U.S. deputy defense undersecretary for Asia Richard Lawless has said that current Japanese anti-collective defense position is “crazy.”
According to the Japanese government, the nation’s constitution would not allow it to shoot down missiles passing Japan on their way to targets in the United States.
In December 2003, when the Cabinet decided to go ahead with the missile defense system, then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said in a statement the deployment “is aimed solely at defending our country.”
“It will be operated at our independent-minded discretion and will not be used for the defense of a third country, so poses no problems in terms of collective defense,” the statement says.
This is despite the fact that the United States has been protecting Japan since World War II, and dispatched anti-missile forces here following ICBM tests by North Korea.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has called for Japan to study a reinterpretation of the policy.
I heard about that one. It’s a highly improbable scenario, as any North Korean ICBM on it’s way to the USA would not actually pass over Japan. Unless it were destined for Hawaii.
I suspect that in such an event, the order would be given from Tokyo to shoot down the missile and then later the MSDF ship’s commander (i’m assuming we’re talking ship-based anti-ballistic missile systems), would be made a sacrificial lamb and dismissed for having acted ‘unconstitutionaly’. In this manner Japan could honour both its constitutional and alliance obligations. Albeit at the expense of a naval officer’s career.
Berocca: I think you’re a little pessimistic (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
More likely, investigation would reveal that a faulty chip improperly activated the ABM system. Subsequent investigation would show that the chip had been supplied by a South Korean electronics company, which would then be sued by Japan’s government to recover the cost of the ABM and related damages (such as blistered paint from rocket exhaust). After several weeks of blaring sound-trucks cruising around the S.Korean embassy in Tokyo, and the requisite number of digital amputations in Seoul, the two governments would agree that in the interests of bilateral goodwill, the suit would be dropped and S.Korea would “donate” to Japan’s SDF 100 gallons of a new nanotech paint developed by scientists at the joint industrial research facility it opened with N.Korea to support economic development.