Auer Leaves His Ship

James Auer was promoted to commander while he was studying at the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Command and Staff College. In January 1978 he became the commanding officer of USS Francis Hammond, a frigate in the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, homeported in Yokosuka. The commanding officer of a ship is a post everyone aspires to, whether in the US Navy or the JMSDF. No matter how high the rank an officer attains in his or her navy career, there is no match for the sense of fulfillment derived from being in command of a ship. As long as I’m in the navy, I’d like to be a commanding officer one day, is something everyone thinks. Auer was happy and proud to have fulfilled his dream. Aside from submariners and aviators, only one in three US Navy officers could command a ship in those days.

After he completed his commanding officer tour in January 1979, Auer contemplated his future career. Based on his past assignments, his next job could be as a staff member in the Pacific Fleet Command or the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The duties of both are central to naval operations. The deputy CINCPACFLT at the time, Admiral Carlisle A. H. Trost (who would later become CNO), had known Auer in his previous position and asked him to join his staff. However, Auer wanted to continue to work on the relationship with Japan if possible.

Around this time, Michael Armacost (the future US ambassador to Japan) was serving as deputy assistant secretary of defense in charge of East Asia and the Pacific in Washington, D.C. Auer had met Armacost, then Ambassador Ingersoll’s special assistant, at the weekly meetings hosted by the political section of the US Embassy in Tokyo; Auer attended these meetings as a political advisor to the commander, US Naval Forces Japan, as mentioned previously. Before leaving Tokyo, the academic-turned-diplomat cordially remarked to Auer, “I’m hoping to work in the Pentagon in the future. If that happens and you’re willing to work with me, just let me know.”

Remembering the offer, Auer called Armacost in Washington, D.C. to explain his situation and to express his desire to work on Japan-US security issues at the Pentagon. Armacost welcomed this, and so Auer flew to Washington after obtaining approval from the Navy Department’s Bureau of Naval Personnel. In April 1979 he became the head of the Japan desk, the special assistant for Japan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. If Auer had left his ship a little later, he could not have obtained the post, because Armacost would already have left his position. Auer, a sailor at heart, felt sad about leaving the sea. Instead, he was able to work on worthwhile assignments directly dealing with the Japan-US alliance at the Pentagon for his last decade or so as a public servant.

Encounter with Armitage

Auer returned to Washington and started working at the Pentagon during the Carter administration. The Office of International Security Affairs, which was under the authority of Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, was headed by an assistant secretary of defense. According to Auer, the office was known for being the secretary of defense’s mini-State Department. The convergence of political and military concerns made the office powerful in terms of both its budget and its authority. Paul H. Nitze was in charge of the office during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency; famous for his role in US-Soviet arms limitation talks, Nitze was allegedly more influential than Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Auer initially worked in the office under Deputy Assistant Secretary Armacost.

The office became even more powerful when Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency in January 1981. Unlike the Carter administration, which had had strained relations with the Pentagon, the Reagan administration made national security issues a priority. After some twists and turns, a solid new East Asia policy team was in place by 1983, with Caspar W. Weinberger as the secretary of defense, Richard L. Armitage as assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs,Footnote 1 and James Auer as the director of Japanese affairs. As an aside, Colin L. Powell, a senior military assistant to Secretary Weinberger around that time, was a friend of Armitage. He was to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later the secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. In addition, General Powell’s son, Michael, once worked under Auer while serving as an active-duty army officer.

Armitage was formerly a naval officer who had graduated from the Naval Academy in 1967, when the United States was struggling with its involvement in the Vietnam War. Armitage volunteered and engaged in dangerous operations during that conflict. When the Paris Peace Accords were concluded in January 1973, he quit the Navy in protest, upset that the country was ending its involvement in the war without seeing it through to its conclusion. Nonetheless, he stayed on in Vietnam as a civilian advisor in the US defense attaché’s office in Saigon, and took part in special missions. There were unconfirmed rumors that he was the model for Rambo, the fictional movie character played by Sylvester Stallone.

Armitage returned to Washington. However, when the North Vietnamese forces approached Saigon in April 1975, the Department of Defense asked him to help get South Vietnamese naval assets and personnel out of the country. Having fought in Vietnam for 6 years, he could not help but want to see things through to the very end. He returned to the war-torn country aboard the last regular flight of Pan American World Airways and entered Saigon just before its fall. He helicoptered into Bien Hoa Air Base on the outskirts of Saigon, which was surrounded by North Vietnamese forces, and destroyed devices and equipment on the base to protect secrets. Together with 30 South Vietnamese Air Force personnel who had been left behind, he barely escaped alive in the face of continuous bombardment. Then he led the South Vietnamese Navy vessels and personnel, as well as thousands of their family members, to the Philippines, arriving unhurt after an 8-day journey. Like Auer, Armitage belongs to the Vietnam War generation.

Later, Armitage returned to Washington, D.C. and worked as an aide to Senator Robert “Bob” Dole. He took part in Reagan’s presidential campaign and was invited to join the administration. As a special presidential envoy, he worked on solutions to crises and conflicts, traveling all over the world. Not only did he negotiate in person and encourage democratization with Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, but he also negotiated with representatives of the Mujahideen, and afterward sat together at the table sharing a meal of mutton with the knife-brandishing Afghan rebels. He was a very courageous expert on national security and diplomatic issues. Despite his tough, masculine image, however, he was very kind, and took many foster children of different races into his home.Footnote 2

When Armitage was assistant secretary of defense, a group of Japanese Diet members came to see him at the Pentagon. Showing up a little late, Armitage asked for their understanding at the start of the meeting, saying that he might not be able to give exact answers because he had not gotten any sleep the night before. He explained that he had been up all night, taking care of one of his foster children who had a high fever. He also mentioned his feeling of gratitude that he was raising the child in the United States, where anyone could succeed, in spite of any challenges that might be presented by their race. He added that he had said to the boy, “So let’s bring this fever down and go for it.” Upon hearing Armitage’s remarks, a Japan Socialist Party member of the Diet said, “I wanted to complain to you about the Reagan administration’s aggressive security policy today. But after hearing your story, I can’t say anything anymore.”

It was much easier for Auer to fulfill his duties under Armitage, who was slightly younger than Auer, yet also from the navy. Not only was Armitage a brave warrior who had fought in Vietnam, but he was also exceptionally intelligent and his judgment unerring. Auer calls him a “closet intellectual.” Although he initially appeared to be wary of Auer, who had stayed on from the Carter administration, he came to trust him fully after they had worked together awhile. Auer brought Armitage proposals on policies toward Japan. Armitage listened to them carefully, and if he concurred, he would convey them to Secretary Weinberger in person, and then carry them out.

The system seems to have functioned very well. In 1983, as Auer neared his retirement from the Navy as a commander, as required by regulations, Weinberger invited Auer into his room to tell him that he and President Reagan thought it was a pity that Auer had to retire, and he asked him to stay in the Department of Defense after retiring from the Navy, if possible. This offer was apparently based on Armitage’s suggestion, but Armitage insisted that it had been the secretary’s idea.

The new offer was a political appointment that required White House approval. After the necessary documentation was submitted, the White House initially refused to approve it. Republican hardliners toward Japan were opposed to it, claiming that Auer was too close to Japan and that he was trying to make Armitage a Japan sympathizer. However, the decision was overturned after strenuous protests from Weinberger and Armitage. Needless to say, Auer’s trust in the two deepened.

And so, Auer continued to carry out the duties of the director of Japanese affairs as a civilian until August 1988. Even after his move to Vanderbilt University, Auer’s connection with Armitage stayed strong.

Auer as Director of Japanese Affairs

For the Japanese officials in charge of defense policy, especially the JMSDF personnel, the decade that Auer worked in the Department of Defense was a very happy period: the US Navy commander who had been their colleague in Yokosuka until quite recently was at the center of policymaking in the Pentagon. The person who knew Auer best at the time would be Rear Admiral Sumihiko Kawamura (ret.) who served as a defense attaché in Washington, D.C. from 1981 to 1984. A P-3C antisubmarine patrol aircraft pilot born into a naval family from the Satsuma area,Footnote 3 Kawamura was a graduate of the National Defense Academy of Japan,Footnote 4 fourth class (Class of 1960). He had known Auer since 1971. He also served as a JMSDF liaison officer on the US Navy’s Yokosuka base when Auer was the executive officer of the guided-missile destroyer USS Parsons. He had more experience than anybody else with joint operations between the JMSDF and the US Navy.

After his transfer to Washington, Kawamura would leave the defense attaché’s office in the Watergate building and cross the Potomac River to visit Auer at the Pentagon nearly every day. There was no need to make an appointment beforehand. Any necessary information was given. It was the same with the naval bureaus in the Pentagon: they welcomed Kawamura on every visit. When he showed up, his counterparts offered help without being asked. Other defense attachés sent from the JGSDF and the JASDF did not enjoy the same privilege; they had to make an appointment every time. The relationship between the US Navy and the JMSDF was very close and special.

Auer used the connections he had established during his stay in Japan to the fullest. Whenever he had a query to be confirmed or needed to get a feel for something regarding the JMSDF, he would call his close friend since his time in Yokosuka, Hideo Kimura. Kimura would relay Auer’s query to former Chiefs of Maritime Staff (CMS) Kazuomi Uchida or Teiji Nakamura. Then they would contact the JMSDF leadership, including then CMS Ryōhei Ōga. There were many other unofficial negotiation channels, and they functioned very effectively. Japan-US defense cooperation in the 1980s went well, thanks to those personal relationships of mutual trust between policymakers in Japan and the United States.

The “Nakamura Lines”

Auer worked in the Department of Defense, needless to say, for the American national interest. He focused on strengthening security relations with Japan, in accordance both with his past career and the character of his current post. In particular, he made every effort to develop a cooperative system with the JMSDF. His first proposal was to let the JMSDF defend sea lines of communication (SLOC) by themselves.

The JMSDF’s taking over Japan’s own sea lane defense would be very beneficial for the United States. US Naval forces that were no longer needed in the Western Pacific could be deployed elsewhere—a division of areas of responsibility between Japan and the United States, so to speak. The JMSDF would monitor the activities of Soviet submarines day and night in the neighboring waters, with a focus on sea lanes stretching from the Japanese archipelago to the south, as well as the Sōya, Tsugaru, and Tsushima straits. The US Navy would defend sea lanes in the Southeastern Pacific and the Indian Ocean that Japan could not defend by itself and, if necessary, would attack the Soviets with carrier strike groups.

However, some officials within the US government, especially within the Department of State, took a dim view of Japan’s increasing its military presence. They argued that Japan should not be asked to occupy those roles because postwar Japan had a strong aversion to everything military. Others were wary of Japan’s becoming a military power again. In response to these criticisms, Auer argued: “To deter Soviet military power, we should trust Japan and ask for its cooperation. The United States needs its help. Moreover, Japan has the financial capability to procure the necessary equipment for sea lane defense. If Japan cannot be trusted or asked to cooperate, our alliance is useless.”

Sea lane defense had been a long-held aspiration of the JMSDF, anyway—or rather, it was arguably the fundamental reason for its foundation. If defending the homeland had been the Japan Self-Defense Force’s only role, the sea could have been left to the Maritime Safety Agency, which was focused on coastal defense.

Auer remembers well what Professor Masataka Kōsaka of Kyoto University told him when Auer was researching the foundation of the JMSDF in Japan. “I don’t understand very well what the JMSDF’s mission is. If Japan were to adopt an exclusively defensive security policy, it wouldn’t need the JMSDF. What is the objective of the JMSDF?” Auer viewed Professor Kōsaka’s query as being fundamental to the JMSDF’s raison d’être.

Of course, the JMSDF, in achieving its mission to defend Japan from the sea, did not want to be “exclusively defensive,”Footnote 5 staying strictly within Japan’s territorial waters and using minimum necessary force only if and when Japan was attacked, or its territory was invaded. Instead, the JMSDF hoped to sail into the vast Pacific and defend the SLOC of the maritime power that Japan was. JMSDF leaders called this a yearning for a “blue water” navy—one that sails across the ocean. However, this was an almost impossible dream for the JMSDF in its early days, bereft of the necessary budget or vessels. Even within the Defense Agency, some were opposed to the possibility of JMSDF activities outside territorial waters, including Osamu Kaihara, who later served as the secretary general of the National Defense Council.Footnote 6 Nevertheless, JMSDF uniformed personnel trained hard day and night, dreaming of building a blue water navy one day.

During his time at the JMSDF Command and Staff College, Auer saw a large map with bold lines on the wall. The instructors and students called the markings the “Nakamura lines.” One line stretched from Osaka Bay along the Nansei Islands to the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines; the other stretched from Tokyo Bay to the north of Guam via Iwo Jima. These lines, drawn by CMS Teiji Nakamura, delineated the SLOC to be defended by the JMSDF. The two lines, each representing approximately 1000 nautical miles, became the origin of the 1000-Mile Sea Lane Defense Policy. The sea lanes beyond that—between the Bashi Channel and the Persian Gulf, and between Guam and the North American continent, for example—were tacitly assumed to be within the US Navy’s command of the sea. While Nakamura says there are no such lines named after him, Auer recalls hearing Nakamura talk about such a JMSDF defense policy often.

“Roles and Missions” Sharing

Without a doubt, Auer’s proposal reflected a long-standing aspiration of the JMSDF. Having conducted research on the formation of the JMSDF and studied at the JMSDF Command and Staff College, Auer restructured the outcome of his research in light of US national interests and suggested that it be presented to the Japanese side as an American request. Based on Auer’s suggestion, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Armacost asked Japan to defend the North Pacific in working-level discussions on Japan-US security issues as early as 1979.

Soon after becoming deputy assistant secretary of defense, Armitage visited Japan unofficially with Auer in February 1981, to explore the proper direction for US security policy regarding Japan. He was the first senior official to visit Japan after Reagan’s inauguration. I want to set out a new policy, somewhat different from the Carter administration’s, he thought. Armitage proactively met and exchanged opinions with leading Japanese figures, including Minoru Tanba, director of the Japan-US Security Treaty Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Hisahiko Okazaki, counselor for International Relations within the Defense Agency; Motoo Shiina, the deputy chairman of the LDP’s Policy Research Council; and Auer’s friend Hideo Kimura. The idea of sharing roles and missions between the Japanese and US Naval forces came up for the first time on this occasion. The JMSDF and the US Navy would share roles and missions, essentially forming a naval force. They would deal with the Soviet threat jointly, with the JMSDF conducting antisubmarine operations and minesweeping, while the US Navy provided offensive capabilities, with a focus on the carrier strike groups.

Hideo Kimura, who claims he was the first to explain the idea to Armitage, calls this the Uchida Doctrine. Considering the international environment in which postwar Japan was placed and analyzing the role of the blue water navy that JMSDF leadership had contemplated since the days of CMS Uchida, it was the logical conclusion, Kimura says. He says CMS Teiji Nakamura once commented that, while he understood the logic of merging Japanese and US maritime forces into one, he found it emotionally difficult to accept. After all, they had worked hard to develop the JMSDF to one day become an independent, full-scale navy. Having known the IJN in its glory, the JMSDF leaders felt that they wanted to do everything by themselves, but it was neither wise nor possible to pursue that option.

According to Auer, General Alexander Haig, selected as the Reagan administration’s first secretary of state, first used the term “roles and missions.” Keeping in mind that the Carter administration publicly criticized Japan for its purchase of Iranian oil and inadequate defense budget, he avoided openly criticizing allies under the new Reagan administration. Instead, he stated his intention to encourage a frank exchange of opinions, in closed meetings, on their respective roles and missions regarding security issues.

On learning this, Armitage and Auer wrote a memo on the roles and missions shared by Japan and the United States and submitted it to Secretary of Defense Weinberger. The memo stated that Japan and the United States should designate sea areas and airspace which each would be primarily responsible for defending, determine their respective roles and missions, and provide military technology to each other as much as possible. Around the same time, US Ambassador to Japan Michael “Mike” Mansfield, who had agreed to remain in his position under the Reagan administration, sent a message to President Reagan, recommending that he announce his policy toward Japan on security and trade issues as soon as possible. Following this advice, the president requested that the relevant departments make policy recommendations, and the Auer-Armitage memo on security issues was officially adopted as the Reagan administration’s policy.

Sea Lane Defense

In March 1981 Defense Secretary Weinberger officially communicated this policy to Foreign Minister Masayoshi Itō, who was visiting the Pentagon, and requested Japan’s cooperation. He stated, “Soviet naval forces are operating actively in the northwestern Pacific area west of Guam and north of the Philippines. We want Japan to make a defense effort as a member of the West. In particular, we would like Japan to enhance its antisubmarine and air defense capabilities, especially antisubmarine capability against Soviet submarines.”

The foreign minister’s response was ambiguous. After listening to the foreign ministry official who accompanied him whispering in his ear, the minister answered carefully that it might be constitutionally tricky to implement the proposal, as it could touch on the issue of Japan’s right to collective self-defense, and that he would reply “in due course” after returning to Japan and examining the issue. After the meeting, Weinberger asked how long “in due course” means in Japanese; Auer answered that it could mean anything from tomorrow to a hundred years later.

The situation changed that May, when Prime Minister Zenkō SuzukiFootnote 7 visited Washington, D.C. In his joint communiqué with President Reagan, Suzuki used the phrase “the alliance between the United States and Japan” for the first time, and officially stated that “[President Reagan and Prime Minister Suzuki] acknowledged the desirability of an appropriate division of roles and missions between Japan and the United States.” Moreover, after his speech at the National Press Club, the prime minister specified the geographic area of Japan’s maritime operations in his reply to a reporter’s question, saying, in essence, “Japan aims to defend its surrounding waters to a distance of several hundred miles, and regarding its sea lanes, out to about a thousand nautical miles.”

According to Hisahiko Okazaki, who was working in the Defense Agency at the time, the prime minister’s remark did not contain anything particularly noteworthy, as it was a compilation of parliamentary statements that Okazaki and others had previously made. However, no previous statement had gone as far as this one did.

Armitage, Auer, and the rest of the Japanese Affairs team of the department of defense were surprised and delighted. They interpreted this as Japan’s pledge to fulfill Secretary of Defense Weinberger’s request to Minister of Foreign Affairs Itō. Japan’s prime minister can speak rather frankly, they thought.

However, it seems Prime Minister Suzuki himself was to be the most surprised. Finishing his first meeting with President Reagan without a hitch, he casually picked up Japanese newspapers in Alaska on his return journey only to find articles playing up his pledge to defend 1000-mile sea lanes. The prime minister had been completely unaware of the significance of his remarks. He insisted that his statement to the press had just been a reading of a document written by bureaucrats. He claimed that, during his meeting with President Reagan, all he had said was that Japan was a peace-loving country, and its new Constitution was holding up pacifism, and there was no military aspect to the Japan-US alliance. Foreign Minister Itō was forced to resign for his blunder in preparing the joint communiqué. Ito’s successor, Sunao Sonoda, backed away from the joint communiqué, repeatedly stating it was not binding. His comments angered the Americans.

However, once issued, the joint communiqué took on a life of its own. Even though Japan-US relations were somewhat strained, Japan-US defense cooperation was gradually strengthened on the basis of the joint communiqué and the pledge to defend the sea lanes. The inauguration of Yasuhiro Nakasone as prime minister in November 1982 was the decisive moment. Unlike Suzuki, who had simply read a statement in Washington, D.C. without understanding its content, Nakasone understood very well the strategic significance of the Japan-US alliance against the Soviet Union. And so, he did his best to meet American expectations and pursued the sharing of roles and missions.

For example, Japan’s defense budget rapidly increased over the 5 years following 1981, and the JMSDF became a world-class navy in both quality and quantity by the end of the 1980s. The JMSDF’s search capability against Soviet submarines rapidly improved, with the introduction of the P-3C antisubmarine patrol aircraft around the same time. The Soviet Navy in the Far East was helpless in the face of the continuous antisubmarine patrol operations carried out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in close cooperation between the US Navy and the JMSDF. As both navies were operating the same P-3C patrol planes, they exchanged information directly using computers. Moreover, the Soviet economy could not endure an arms race against the United States, Japan, and the NATO member countries. The Soviet Union eventually seemed to quietly give up. Auer firmly believes that the Western camp was able to win the Cold War against the Soviets because of the joint operations between the JMSDF and the US Navy.

Participating in RIMPAC

The close Japan-US defense cooperation of the 1980s, apart from the decisions made at the political level, was made possible operationally because of the officers and sailors of the JMSDF and the US Navy. The one absolute requirement to implement the sharing of “roles and missions” between the two naval forces was the advanced capability for them to execute operations jointly. Japanese and American politicians’ expressions of firm determination to implement the sharing of roles and missions would all be meaningless if their forces could not execute operations jointly. And to do that, the JMSDF and the US Navy must conduct joint exercises often and improve a range of warfare skills. In addition, interoperability must be pursued through the standardization not only of military equipment—including ships, aircraft, and weapons—but also of methods and procedures—including operational planning, commands and instructions, and communications.

Regarding the interoperability of equipment and methods, the JMSDF was the most advanced of the three JSDF services, and probably still is. According to Rear Admiral Kawamura (ret.), the JMSDF and the US Navy basically use the same equipment and follow the same procedures. Accordingly, JMSDF officers and sailors can board and operate US Navy vessels and aircraft without a problem, and vice versa. Japan-US joint exercises began in the 1950s and were conducted rather seriously during Nakamura’s term as CMS. But it was not sufficient: the gap between the United States and Japan in terms of equipment was still considerable at the time, and the US Navy was occupied with the Vietnam War and other challenges. The scale of the exercises was also small. Incidentally, the JASDF first conducted a joint exercise with the US Air Force in 1978; the JGSDF conducted its first joint exercise with the US Army in 1981.

For the JMSDF, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) is the occasion when it conducts joint exercises with the US Navy to the fullest. RIMPAC, which began in 1971, is a comprehensive naval exercise conducted off Hawaii by allied navies in the Pacific region, centering around the US Navy’s Third Fleet. Four navies—from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada—took part in the first exercise. Japan was asked from the start if it wanted to participate. It passed on the opportunity, however, because of the prevailing view that the JMSDF’s conducting an exercise with countries other than the United States might violate the Constitution because the Japanese government’s interpretation at the time held that the Constitution prohibited the exercise of the right to collective self-defense.

Japan’s participation was considered a few times in later years, but the Defense Agency could not easily reach a consensus. The Defense Agency’s director general of the Bureau of Defense Policy, Kō Maruyama, who was in favor of participating, gave up after watching a public relations film for RIMPAC. He concluded that the film, which emphasized the importance of alliances, would never be accepted in Japan’s political climate at the time. CMS Nakamura made a considerable effort to bring about Japan’s participation in RIMPAC as well, but it was not approved.

The situation began to change when Admiral Ryōhei Ōga succeeded Nakamura as the CMS in September 1977. Ōga raised RIMPAC during an informal talk in the summer of 1978 with Defense Agency Director General Shin Kanemaru, who replied, “Exercises with the US Navy are important, so carry them out by all means.” The next director general, Ganri Yamashita, who had been a short-term active-duty naval paymaster, was also willing to let JMSDF participate in RIMPAC. Yamashita ordered the intra-ministerial bureaus to support the JMSDF.

Some of the Defense Agency civilian bureaucrats were incomparably more sympathetic toward the uniformed personnel’s arguments than before. Among those were Counselor Okazaki, who was on loan from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Counselor Atsuyuki Sassa, who was in charge of education and training, on loan from the National Police Agency. Sassa made great efforts to answer parliamentary questions on RIMPAC by himself. He answered more than 300 times; indeed, Japan Socialist Party Diet member Takako Doi made fun of him, calling him “a broken tape recorder” for repeating the same answers.

According to Ōga, the Defense Agency was essentially a JSDF management agency until the mid-1970s. The important posts in the intra-ministerial bureaus were occupied by former prewar Home Ministry bureaucrats who did not allow the uniformed personnel to say or do anything. This situation finally changed when the Japan-US defense leadership conference and the regular working-level meetings were established, and the preparation of the “Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation” (the so-called First Guidelines) was agreed on. This was a result of the meeting between Defense Agency Director General Michita Sakata, and US Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger in August 1975. Part of the change may also have been that Administrative Vice Minister of Defense Kō Maruyama gave the Defense Agency’s intelligence-related post, formerly held by the police, to Okazaki (the foreign ministry official on loan) in 1978.

In the spring of 1978, Soviet ground forces were redeployed in the Northern Territories,Footnote 8 and the latest large vessels joined the Soviet Pacific Fleet. The summer of 1979 witnessed the outbreak of the Sino-Vietnamese War, while in December the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Tensions ran extremely high between the Western and Eastern camps. According to Okazaki, the new breed of bureaucrats (himself included) did not take the side of the uniformed personnel, but instead merely kept Japan’s national interest in mind. In any case, against the backdrop of increased tension in international affairs, the Defense Agency transformed into a proper defense policy department with members like Okazaki and Sassa, according to Ōga. Under these circumstances, the JMSDF’s participation in RIMPAC would finally begin to materialize.

Even after Japan’s participation in RIMPAC was decided as a policy matter, many practical issues were left to tackle. Manabu Yoshida, the director general of the Operations and Plans Department in the MSO, was at the center of efforts to participate in RIMPAC under CMS Ōga. On the US Navy’s part, Rear Admiral Lando W. Zech, Jr., commander, US Naval Forces Japan, negotiated with the JMSDF directly, with assistance from Vice Admiral S. Robert Foley, commander, US Seventh Fleet. Foley encouraged Yoshida (who would later become CMS): “Let’s make this a success in spite of all the obstacles to the JMSDF’s participation in RIMPAC. Success will mean opening the door to future joint operations for the US Navy and the JMSDF.”

Perhaps the biggest, most fundamental problem hindering the JMSDF’s participation in RIMPAC was how to explain the nature of Japanese participation to each government and senior flag officer. For the Americans, the event was simply a joint exercise conducted by allied navies as preparation to fight together against a potential common enemy. For the Japanese, however, the term “alliance” was still a taboo, as it evoked the exercise of the right to collective self-defense which was then considered unconstitutional; by definition, there was no potential common enemy. Hence, JMSDF ships and aircraft could not be put under the US Navy’s command and the JMSDF could not conduct exercises together with navies other than the US Navy. Moreover, the basic concept of the exercise—the “joint action” against a potential enemy—could not be used. The purpose of the exercise would have to be the improvement of tactical skills.

Such domestic intricacies are extremely complicated for the US Navy to understand. And yet Rear Admiral Zech somehow harmoniously intermediated between the JMSDF and the US Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, despite some difficulty. Through visits with Naka Funada and Ganri Yamashita, he came to understand the Japanese position better. Yoshida calls Zech “my brother,” feeling indebted to him for these efforts.

The work devoted to dealing with all these various issues, probably unknown to outsiders, finally bore fruit. Starting in late February 1980, the JMSDF forces participated in RIMPAC and engaged in exercises held in the eastern Pacific around Hawaii for about a month. Commanded by Captain Tsutomu Yoshioka, commander of Escort Division 51, the forces dispatched were still relatively small, consisting of the helicopter-carrying destroyer JS Hiei, the guided-missile destroyer JS Amatsukaze, and eight P-2J antisubmarine patrol aircraft. When the dispatched vessels left Yokosuka, Yoshida and Zech firmly shook hands.

Since then, the JMSDF has participated in RIMPAC regularly. Starting in 1986, a whole escort flotilla comprising “eight vessels and eight aircraft,” as well as a P-3C squadron and a submarine, participated in the exercise; an underway replenishment ship (supply ship) began taking part in 1988. At present, the JMSDF forces are the largest among the participating navies after the US Navy’s.Footnote 9 The JMSDF’s performance in the exercises has stood out; on one occasion, the hit rate of their missiles was so high that a US Navy referee supposedly questioned whether the results were some kind of mistake. The JMSDF’s P-3Cs always shone so brightly that other navies asked a JMSDF public relations officer, “Are you flying brand new aircraft every year?” Some even claimed that RIMPAC had essentially become an exercise centered around the US Navy and the JMSDF (Fig. 8.1).

Fig. 8.1
A photo of a helicopter landing with 3 people standing near the helipad with outstretched arms. A person is lying on a stretcher even as another man kneels near him, looking at the helicopter.

A helicopter comes in for a landing on the flight deck of the JS Izumo during a rescue exercise at RIMPAC 2022. (Photo credit: JMSDF)

Full size image

The Japanese Fleet in Pearl Harbor

The leaders of the JMSDF and the US Navy who pushed to strengthen cooperation between their forces in the 1980s, including RIMPAC, were mostly veterans of the Pacific War. For example, Admiral Ryōhei Ōga graduated as part of the Naval Academy’s 71st class in November 1942. After taking part in the evacuation of Kiska Island and other operations, he entered the Ōtake Submarine School and finished out the war as a submariner. During the war, he lost his mother and an elder sister to the atomic bomb dropped on his hometown, Nagasaki. After the war, he engaged in the repatriation of soldiers and stayed on in the minesweeping forces. During the Korean War, he engaged in minesweeping off Chinnampo and Haeju on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula as commander of the Fifth Minesweeping Unit. After the establishment of the Coastal Safety Force and the formation of the JMSDF, he continued with minesweeping operations for 10 years or so. These were unsung yet dangerous operations.

Similarly, Admiral Manabu Yoshida was a graduate of the Naval Academy’s 75th class, the last class to graduate from Etajima in October 1945, too late to have any combat experience. The class was educated under the academy’s superintendent, Vice Admiral Shigeyoshi Inoue, who would be the last IJN officer to be promoted to the rank of full admiral before the war’s end. Also, Lieutenant Teiji Nakamura, just returned from the Solomon Sea, directly taught them as leader of the student corps.Footnote 10 Nakamura was said to be dashing and clearheaded, strict and imposing, a man who spared no effort. Although the 75th class was a large one, the classmates were still bound by an extremely strong sense of unity.

Once the war was over, Yoshida engaged in the repatriation of soldiers. Then, when he was about to take university entrance exams, he was told by an Etajima instructor that he should remain to carry on the naval tradition, as the 75th class was not purged from public office. So, he decided to become a member of the Illegal Vessel Entry Monitoring HeadquartersFootnote 11 (predecessor to the MSA) rather than attend university. While taking part in the policing of illegal immigrants and smugglers, he awaited the rebuilding of the navy. For about 40 years until his retirement in 1985, he worked tirelessly for the IJN, the MSA, the Coastal Safety Force, and the JMSDF without interruption.

For his part, Rear Admiral Zech was a first-year student (a “plebe”) at the Naval Academy in Annapolis when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Restraining his eagerness to see the excitement of the battlefield, he stayed in school and graduated in June 1944, ahead of schedule. He fought in numerous battles, from the Philippines to Okinawa, aboard the USS John D. Henley. In the summer of 1945, the destroyer was anchored just off Tokyo Bay at a point called Picket Station No. 12 to engage in the rescue mission of downed B-29 pilots. As the ship was stationed within a stone’s throw of the metropolitan area, it became the target of incessant kamikaze attacks. Once, a kamikaze aircraft flew only 10 meters from his vessel. He had a narrow brush with death.Footnote 12

The crew called the picket station “50/50 Station,” meaning there was a 50% chance of getting killed by a kamikaze aircraft. So, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Zech knew he could survive the war. He also felt that it was no longer necessary to force a landing on the Japanese mainland under enemy fire.

Many of his fellow shipmates died in the war. Even after the war, his animosity toward Japan did not fade easily. He entered Yokosuka port once, soon after the war. But it was not until he was posted in Yokosuka as commander, US Naval Forces Japan between 1978 and 1981 that he had an opportunity to learn about Japan properly. So much time had passed since the war, he no longer hated Japan. As he worked with the JMSDF, Zech’s respect for its personnel grew as he came to know them better.

Many JMSDF leaders were former IJN officers around his own age. There were even a few officers, like Vice Admiral Kunijirō Saitō, who had fought on the same battlefields as Zech had, from the Philippines to Okinawa. They told each other they were lucky to be alive. Unlike the armed forces personnel he had befriended in postwar Germany, the former IJN officers did not talk much with Zech about their wartime experiences. As naval officers, however, they treated each other with respect. They forged deep friendships and mutual trust, as in the case of Yoshida and Zech, who came to address each other on a first-name basis after their combined efforts on the JMSDF’s participation in RIMPAC.

Before leaving Japan, Zech was awarded the Order of Sacred Treasure Second Class by the Japanese government. At the award ceremony, he reportedly said that half the medal was for Yoshida’s service. Promoted to vice admiral after returning to the United States, he was transferred to the higher-ranking position of chief of naval personnel within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. This was an unprecedented appointment for someone who had served in the post of commander, US Naval Forces Japan. Before leaving his post, Zech stressed to Yoshida that the two navies’ future relations should be based on mutual respect, rather than mere friendship.

Admiral Yoshida was then appointed CMS and made an official visit to Washington, D.C. in 1984. On his return home, he stopped by Hawaii and reviewed the 80 ships from various navies, including the JMSDF, that had assembled in Pearl Harbor to take part in RIMPAC. In the commander’s barge, he joined Admiral Foley, who had been promoted to CINCPACFLT.

Forty years had passed since the IJN that Yoshida had joined was annihilated in its fight-to-the-death with the US Navy, a fight that began with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese navy had been reborn as the JMSDF, and its ships were now berthed in Pearl Harbor alongside the US fleet.

The Introduction of Aegis Ships

The sharing of roles and missions between Japanese and US naval forces gradually materialized in the 1980s. If taking part in RIMPAC was its beginning, the procurement of Aegis ships could be called its final stage. When the JMSDF began to properly deal with sea lane defense, a huge challenge for the force was the fleet’s vulnerability to aerial attacks. In particular, the Soviet Air Force’s Tu-22M “Backfire” bombers deployed in Russia’s Far East were capable of hitting a surface ship with anti-ship missiles from beyond the range of the ship’s anti-air missiles.

To deal with this threat, the JMSDF studied various countermeasures, including the construction of light aircraft carriers and the adoption of Harrier V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing) attack aircraft operated by the Royal Navy and the US Marine Corps, but these countermeasures would not work for various reasons. Then the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System captured their attention. The system uses a combination of high-powered radar and computer systems to automatically launch anti-air missiles and to track and shoot down more than ten threats that appear within a 360-degree perimeter, including straight overhead, with a radius of 100-plus kilometers. Dozens of anti-air missiles are arranged in several rows and launched from the magazine-storage canister called the VLS (Vertical Launching System) embedded in the ship. The name “Aegis” is a reference to the shields that Greek gods, Zeus and Athena, wore on their chests. It suggests that the system will shield vessels from enemy arrows—or, in this case, missiles.

The air defense capability of destroyers equipped with this system (i.e., Aegis ships) would be significantly improved. The problem was twofold: this system was extremely costly and the United States, which had developed the monstrous computer of this advanced weapons system, had never provided it to any allied navy. While the first half of the problem was resolved by a substantial increase in the defense budget through the 1980s, the latter half remained a huge challenge. This is what lay behind the strong opposition in the US, and even within the US Navy, to providing Japan with the Aegis system.

However, CMS Manabu Yoshida did not give up. He wrote a few letters weekly to CNO Admiral James Watkins and made every effort to persuade him. The JMSDF’s possession of Aegis ships would serve the American national interests, as well, because it would enable joint actions against the Soviet threats and help to protect the US Navy’s carriers. The sharing of Aegis technology would help nurture the same operational ideology using the same weapons, while also enhancing interoperability. Providing the Aegis system to Japan would deepen the mutual trust between the Japanese and US maritime forces and strengthen the alliance based on values we share.

As an aside, Admiral Watkins’s mother had been a passionate Japanophile before the war. For many years, she served as the president of the Japan America Society of Southern California. Whenever an IJN Training Squadron visited California, she would visit them, leading the very young future admiral by the hand. She would say, “Jim, when the United States wants to access Asia, it will be important to go through Japan, because Japan has a long history and culture that America lacks.”

When the IJN Training Squadron visited the United States in 1929, she gave a 20-minute lecture to the ensigns in self-taught Japanese; they gave her a big round of applause even though she had made four mistakes, she happily recounted to her son. In 1940, when Japan-US relations were strained, she visited Japan with her daughter as a guest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She returned home to the United States feeling relieved, having heard there would be no war between the US and Japan. When the war broke out a year later, she was sad and disheartened. After the war, she was awarded a medal for her contributions to Japan-US friendship.

Admiral Watkins visited Japan as CNO in 1985 and he was awarded a special medal by the Japanese government. When Yoshida met him again after the award ceremony, he presented Watkins with two items he had discovered in the National Diet Library: a photocopy of a newspaper article on the 1940 visit to Japan by the admiral’s mother and a photograph of his mother and sister that showed his mother wearing a long white skirt and a hat with a broad brim. Yoshida had mounted the photograph, article, and an English translation of the article in one picture frame together with a photograph of Admiral Watkins’s own medal award ceremony. Admiral Watkins was moved to tears.

Eventually, the US Navy relented; it initially proposed providing Japan with a previous-generation Aegis Air Defense System. The JMSDF insisted on obtaining a state-of-the-art system, which led to a heated exchange. In the end, the US Navy fully accepted the Japanese argument and decided to provide the latest system. CNO Watkins persuaded the opposition both within and outside the Navy. For his part, Auer fully supported Watkins from the policy point of view, winning Armitage’s support by arguing that providing Japan with the latest Aegis system was in keeping with the principle of “roles and missions” sharing. Congressman Stephen Solarz, too, was helpful; chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Solarz was familiar with East Asian affairs. On the Japanese side, Administrative Vice-Minister of Defense Haruo Natsume and others ultimately agreed with the argument of Yoshida and other uniformed personnel. After Yoshida’s retirement, a later administrative vice-minister of defense, Seiki Nishihiro, exerted himself to secure a budget for the construction of Aegis ships.

The first destroyer with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, JS Kongō, was commissioned in 1993. It was followed by JS Kirishima, JS Myōkō, and JS Chōkai. The JMSDF now possesses four Aegis shipsFootnote 13 with a standard displacement of 7250 tons. The imposing silhouette, which is equipped with the VLS and emphasizes stealth capability, is uniquely impressive, distinguishing it from past destroyers. Apart from the US Navy, only the JMSDF possesses Aegis ships today.Footnote 14

Notwithstanding the Japanese government’s official position on the purpose of the these JMSDF Aegis ships,Footnote 15 these vessels play a role in the air defense of the US carrier strike force in the Western Pacific from the American perspective. When President Clinton visited Japan in 1996 and issued the Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security with Prime Minister Ryūtarō Hashimoto, the US Navy and the JMSDF berthed the carrier USS Independence and JS Myōkō next to each other in Yokosuka to welcome the president. JMSDF senior officers and sailors were flushed with tension and excitement as they lined up on the flight deck of USS Independence to be reviewed by the US president.

A Dogwood in Etajima, a Cherry Tree in Annapolis

In 1985, the 75th class (Class of 1945) of the IJN Naval Academy held a joint class reunion at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis with the US Naval Academy class that had also enrolled in 1943. To commemorate the day, they planted a young cherry tree brought from Japan. The Americans assured them there was no need to worry if the tree withered. If it did, they would dig up another from the banks of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. and plant it again. Two years later, they held another joint class reunion, this time in Etajima. The American representatives brought and planted a dogwood, a typical American flowering tree. This time the American representatives worried about whether the tree would take root in this salty soil. But the superintendent of the JMSDF First Service School, who attended the event, assured them that if the tree were to wither, they would bring in another and plant it again.

The close cooperation between the JMSDF and the US Navy is by no means a given thing. Mutual friendship and trust take a long time to nurture and are all too easily lost. To prevent this, one has to water the relationship, fertilize the soil, and spare no effort. If it should wither, one should promptly do what must be done and plant a new young tree. This way, the dogwood in Etajima and the cherry tree in Annapolis will continue to blossom this year and the next, and for many years to come.