video sent a strong message that Japan and the United States were cooperating at a difficult time.

One day after the terrorist attacks, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1368, which recognized member states’ inherent right of individual and collective self-defense. Subsequently, US and multinational forces launched an attack in Afghanistan on October 7. The US government also requested that the Japanese government participate in the War on Terrorism. A decade had passed since the Gulf War when Japan essentially failed to respond to similar requests. Lessons learned from that episode remained fresh in the minds of many Japanese involved in national security matters at the time.

If Japan had done nothing in the face of the greatest security crisis in American history, it would have meant the collapse of the Japan-US alliance. The Koizumi cabinet decided to assist and support as much as it could within the constraints of the Japanese Constitution. Concluding that a response under the existing laws would be problematic, a cabinet decision was made on October 5 to submit the Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Bill to the Diet. The bill was passed by both houses of the Diet and enacted on October 29.

In response to this development, the JMSDF first dispatched the underway replenishment (UNREP) ship JS Hamana as well as the destroyers JS Kurama and JS Kirisame to the Indian Ocean on November 9 under the pretext of doing research. Then the UNREP ship JS Towada, the destroyer JS Sawagiri, and the minesweeper tender JS Uraga were dispatched as part of the Coalition of the Willing, and they started operations based on the just-enacted Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Act together with the three vessels dispatched earlier. Their main operation was to refuel coalition vessels taking part in the war in Afghanistan. This refueling operation earned the appreciation of other countries and further strengthened the Japan-US alliance.

As the United States began a second offensive, the Iraq War in 2003, and international society grew increasingly critical of “Bush’s war,” the Koizumi cabinet’s assistance in the War on Terrorism and support of the Iraq War also came under fire in Japan. Refueling operations in the Indian Ocean came to an end when the enabling legislation expired in January 2010 and was not extended under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration that came into office after winning the 2009 general election.⁴

Nevertheless, the Japan-US alliance was stronger and closer than ever before under the Bush administration, which vigorously prosecuted the Global War on Terrorism for 8 years, and the LDP cabinets led by four prime ministers—Jun’ichirō Koizumi, Shinzō Abe, Yasuo Fukuda, and Tarō Asō. Notably, Prime Minister Koizumi and President Bush enjoyed one of the friendliest relationships between Japanese and American leaders.

The friendship between the two leaders was not merely because they got along with each other well. Koizumi and his cabinet supported Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the face of opposition from France, Germany, and other US allies, Washington had to give up the idea of obtaining a UN resolution approving the use of force against Iraq. Because the United States was feeling increasingly isolated, the support of the Japanese and the British at that time was crucial for President Bush and many American citizens. They were grateful for it.

An alliance is a relationship in which one country stands with an ally that is facing difficulty, provides it support and advice, and, if necessary, fights alongside it. Japan had long depended on American military power for the defense of its homeland under the alliance. Half a century after the conclusion of the Security Treaty, the United States genuinely needed the support of one of its key allies, Japan, for the first time. Prime Minister Koizumi did not just blindly give his support to American wars. He also frankly demanded that President Bush make every effort to obtain a UN resolution when starting a war against Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is said to have made the same demand. The Japanese and British prime ministers had significant influence over the president.

Japan-US relations were, in view of the difficult international circumstances, extremely positive during the period I served as the minister for public affairs in charge of public diplomacy and press relations at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. from September 2002 to April 2005. Bush administration officials, including the president, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, as well as their deputies, all maintained close relationships with the Japanese embassy team led by Ambassador Ryōzō Katō. They had frank exchanges at various levels.

The Bush administration appointed people with experience managing the alliance with Japan to important posts, including Richard Armitage, James A. Kelly, Michael Green, and Torkel Patterson. What is more, many of them were former US naval officers.

Likewise, Ambassador Katō was an exceptionally seasoned diplomat. He had been in charge of Japan-US security relations in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for years and was respected by Japanese and American politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, armed forces personnel, and business leaders alike. Under Ambassador Katō, the capable diplomats he had mentored came together and concentrated on maintaining and strengthening the bilateral alliance under the complicated circumstances of the Global War on Terrorism. The friendship across the sea that had been fostered between the Japanese and US navies now existed beyond navies.

China, Democratic Party Leaders in Power, and the Great East Japan Earthquake

The focus of the Bush administration after 9/11 was fighting the Global War on Terrorism; Japan spared no effort in supporting the United States and other countries in the international effort that Tokyo conceived as its own security issue. In the meantime, the global strategic environment was beginning to change yet again.

While the United States was pouring its military resources into the Middle East, China was steadily improving its military strength such that by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, it began to reveal glimpses of being a major military power. Russia, too, showed signs of revival, after having suffered a significant decline and loss of influence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and began posing a security threat to the West once again. Meanwhile, unconventional and asymmetrical threats like terrorism and piracy did not disappear. In addition, regional powers such as Iran and Turkey gained prominence, while North Korea continued to pose a serious threat by increasing its offensive capabilities through the development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. New threats also emerged in space, cyberspace, and other high-tech domains. As a result, the global strategic environment became more diversified, complex, and technologically advanced.

Amid the significant change in the security environment, President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, and the Democrats came into power in the United States for the first time in 8 years. In Japan, Yukio Hatoyama formed a DPJ cabinet in September, after his party won the most seats in the House of Representatives: the DPJ gained the largest percentage and number of seats under the current constitution. The LDP did not come in first place for the first time since the party was established in 1955. The DPJ remained in office for the next 3 years.

Having won the election by criticizing the Bush administration’s War on Terror and promising to withdraw from Iraq, President Obama, along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, put forward what was called the “rebalance” or “pivot” strategy. They asserted that core American security interests lay in the Asia-Pacific region, not in the Middle East. Born in Hawaii and raised in Indonesia, Obama called himself America’s first Pacific president. He appealed for deeper cooperation with Japan on his first visit to Tokyo in November 2009.

Prime Minister Hatoyama, however, did not respond positively to President Obama’s appeal for closer security cooperation with Japan. Instead, he pledged to relocate the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma out of Okinawa and created chaos on the question of reorganizing the US bases in Okinawa, which were and remain to this day vital to the deterrence of the Chinese power in the region. “Trust me,” he told the president, implying that his administration would continue to support US security policy in the Asia-Pacific region as an ally. Yet, Hatoyama failed to either relocate the base within Okinawa to Henoko, as the Japanese and US governments had agreed, or move it out of the prefecture. The matter of the relocation of Futenma Air Base was set back to square one; the base relocation has yet to take place.

President Obama and his administration grew to distrust Hatoyama and appeared to hold serious doubts about the DPJ cabinet’s commitment to the Japan-US alliance. Some officials within the Obama administration proposed improving security relations with China instead, while others allegedly attempted to strengthen the US-South Korea alliance as the core US alliance in East Asia. Having failed to please anyone, Hatoyama resigned less than 9 months after he assumed the premiership.

Naoto Kan, another DPJ leader, succeeded Hatoyama as the new prime minister in June 2010, but he, too, failed to build a good relationship with President Obama and regain his trust as an ally. Although Kan focused his attention on dealing with the triple disaster of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011 and the ensuing Fukushima nuclear reactor accident, arguably the biggest national crisis since 1945, he was an ineffective leader overall and resigned in September 2011 having lost the trust of his own party.

It was Yoshihiko Noda, succeeding Kan to become the third DPJ prime minister, who finally began the process of putting Japan’s alliance with the United States back on track. A strong supporter of the alliance and a smart and solid politician, Noda arrived a bit too late to make lasting progress with the security relationship. Full-scale improvements had to await the formation of the LDP’s second Abe cabinet.

Regardless of any damage the Hatoyama/Kan DPJ administrations’ erratic policies caused to the alliance, Operation Tomodachi, which commenced immediately following the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, provided a broad sharing of experiences between the JSDF and US armed forces as well as between the Japanese public and US forces. Carried out by the US Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps joining the rescue and relief efforts of the JSDF, police, fire departments, local governments, and other government and non-government organizations, Operation Tomodachi was a series of major disaster relief operations and programs. Other foreign governments also sent their rescue teams into the most severely hit areas of Japan, but Operation Tomodachi was by far the largest—in scale, in kind, and in the number of people involved.

It began when the US Navy aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, sailing near Japan to take part in a US-South Korea joint exercise, immediately changed its course upon learning that a major earthquake had hit northern Japan. The vessel headed straight for the waters off the eastern coast of the Tohoku region and started relief activities 2 days after the earthquake.

People living in the disaster area sincerely appreciated the US forces’ quick and effective relief activities; US officers, sailors, and soldiers, for their part, were impressed by the stoic way the Japanese people coped with the crisis, well-mannered and appreciative even in the midst of immense tragedy. One Navy helicopter pilot landed at a small village badly hit by the earthquake and wanted to leave a villager with a box full of food, water, and other items he had brought from USS Ronald Reagan. Yet, the villager declined to accept the box; he told the pilot through an interpreter that they had already received enough relief goods from US forces, and he asked that the pilot kindly deliver the box to a village nearby that had been cut off from the outside and had received no relief supplies yet.

The Senkaku Islands rose to prominence after the Noda cabinet acquired three of the islands from a private owner in 2012. China started to let its navy and coast guard behave more assertively around the Senkaku Islands (which it claims is Chinese territory) that are near the Okinawa Islands, with its vessels frequently entering Japan’s territorial waters. While avoiding a direct clash, the JMSDF, in cooperation with the Japan Coast Guard,⁵ has dealt with these incidents in the East China Sea, where tensions continue rising due to increased violations of Japanese territorial waters by Chinese government ships.

In 2009 the JMSDF also started sending aircraft to a facility in Djibouti to monitor the activities of pirates in the neighboring waters as well as dispatching vessels to escort merchant ship convoys in the Gulf of Aden. Since 2014, Japan has taken part in the multinational forces, CTF151. The monitoring and escorting activities are based on the Law on Punishment of and Measures against Acts of Piracy that Japan enacted in June 2009, in line with the UN resolution that aimed at dealing with piracy off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

Abe’s Second Appearance and His New Security Policy

Prime Minister Noda’s genuine efforts to regain Japanese voters’ trust in the DPJ and to rebuild the alliance with the United States failed to bring him victory in the 2012 general election. Noda had no choice but return power to the LDP.

The second Abe cabinet, formed in December 2012, grappled with, inter alia, the fundamental reconstruction of Japan’s security policy, which had stagnated during the DPJ’s tenure in office. Making a solid Japan-US alliance its cornerstone, the Abe cabinet established the National Security Secretariat, formulated Japan’s first National Security Strategy, drew up the new National Defense Program Guidelines as well as the Medium Term Defense Program, enacted the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, and set out the Three Principles of Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology. In 2015, it also overcame strong opposition to enact new and comprehensive national security legislation that permitted Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense under a few strictly qualifying circumstances. Thus, we can safely say that a consistent security structure was finally established under the leadership of Prime Minister Shinzō Abe during his second and subsequent terms (2012–2020).

The reconstruction of Japan’s security policy, which Abe initiated and implemented by establishing a new strategic framework and legislative structure, was only the beginning of his cabinet’s effort to improve the effectiveness and readiness of the alliance. The JMSDF and the US Navy both had issues and challenges to cope with. For example, US Navy ships homeported in Yokosuka caused a series of ship collisions and near misses in 2017, which the Navy addressed by relieving the commander, US Seventh Fleet, of his post in order to take responsibility for these incidents. Some attributed a perceived decline of morale and discipline among US sailors to the significant cuts in the Navy’s budget during the 8 years of the Obama administration.

For its part, the JMSDF has in the last 10 years upgraded its weapons and equipment in response to China’s military expansion, tensions in the East China Sea, and concerning developments on the Korean Peninsula. Military technology has become increasingly sophisticated. The JMSDF, together with JGSDF and JASDF, has had to come to grips with entirely new threats, including those in cyberspace, outer space, and the electromagnetic spectrum. To deal with these threats, JMSDF personnel need specialized education and training in these new fields. That requires time. With the declining birthrate in Japan, the number of JMSDF personnel is unlikely to increase, even if the number of ships, aircraft, and new areas of technology do. The JMSDF is already unable to recruit enough people and currently operates a growing number of vessels and aircraft without meeting their staffing targets. Naturally, this places a burden on young officers and sailors, many of whom leave the JMSDF early, unable to bear the excessively demanding working environment. Other service branches of the JSDF have similar problems.

After Ukraine

Thirty-three years since the ending of the Cold War and 21 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the world remains dangerous and uncertain. During his term in office (2017–2021), President Donald J. Trump gave US allies reason to question the US commitment to global peace and security, given his unfriendly and even hostile stance toward NATO allies and the growing bipolarization of American society with respect to political and social goals and values. Yet Prime Minister Abe succeeded in forging cordial relations with President Trump and in keeping the Japan-US alliance intact. This was perhaps partly because Trump needed Japan’s cooperation in taking a firm stance against China. Moreover, Abe greatly contributed to keeping the United States engaged in regional security by coining a new strategic phrase, “Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP),” in 2016 as a shared strategic objective of the maritime nations in the region, a concept the Trump administration officially adopted as a vital element in its own security strategy in 2019. Nevertheless, Trump remained an unpredictable and reluctant counterpart for allies and partners in the East and West in managing their alliances with the United States.

President Joseph R. “Joe” Biden Jr. has been striving to restore good relations with NATO member countries, Japan, and other US friends and allies. Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, instigated by President Vladimir Putin, started an entirely new serious military contest that has had a huge impact worldwide. Simultaneously, heightened tension over Taiwan, the East and South China Seas, and elsewhere between China, on the one hand, and the United States, Japan, and other countries, on the other, may be another sign of the world moving into a new era of global tensions and security threats. Some call it a new Cold War. The seas around Japan are as rough as ever. The world in 2022 was arguably more dangerous and uncertain than in any year since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The whole world wonders if the new year, 2023, will bring slightly more stability and lowering of tensions, or if the global security environment, as a whole, will become even more dangerous and uncertain. As for Japan, by the end of 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his administration had issued the new National Security Strategy together with two companion documents, the new Defense Strategy and the new Defense Buildup Plan, describing the serious and difficult nature of the world’s security environment including the areas surrounding Japan. Recognizing that Japan now finds itself in a new security environment, these documents lay out the measures the government needs to take in dealing with it.

Based on the content of these documents, Kishida, who became prime minister in October 2021,⁶ announced that he would undertake a major increase in defense spending over the next 5 years reaching the level of 2% of GDP annually by 2027. This is the standard level of defense spending the United States has been requesting NATO member countries to achieve.

Mr. Kishida also declared that his administration would start building counterattack capabilities for the JSDF, to maximize its ability to deter, together with US armed forces, any attacks on Japan by would-be adversaries in East Asia, the Pacific, and beyond. Possessing counterattack capabilities would be a major change in Japan’s post-WWII security policy: since 1945, Japan has refrained from possessing offensive military capabilities, relying instead on the US military’s capabilities. The government maintains that counterattack capabilities would remain within the boundaries of Japan’s right to self-defense under Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. Some opposition parties strongly disagree.

It is beyond the scope of this book, however, to consider how effective these major policy changes will be in enhancing the security and peace of Japan as well as in the Indo-Pacific region, let alone what roles and missions the Japan-US alliance and naval cooperation will play. What we can say, after Putin’s surprise war in Ukraine, is that anything can happen, and that Japan needs to be prepared for any eventuality.