Category: Japan

Is It Time for Japan to Field a Pre-Emptive Strike Capability?

| September 5, 2017

With the ever increasing threat from North Korea the Japanese government may be forced into pursuing some kind of pre-emptive strike capability:

Japan is debating whether to develop a limited pre-emptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles — ideas that were anathema in the pacifist country before the North Korea missile threat.

With revisions to Japan’s defense plans underway, ruling party hawks are accelerating the moves, and some defense experts say Japan should at least consider them.

After being on the backburner in the ruling party for decades, a possibility of pre-emptive strike was formally proposed to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by his party’s missile defense panel in March, prompting parliamentary debate, though somewhat lost steam as Abe apparently avoided the divisive topic after seeing support ratings for his scandal-laden government plunge.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but the offensive strike capability they are considering is tomahawk cruise missiles fired from their Aegis destroyers to take out North Korean missiles before they are launched.

Tweet of the Day: Why Not to Date Japanese Women

| August 31, 2017

Japanese Military Deploys Patriot Missile Battery to Yokota Airbase

| August 30, 2017

This exercise was unrelated to the recent North Korean missile launch over Japan, but I think it is pretty significant that the Japanese are willing to demonstrate that they can deploy their own Patriot batteries defend a US airbase:

Japan’s air force demonstrated a Patriot missile-defense system at Yokota in western Tokyo Tuesday, just hours after a North Korean missile flew over Hokkaido.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force is deploying Patriot Advanced Capability-3 surface-to-air systems to several U.S. bases in Japan to test their ability to quickly respond to Pyongyang’s missile threats, a U.S. Forces Japan statement said.

A convoy of trucks carrying PAC-3 components arrived at Yokota, headquarters of USFJ and the 5th Air Force, Tuesday morning. The planned deployment happened soon after North Korea test-fired a missile over Japanese territory, prompting alerts in a dozen prefectures before falling into the ocean east of Hokkaido. It was the latest in a string of missile tests this year, including one that appeared to simulate a nuclear attack on U.S. forces in Japan.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

Tweet of the Day: Easier To Get Away with Firing A Missile Over Japan

| August 30, 2017

Tweet of the Day: Kit Kat Cough Drops

| August 24, 2017

New Korean Movie Highlights Force Labor at Japan’s ‘Battleship Island’

| August 20, 2017

Here is the latest South Korean movie that is expected to rekindle anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea:

The shape of Hashima Island resembles a warship from a distance as shown in this photo taken by South Korean photographer Lee Jae-gab in July 2008. The photo was provided by Lee. (Yonhap)

When Choi Jang-seop left for Japan more than seven decades ago, the 16-year-old did not know that the journey would change his life.

He was one of hundreds of Koreans who were conscripted into forced labor on Japan’s Hashima Island as part of the country’s mobilization of Koreans during World War II. Korea was under Japan’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1945.

Choi — wearing only underwear — toiled eight hours in a hot, cramped undersea coal mine with the constant fear of death. Other survivors said they worked for 12 hours at a time as three eight-hour shifts gave way to two 12-hour shifts with the rising demand for coal during the war.

What’s worse is that forced laborers, mostly in their teens and 20s, were given food that was mostly remnants of beans after the vegetable oil had been extracted, a situation that led to malnutrition and starvation among some forced laborers.

“I was hungry all the time and life was miserable beyond description,” Choi recalled of his days on the island between 1943 and 1945 in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency at his small apartment in Daejeon, some 160 kilometers south of Seoul.  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link, by the way has anyone seen the movie yet?

Japan to Decides to Purchase Aegis Ashore System In Response to North Korean Missile Threats

| August 19, 2017

This expected purchase of an Aegis Ashore system seems to make sense considering it can provide a persistent missile defense capability for Japan without having to rotate in and out their current Aegis BMD ships:

Japan is planning to deploy a new U.S.-developed ground-based missile defense system.

The Defense Ministry is to provisionally request that the fiscal 2018 budget cover planning costs for installing the Aegis Ashore system, according to a ministry official. “We are being urged to enhance our capabilities to continually protect the entirety of Japan from the threat of a missile attack,” the official said.  (……)

Japan’s Defense Ministry has studied whether to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system or the Aegis Ashore shield. But it has not planned for Aegis Ashore installations. The system is not included in the current National Defense Program Guidelines or mentioned in mid-term defense planning documents. The official said Aegis Ashore plans will be finalized by the end of the year.  [Asian Review]

You can read more at the link.

Tweet of the Day: Capturing Japan Through Its Vending Machines

| July 26, 2017

Tweet of the Day: Why Japan and South Korea Don’t Get Along

| July 25, 2017

Tweet of the Day: Starbucks, Kyoto Style

| July 2, 2017