[War] Japan: "Matters of Defence"

[Ian Martell]

"Matters of Defence"
Prime Minister Shunichi Sato
Japan
July 28th 2006

Once the future command staff of the Anti-Missile Command left the men still 
in the meeting room turned to other affairs.

“Chuma was right you know,” said General Murata. “About not having any 
strategies except defensive ones.”

Sato nodded. This had been, to use the American expression, the 500 gorilla 
in the room, developing strike capabilities.

“Granted,” said Inoue speaking for the Prime Minister. “However given the 
current political situation around Article 9, we can’t afford to move 
forward on that sort of project.”

Tanaka frowned. “With all due respect Minister, the Self Defence Forces are 
tasked with defending Japan and not the LDP.”

Sato smiled sardonically. “Some party officials would say it’s the same 
thing,” he said. “However, you’ll find I nor Minister Inoue are amoung 
them.”

Sato sat back and began the process of unburdening himself of one of his 
aborted schemes.

“Originally I had hoped to pursue first strike options as a means of 
negotiation with the North Koreans.”

“How so?” asked Murata.

“A means to a trade. They stop developing and testing their missiles we stop 
developing means to destroy their missiles.”

The General’s nodded.

“However our increased alert status on the night prior to inauguration was 
something of an awakening for me on this matter as has been the process of 
establishing Anti-Missile Command. We cannot stop all the missiles, we know 
that, it is part of our plan,” he tapped the folder. “So why not destroy 
them on the ground in the case of an early detection? Or at least a few more 
of them. Isn’t that the good and noble thing to do? Won’t it save more 
lives?

“However, the people, my party, the Diet is divided on the issue, fiercely. 
So I will not simply stride into this assuming I know best, after all for 
all our preparations, we are dealing with an unlikely situation, North Korea 
knows that if it fires it’s missiles at Japan that the US will immediately 
move to counterstrike per our agreement.”

“Will they though?” asked Tanaka. “Bush was unwilling to do more than say, 
we stand behind Japan’s actions in response to the launches. Their forces 
are stretched between Iraq and Afghanistan and likely will be involved in 
some way in the Lebanese conflict before it is over. The fact is if they had 
they had the will to take on North Korea, which I believe they don’t, they 
don’t have the manpower necessary to take on and defeat them.

Murata nodded. “Even air strikes would be difficult for them, the North 
Korean air defences are impressive despite their forces general lack of 
sophistication.”

“Which would be a problem for us as well,” Inoue countered taking the side 
of his Prime Minister.

Takayama nodded, then smiling slightly. “However if it came to it,” he 
offered sardonically “We could cream them in a sea war.”

He offered it as a joke Sato knew because a valuable as ships were in modern 
combat as missile platforms, the costal defences were as formidable as their 
air defences and sinking the entire North Korean navy wouldn’t mean terribly 
much to an invasion force.

Sato smiled at Takayama’s joke and then looked at his Branch Chiefs.

“Gentlemen, I propose we leave this issue for the time being, say until a 
week from now, however I will say I am willing to entertain your suggestions 
provided they are put forward properly also I hope none of this sentiment 
towards our American allies comes through in your dealings with them. While 
I agree that the current situation demands we do more for ourselves 
defensively than before 9/11 the Americans are still friends of Japan and 
her most valued allies and we will all treat them accordingly.”

The Branch Chiefs quickly contained their displeasure with the US situation 
and followed the lead of Tanaka in standing and bowing.

“Please accept our apologies sirs,” he said on their joint behalf.

Sato nodded. “Accepted gentlemen, I understand your feelings on this matter 
and I appreciate your co-operation in this.”

They nodded, their expressions showing that the matter was resolved in their 
eyes.

“On the topic of the Americans, it is obvious we will need to see how the 
new administration stands on North Korea and our mutual defence agreement as 
well as the procurement of new defence technologies such as the PAC-3 
“Patriot” missile and the Standard Missile-3.”

The Generals and Admiral nodded with approval.

“Has there been any decision on the matter of training space,” Tanaka said.

Sato nodded, Japan was a densely populated place and as a result it was 
nearly impossible to find place for the JSDF to engage in exercises. Except 
for the MSDF anyhow, they had a good chunk of the pacific to work without 
disturbing anyone.

“I will speak to the Americans about joint exercises on their soil when I 
have a chance to meet with the President as well we will be forwarding a 
similar request to the Canadians. I understand they have extensive 
facilities for larger exercises in one of the middle provinces.”

“Alberta,” supplied Tanaka.

“I’d prefer that ASDF exercises be carried out in America if anywhere, they 
use similar equipment to ours.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sato said. “And finally I think,” he looked at his 
watch before continuing he had a meeting on Declining Population issues in a 
few minutes time. “On the matter of exercises, I’d like you gentlemen to 
design a test for Anti-Missile Command to be scheduled for a week after it 
comes online, a full exercise in response to a multiple missile launch from 
North Korea.”

They nodded. “How much warning should we give them?” asked Murata.

“None,” he said. “Make sure they know it’s only a drill but they should be 
responding to a late detection type situation.”

The Branch Chiefs nodded. “Yes sir,” Tanaka said.

“Are we going ahead with the plan to begin education programs for disaster 
response personnel on missile attacks?”

Sato nodded. “Yes, the Minister is fully on board, however we both feel that 
discretion is necessary, so no big announcements of this program are to be 
made so make sure your press departments know this. It is my intention to 
win the support of the people for my defence goals through appreciation of 
the value of the SDF and not fear.”

They nodded once again.

Sato straightened and then stood.

“Same time tomorrow gentlemen,” he said and with that left Inoue and 
Watanabe to conduct the rest of the meeting while Sato moved on with his 
day.

Actions:

1>	Set up for future discussion of first strike tech.
2>	Request a meeting with President Williams about the state of the defence 
treaty and appropriation of American missiles for deployment in Japan as 
well joining the embargo against North Korea
3>	Request a meeting with Prime Minister Bindahri to discuss use of Canadian 
facilities to conduct joint training exercises and to discuss joining the 
trade embargo against North Korea.
4>	Schedule a test of the Anti-Missile Command for one week after it begins 
operations (settled in Miho etc)
5>	Have the GSDF disaster response people train the civilian disaster 
response people (police, fire, local gov’t co-ordinators) about what to do 
in the case of conventional or nuclear missile attack, but doing so 
discreetly as possible.

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