Tag policy

Japan’s Grand Strategy and Military Forces (I)

[Source: Consulate-General of Japan, Sydney]

This is the first in a series of Orders of Battle (OOB) posts, which will cover Japan, the neighboring and regional powers in East Asia, as well as the major global players, with a specific viewpoint on their military forces in East Asia and the Greater Indo-Pacific. The idea is to provide a catalog of forces and capabilities, but also to provide some analysis of how those forces are linked to the nation’s strategy.

The geographic term “Indo-Pacific” is a relatively new one, and referred to by name in the grand strategy as detailed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in April 2017. It also aligns with the strategy and terminology used by US Defense Secretary James Mattis at the Shangri-La conference in June 2018. Dr. Michael J. Green has a good primer on the evolution of Japan’s grand strategy, along with a workable definition of the term:

What is “grand strategy”? It is the integration of all instruments of national power to shape a more favorable external environment for peace and prosperity. These comprehensive instruments of power are diplomatic, informational, military and economic. Successful grand strategies are most important in peacetime, since war may be considered the failure of strategy.

Nonetheless, the seminal speech by Vice President Pence regarding China policy on 4 October 2018, had an articulation of Chinese grand strategy: “Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States.” The concept of grand strategy is not new; Thucydides is often credited with the first discussion of this concept in History of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). It is fundamentally about the projection of power in all its forms.

With the Focus on the Indo-Pacific Strategy, What About the Home Islands? 

[Source: Japanese Ministry of Defense (MOD) ]

The East Asian region has some long simmering conflicts, legacies from past wars, such as World War II (or Great Pacific War) (1937-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), and the Chinese Civil War (1921-1947). These conflicts led to static and stable borders, across which a “military balance” is often referred to, and publications from think tanks often refer to this, for example the Institute for International and Strategic Studies (IISS) offers a publication with this title. The points emphasized by IISS in the 2018 edition are “new arms orders and deliveries graphics and essays on Chinese and Russian air-launched weapons, artificial intelligence and defence, and Russian strategic-force modernisation.”

So, the Japanese military has two challenges, maintain the balance of power at home, that is playing defense, with neighbors who are changing and deploying new capabilities that have a material effect on this balance. And, as seen above Japan is working to build an offense as part of the new grand strategy, and military forces play a role.

Given the size and capability of the Japanese military forces, it is possible to project power  at great distances from the Japanese home waters. Yet, as a legacy from the Great Pacific War, the Japanese do not technically have armed forces. The constitution, imposed by Americans, officially renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation.

In July 2014, the constitution was officially ”re-interpreted” to allow collective self-defense. The meaning was that if the American military was under attack, for example in Guam, nearby Japanese military units could not legally engage with the forces attacking the Americans, even though they are allied nations, and conduct numerous training exercises together, that is, they train to fight together. This caused significant policy debate in Japan.

More recently, as was an item of debate in the national election in September 2018, the legal status of the SDF is viewed as requiring clarification, with some saying they are altogether illegal. “It’s time to tackle a constitutional revision,” Abe said in a victory speech.

The original defense plan was for the American military to defend Japan. The practical realities of the Cold War and the Soviet threat to Japan ended up creating what are technically “self-defense forces” (SDF) in three branches:

  • Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF)
  • Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces (JGSDF)
  • Japan Air Self-Defense Forces (JASDF)

In the next post, these forces will be cataloged, with specific capabilities linked to Japanese strategy. As a quick preview, the map below illustrates the early warning radar sites, airborne early warning aircraft, and fighter-interceptor aircraft, charged with the mission to maintain a balance of power in the air, as Russian and Chinese air forces challenge the sovereignty of Japanese airspace. With the Russians, this is an old dance from the Cold War, but recently the Chinese have gotten into this game as well.

[Source: J-Wings magazine, December 2018]

Will Tax Reform Throttle A U.S. Defense Budget Increase?

John Conger recently reported in Defense One that the tax reform initiative championed by the Trump administration and Republican congressional leaders may torpedo an increase in the U.S. defense budget for 2018. Both the House and Senate have passed authorizations approving the Trump administration’s budget request for $574.5 billion in defense spending, which is $52 billion higher than the limit established by the Budget Control Act (BCA). However, the House and Senate also recently passed a concurrent 2018 budget resolution to facilitate passage of a tax reform bill that caps the defense budget at $522 billion as mandated by the BCA.

The House and Senate armed services committees continue to hammer out the terms of the 2018 defense authorization, which includes increases in troop strength and pay. These priorities could crowd out other spending requested by the services to meet strategic and modernization requirements if the budget remains capped. Congress also continues to resist the call by Secretary of Defense James Mattis to close unneeded bases and facilities, which could free spending for other needs. There is also little interest in reforming Defense Department business practices that allegedly waste $125 billion annually.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats were already headed toward a showdown over 2018 BCA limits on defense spending. Even before the tax reform push, several legislators predicted yet another year-long continuing resolution limiting government spending to the previous year’s levels. A bipartisan consensus existed among some armed services committee members that this would constitute “borderline legislative malpractice, particularly for the Department of Defense.”

Despite the ambitious timeline set by President Trump to pass a tax reform bill, the chances of a continuing resolution remain high. It also seems likely that any agreement to increase defense spending will be through the Overseas Contingency Operations budget, which is not subject to the BCA. Many in Congress agree with Democratic Representative Adam Smith that resorting to this approach is “a fiscal sleight of hand [that] would be bad governance and ‘hypocritical.’”

Are tax reform and increased defense spending incompatible? Stay tuned.

“So Fricking Stupid”: Muddling Through Strategic Insolvency

As I have mentioned before, the United States faces a crisis of “strategic insolvency” with regard to the imbalance between its foreign and military policy commitments and the resources it has allocated to meet them. Rather than addressing the problem directly, the nation’s political leadership appears to be opting to “muddle through” instead by maintaining the policy and budgetary status quo. A case in point is the 2017 Fiscal Year budget, which should have been approved last year. Instead Congress passed a series of continuing resolutions (CRs) that keeps funding at existing levels while its members try to come to an agreement.

That part is not working out so well. Representative Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), earlier this week warned that the congressional budget process is headed for “a complete meltdown” in December, Sidney J. Freedberg, Jr. reported in Defense One. The likely outcome, according to Smith, will be another year-long CR in place of a budget. Smith vented that this would constitute “borderline legislative malpractice, particularly for the Department of Defense.”

Smith finds himself in bipartisan agreement with HASC chairman Mac Thornberry and Senate Armed Services chairman John McCain that ongoing CRs and the restrictions of sequestration have contributed to training and maintenance shortfalls that resulted in multiple accidents—including two U.S. Navy ship collisions—that have killed 42 American servicemembers this summer.

As Freedberg explained,

What’s the budget train wreck, according to Smith? The strong Republican majority in the House has passed a defense bill that goes $72 billion over the maximum allowed by the 2011 Budget Control Act. That would trigger the automatic cuts called sequestration unless the BCA is amended, as it has been in the past. But the slim GOP majority in the Senate needs Democratic votes to amend the BCA, and the Dems won’t deal unless non-defense spending rises as much as defense – which is anathema to Republican hardliners in the House.

“Do you understand just how fricking stupid that is?” a clearly frustrated Smith asked rhetorically. A possible alternative would be to shift the extra defense spending into Overseas Contingency Operation funding, which is not subject to the BCA, as has been done before. Smith derided this option as “a fiscal sleight of hand [that] would be bad governance and ‘hypocritical.’”

Just as politics have gridlocked budget negotiations, so to it prevents flexibility in managing the existing defense budget. Smith believes a lot of money could be freed up by closing domestic military bases deemed unnecessary by the Defense Department and canceling some controversial nuclear weapons programs, but such choices would be politically contentious, to say the least.

The fundamental problem may be simpler: no one knows how much money is really needed to properly fund current strategic plans.

One briefer from the Pentagon’s influential and secretive Office of Net Assessment told Smith that “we do not have the money to fund the strategy that we put in place in 2012,” the congressman recalled. “And I said, ‘how much would you need?’…. He had no idea.”

And the muddling through continues.