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日本の爆弾投下訓練は北朝鮮を想定＝NYタイムズ紙（上）
http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20070724000007
自衛隊による戦後初の爆弾投下訓練は北朝鮮を狙ったもの、とニューヨーク・タイムズが分析した。
同紙は23日（現地時間）付の1面と6面に「連日の爆弾洗礼、日本は軍事力抑制から抜け出す」と題した記事で、自衛隊が先月西太平洋の孤島で500ポンド（約227キロ）爆弾を投下する訓練を行ったと報じた。
同紙によると、これは一見普通の軍事訓練だが、日本としては防衛目的の軍事訓練のみを許容する憲法の規定を越える非常に重大な事件というわけだ。
とりわけ最新型のF2戦略爆撃機がグアムから240キロ北方の外国の島まで飛んで爆撃訓練を行ったことには「非常に挑発的で意味深いメッセージが込められている」とし、この爆撃機はおそらく北朝鮮のある地点に爆弾を投下して帰還する訓練を行ったものと同紙はみている。
このような攻撃的軍事訓練に対する心配の声に対して日本は、「爆弾投下は防衛のためのもの」という詭弁（きべん）を展開している。訓練を行った航空自衛隊の司令官は「爆弾投下は常に攻撃を意味するものではない。爆弾は防衛のためにも使用可能だ。われわれはその訓練を重点的に行っている」と奇怪な論理を展開した。
同紙は軍事的タブーを破り始めた日本の行動について、北東アジアの安全保障の軸を日本に任せようとする米国の戦略的支援によるものと指摘する。最近5年間で自衛隊は米軍の一部のようになり、両国は緊密な軍事関係を維持している。
日本はインド洋に護衛艦と燃料供給船を待機させ、アフガニスタンの米軍や他国の軍隊を支援している。イラクではクウェートから飛来する米軍とともに、物資運搬の支援を行っている。
今回の訓練は日本と米国がグアムで行った初めての訓練であり、日本で今後導入が有力視されている最新鋭のF22戦闘機なら、日本の北部からグアムまで2700キロを給油なしに飛行できる。今回の訓練に参加した自衛隊のパイロットは「一気に攻撃できる」として露骨に自慢した。
http://www.chosunonline.com/article/20070724000008
日本の爆弾投下訓練は北朝鮮を想定＝NYタイムズ紙（下）
日本は最近になって米国が輸出を禁じている最新鋭のF22戦闘機導入に強い意欲を示している。F22は、現時点ではステルス性能を持つ完ぺきな戦闘機との評価を受けている。
ニューヨーク・タイムズは自衛隊について、構成員は24万1000人と周辺国より小規模だが、アジアでは最も精巧な組織と評価しており、400億ドル（約4兆8000億円）に上る防衛費は世界でも5本の指に入ると指摘している。また、国防予算以外で偵察衛星の打ち上げも行っている。
日本の安倍政権は北朝鮮の脅威と中国の軍事力強化を名分として、最近になって防衛費を2倍に増やし、第2次大戦での従軍慰安婦問題など過去の罪をあいまいにするため、帝国主義軍隊の名声を強化しようとしている、と同紙は報じた。
マサチューセッツ工科大学で日本問題を研究するサムエルソン教授は、「安倍首相や小泉純一郎前首相のように、伝統的な価値観を特有の歴史的観点から見る政治家たちは、太平洋戦争で日本が犯した過ちはもう問題ではなく、他国のように軍事力を強化しなければならないと考えている」と分析した。
最も大きな問題は、米国が日本の軍事大国化を積極的に支援しているという事実だ。グアムでの訓練で、日米両国は2週間の空中戦シミュレーションを行い、最終日には西太平洋の孤島に爆撃訓練を敢行して最後を飾った。
米軍司令官は「今回の訓練は新しい環境でお互いの信頼を強めるのに役立った」と満足感を示した。
米国の支援で日々軍事力を強化している日本を見詰める韓国人たちの心情は穏やかではない。キム・ソンジュンさん（48）は「従軍慰安婦問題に対する謝罪は拒否し、爆弾投下訓練を防衛のための訓練と言い訳する日本を見ると、本当に心配になってくる。そのような論理を展開するなら、防衛のために北朝鮮を攻撃し、米軍と対立すれば防衛のために第2の真珠湾攻撃もできるということになる」と述べた。
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/asia/23japan.html
Bomb by Bomb, Japan Sheds Military Restraints
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam ― To take part in its annual exercises with the United States Air Force here last month, Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on Farallon de Medinilla, a tiny island in the western Pacific’s turquoise waters more than 150 miles north of here.
The pilots described dropping a live bomb for the first time ― shouting “shack!” to signal a direct hit ― and seeing the fireball from aloft.
“The level of tension was just different,” said Capt. Tetsuya Nagata, 35, stepping down from his cockpit onto the sunbaked tarmac.
The exercise would have been unremarkable for almost any other military, but it was highly significant for Japan, a country still restrained by a Constitution that renounces war and allows forces only for its defense. Dropping live bombs on land had long been considered too offensive, so much so that Japan does not have a single live-bombing range.
Flying directly from Japan and practicing live-bombing runs on distant foreign soil would have been regarded as unacceptably provocative because the implicit message was clear: these fighter jets could perhaps fly to North Korea and take out some targets before returning home safely.
But from here in Micronesia to Iraq, Japan’s military has been rapidly crossing out items from its list of can’t-dos. The incremental changes, especially since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, amount to the most significant transformation in Japan’s military since World War II, one that has brought it ever closer operationally to America’s military while rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia.
In a little over half a decade, Japan’s military has carried out changes considered unthinkable a few years back. In the Indian Ocean, Japanese destroyers and refueling ships are helping American and other militaries fight in Afghanistan. In Iraq, Japanese planes are transporting cargo and American troops to Baghdad from Kuwait.
Japan is acquiring weapons that blur the lines between defensive and offensive. For the Guam bombing run, Japan deployed its newest fighter jets, the F-2’s, the first developed jointly by Japan and the United States, on their maiden trip here. Unlike its older jets, the F-2’s were able to fly the 1,700 miles from northern Japan to Guam without refueling ― a “straight shot,” as the Japanese said with unconcealed pride.
Japan recently indicated strongly its desire to buy the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter known mainly for its offensive abilities such as penetrating contested airspace and destroying enemy targets, whose export is prohibited by United States law.
At home, the Defense Agency, whose profile had been intentionally kept low, became a full ministry this year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used the parliamentary majority he inherited from his wildly popular predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to ram through a law that could lead to a revision of the pacifist Constitution.
Japan’s 241,000-member military, though smaller than those of its neighbors, is considered Asia’s most sophisticated. Though flat, its $40 billion military budget has ranked among the world’s top five in recent years. Japan has also tapped nonmilitary budgets to launch spy satellites and strengthen its coast guard recently.
Japanese politicians like Mr. Abe have justified the military’s transformation by seizing on the threat from North Korea; the rise of China, whose annual military budget has been growing by double digits; and the Sept. 11 attacks ― even fanning those threats, critics say. At the same time, Mr. Abe has tried to rehabilitate the reputation of Japan’s imperial forces by whitewashing their crimes, including wartime sexual slavery.
Japanese critics say the changes under way ― whose details the government has tried to hide from public view, especially the missions in Iraq ― have already violated the Constitution and other defense restrictions.
“The reality has already moved ahead, so they will now talk about the need to catch up and revise the Constitution,” said Yukio Hatoyama, the secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Richard J. Samuels, a Japan expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that revisionist politicians like Mr. Abe and Mr. Koizumi, once on the fringes of Japan’s political world, succeeded in grabbing the mainstream in a time of uncertainty. They shared the view “that the statute of limitations on Japan’s misbehavior during the Pacific War had expired” and that Japan, like any normal country, should have a military.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/world/asia/23japan.html?pagewanted=2
Their predecessors feared getting entangled in an American-led war. But the new leaders feared that Japan would be abandoned by the United States unless it contributed to its wars, said Mr. Samuels, whose book on Japan’s changing military, “Securing Japan,” will be published in August.
“So what do you do?” he said. “You step up. And that is consistent with what they’ve long wanted to do anyway. So there was a convergence of preferences.”
Today, Japan is America’s biggest partner in developing and financing a missile defense shield in Asia. Some Japanese ground and air force commands are also moving inside American bases in Japan so that the two forces will become, in military jargon, “interoperable.”
“I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear,” said Shigeru Ishiba, a defense chief under Mr. Koizumi and now a leader in a Liberal Democratic Party committee looking at loosening defense restrictions.
In Iraq, in accordance with a special law to aid in reconstruction, a symbolic ground force was first deployed to a relatively peaceful, noncombat area in southern Iraq to engage in relief activities. After the troops left last year, though, three Japanese planes began regularly transporting American troops and cargo from Kuwait to Baghdad.
The Japanese authorities refuse to say whether the planes have transported weapons besides those carried by soldiers. Concerned about public opposition, defense officers have spied on antiwar activists and journalists perceived as critical, the Defense Ministry acknowledged after incriminating documents were recently obtained by the Communist Party in Japan.
Mr. Hatoyama of the Democratic Party said that transporting armed American troops contravened Japan’s pacifist Constitution.
“Instead of engaging in humanitarian assistance, they are basically assisting American troops,” he said. “American troops and the Air Self-Defense Forces are working as one, just as they are training as one in Guam.”
In Parliament, Mr. Abe denied that the activities violated the Constitution, saying Japanese troops were restricted to noncombat zones and did not operate under a joint command with any other force.
Here in Guam, American and Japanese pilots simulated intercepts and air-to-air combat for two weeks. In the final days, each side took turns pummeling the tiny island with bombs.
Col. Tatsuya Arima, the commander of the Japanese squadron, said such bombing could protect Japanese grounds troops or vessels from encroaching enemies.
“Bombing does not always mean offensive weapons,” Colonel Arima said. “They can also be used for defense, which, put another way, is what we mostly train for.”
Lt. Col. Tod Fingal, the commander of the American squadron, said the exercise helped build confidence among pilots by exposing them to a new environment.
“I would equate it to an away game in sports,” Colonel Fingal said.
Japan’s military has become less shy in projecting its power away from home. Japan lacks the nuclear submarines, long-range missiles or large aircraft carriers that amount to real power projection.
But it is acquiring four Boeing 767 air tankers that will allow its planes to refuel in midair and travel farther, as well as two aircraft carriers that will transport helicopters and, with some adjustments, planes capable of taking off vertically. The United States has welcomed the changes while pressing for more.
“The restrictions that Japan has lived under, which I would say Japan has maintained on its own or imposed on itself, are quite unique,” said a Pentagon official who requested anonymity so that he could speak candidly. “The changes that you’re seeing in Japan are very unique changes in the context of those restrictions. In the context of everything else that is going on around the world, or in the context of Japan’s potential to contribute to the region and the world in security areas, the changes are fairly small.”
Small or not, they are causing anxieties in a region where distrust of Japan has deepened in direct proportion to Japanese tendencies to revise the past. South Korea reacted sharply to Japan’s desire to buy the F-22 Raptor. Also, in a recent ceremony unveiling South Korea’s first destroyer equipped with the advanced Aegis weapons system, President Roh Moo-hyun said, “Northeast Asia is still in an arms race, and we cannot just sit back and watch.”
Mr. Ishiba, the former defense chief, said the region’s distrust was softened by Japan’s alliance with the United States. But he acknowledged that Japan’s inability to come to terms with its wartime past restricted its ability to project power positively.
“Unless everyone understands why we weren’t able to avoid that war,” Mr. Ishiba said, referring to World War II, “and what Japan did to Asia, it could be dangerous if we get power-projection capability.”
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/23/asia/23japan.php
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