The security relationship between Australia and Japan is blossoming and Canberra is fast becoming Tokyo’s ‘number two’ ally. As the successful cooperation between Australian troops and Japanese SDF engineers in Iraq winds up, Dr Brendan Nelson, the Australian Defence Minister had this to say in The Australian Financial Review:

“Japan was very impressed with the support Australia was able to provide their engineers in Al Muthanna,” he told The Australian Financial Review.

“Australia, too, has been pleased with how well the deployment worked. I think you could see us working more closely with Japan on peacekeeping and other operations in the region in future”. . .

Dr Nelson said he believed more opportunities for collaboration would arise.

“Japan is still providing financial, airlift and aeromedical support in Iraq and I wouldn’t rule out seeing Tokyo back in some other capacity,” he said.

Japan going back to Iraq in “some other capacity”? A source in Dr. Nelson’s office has informed the Iron Chef that Australia would not be surprised if Tokyo authorised a second SDF provincial reconstruction team for dispatch to war-shattered Iraq in future.

Indeed, Japan is becoming more and more eager to involve itself in non-war security operations such as peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation and responding to natural disasters. Australia’s defence force, with its credible peacekeeping operations in the Solomon Islands and East Timor along with its much-applauded response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami reconstruction effort in Indonesia, is something of a role model for Japan’s SDF:

“Australia is playing a significant role in helping Japan emerge from postwar pacificism and its re-emergence as a military power in the region,” (Australian academic, Alan Dupont) said.

“Apart from the US, the Japanese consider Australia to have one of the few defence forces in the region they can learn from, particularly with our counterterrorism capabilities.

A more comprehensive description of exactly what the SDF hopes to learn from Australia has been detailed by Naoko Sajima in her chapter “Australia’s Place in Japanese Security Perceptions of the Asia-Pacific” from the recently published edited text Japan, Australia and Asia-Pacific Security. We should certainly expect to see far more security cooperation between Australia and Japan in the future.