Saturday, August 09, 2003

In response to Bush administration pressure, the Japanese parliament voted late last month to authorize the deployment of some 1,000 of its Self-Defense Forces to Iraq. President Bush had twisted Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's arm hard to push this measure through a reluctant parliament. Support for the measure by the Japanese public was gauged in a poll at only 33 percent.

The deployment of Japanese forces, particularly without the cover of a U.N. Security Council resolution, raised some serious questions in Japan, and in the region and the world. Small numbers, in a noncombat role, with a U.N. mandate, had previously been sent to Cambodia and East Timor.

There is no certain noncombat role in Iraq at this time, as the death Tuesday of an American civilian contractor illustrated.

The more difficult question is one of very basic policy. Japan is a nation of 124 million with the world's second-largest economy. It is perfectly logical that it accept responsibilities to provide peacekeeping forces in the world's hot spots. Japan has in general been generous in providing other kinds of aid and has pledged $86 million in economic and humanitarian aid for the reconstruction of Iraq.

The military piece is the hard part. Its Self-Defense Forces number 240,000; its military budget is some $40 billion, so it is fully capable of providing forces. But Japan's post-World War II constitution explicitly bans the use of force to settle international disputes and, until now, it has deployed no forces in combat zones.

There are a number of fundamental reasons why not. A very deep-seated peace culture prevails in Japan in the wake of World War II and its precedents. Some people see militarism in Japan like alcoholism; one drink might send the country down a long, dangerous slippery slope. It is in a fundamentally pacifist mode; leave it there.

Japan has already been moving slowly away from a carefully constrained approach to military matters. In response to the threat posed by North Korea, Japan has recently launched spy satellites and talked about a uranium enrichment project and about buying into a U.S. missile defense system. No one doubts that Japan's advanced technological capacity could produce nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them in a trice.

In addition to internal political opposition to the Iraq deployment -- which was agreed to only after a ferocious fight in the parliament that included a no-confidence vote against Mr. Koizumi and a filibuster -- there is the attitude of the other nations of Asia toward Japanese rearmament. The Chinese have declared themselves four-square against the Japanese Iraq deployment, for example.

Bitter memories of Japanese military occupation linger across the region. And there is no denying that the idea of a strong, vigorous, technologically advanced Japanese economy harnessed to military force could inspire fear among the neighbors.

The Japanese themselves will have the opportunity to express their opinion on the subject in general elections in November. In the meantime, the Bush administration, which pushed Mr. Koizumi's government into this change in Japanese policy, needs to think long and hard about what it has launched in its quest to find troops for Iraq.

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