Focus: Strategic Puzzler
Preemptive war is a tangled web. Nobody questions a nation’s right to defend itself, but at what point does preemptively attacking a potential adversary cross the line from self-defense to aggression? Many folks argue that preemption is the only rational response to a potential threat, and that a nation must not only maintain that option – effectively without limitation – but also actively articulate it and make it a cornerstone of its foreign policy. To quote the recent remarks of a high-ranking military officer:
Creating a structure where we can protect our country ourselves allows us to preemptively prevent an attack … and at the same time serves to bolster our position in diplomatic negotiations.
The officer in question was removed from his post for making these remarks, as they contradicted official government policy.
Unfair? Rampant political correctness grinding down the independent thinking of a career military man who sees things more clearly than do soft civilians and self-serving politicians? Maybe so – his supporters certainly think so. Of course, his supporters include just about every right-wing, neo-fascist nut job in Japan.
That’s right, the senior military officer in question was General Tamogami Toshio, Japan Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff – well, now former chief-of-staff, forced to retire on a paltry 60 million yen a year allowance. For those of you without a currency converter handy that’s about $600,000, which isn’t much if fresh fruit is on your grocery list.
Among other things, Tamogami argued that:
- Japan had been tricked into the attack on Pearl Harbor at the start of World War II, and since the Japanese believed the US and Nationalist Chinese were conspiring to attack Japan, this was not an act of aggression, but rather preemptive defense. Interesting theory – if you thought there was a threat, then even if it turns out you were wrong, a preemptive attack is still okay. Hmmm.
- The Japanese Army acted very properly in Asia during the war, which anyone who saw it in action – and was lucky enough to survive the experience – would attest to (Tamogami said). Every effort was made to limit civilian casualties, and since discipline in the Japanese Army was excellent, those efforts were undoubtedly successful. Stories of atrocities were the work of communists and other anti-Japanese propagandists.
- Japan got screwed at the end of the war, as evidenced by the facts that the US still maintains sizeable defense bases on Japanese territory, the Russians still illegally occupy the Northern Islands, and South Korea still controls Takeshima. (Using my secret decoder ring, I translated this to mean, “These are not done deals.”)
- Japan needs to amend its constitution (drop Article 9) so that defensive preemptive strikes can be made against potential aggressors.
- Japan needs nuclear weapons.
His essay won first prize in a contest aimed at “steering Japan towards a correct understanding of history as an independent nation.” First prize was $30,000. (I am so writing for the wrong guys!)
Sadly, the whole contest was almost certainly rigged. The sponsor, the APA Group, is headed by noted samurai wannabe Motoya Toshio, who writes right-wing militaristic rants under the pen name Fuji Seiji (and the essay prize was called “The Fuji Seiji Prize”). To head up the judging panel for the essays, Motoya tagged Professor Watanabe Shouichi, best known as a Rape of Nanking denier. Those readers familiar with the history of that part of the world (and that includes a big chunk of the readership, I suspect) recall that the Japanese Army murdered 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanking over the course of six weeks in 1937-38, which was a pretty good trick using nothing more than conventional weapons. By comparison, the combined death toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb attacks was 200,000. Shouichi and the other deniers say it never happened, or was greatly exaggerated, or the Commies did it … I forget which. The contest itself was used to promote Motoya’s 2008 book Modern History The Media Doesn’t Report On: Postwar History is an Argument over Nuclear Weapons. Yawn. Sounds like a real page-turner.
The fact that Tamogami was immediately fired should be encouraging, but the truth is he was thrown under the bus by men who agree with him. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) former prime ministers Abe Shinzo and Mori Yoshirou have long histories of political and intellectual association with Motoya, and Tamogami has named both as supporters. Current LDP Prime Minister Aso Taro is also known for his right-wing views, but apparently saw little political upside from backing a general who clearly violated the rules on political advocacy by serving uniformed officers.
Tempest in a teapot? Maybe. Here are two things to keep an eye on.
Thing One: Tamogami was formerly the dean of the Japan Self Defense Force Joint Staff College, and there is concern that his tenure there has resulted in the entrenchment of like-minded instructors and a consequent diffusion of his revisionist and militant philosophy throughout the officer corps. The government has promised to investigate charges to that effect. It will be interesting to see what that investigation concludes. This development is worth keeping an eye on because all this talk about the moral dissolution of Japanese society and a need to return to traditional Japanese values is exactly the same sort of clap-trap the officers spouted back in the 1930s, and we all know where that ended up.
Thing Two: Even though the ruling LDP is riddled with Pearl Harbor apologists and Nanking deniers, the general attitude of the Japanese public is still essentially pacifistic, which explains why it made sense to throw Tamogami under the bus. Nevertheless, the militant right has been making steady headway with the Japanese public. If nothing happens to change the situation, expect a continued, albeit half-hearted, drift toward a more militaristic and aggressive foreign policy.
What would be evidence of a change in direction? General elections are coming up, and there is actually a possibility that the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) could take control of the government from the LDP for the first time in living memory of man. [6] Now that would be big.
Now how does that theory of preemptive war look?
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