Op-ed:New Prime Minister’s challenge to a taboo in politics

Japan has focused only on its economic growth and averted it eyes away from national security affairs since the end of Second World War. As a result, so many national security issues have remained taboos, which not so many politicians would like to seriously deal with. One of them is the right of collective self-defense. But, New Prime Minister of Japan Taro Aso, who took office after sudden step down by former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on 25th of this month, expressed his willingness to change the current interpretation of the right by Japanese government the next day. I believe Japanese government should not change it, even if the right is necessary for its national security. It should arouse public opinion to deepen discussion of the right instead. Then, the Constitution should be amended to enable the government to exercise the right through the appropriate process of national referendum.

There are two rights on self-defense under international law. One is the right of individual self-defense, which is the right to use armed strength to stop armed attack on a nation. Japan has the right and is permissible to exercise it under the constitution too because Japanese people cannot protect themselves without it. Another is the right of collective-self defense, which is the right to use armed strength to stop armed attack on other countries with which a nation has close relations, although it is not under direct attack. According to the current Japanese government interpretation of the right, it has the right under international law, but is not permissible to exercise it since it exceeds the limit of use of armed strength as permitted under the Constitution.

I agree with the Prime Minister because the right is necessary for its national security, For example, international security situation has changed a lot since the end of Cold War. What is especially critical for Japan is proliferation of ballistic missiles around the world. So many countries have the missiles and they become imminent threats for Japan. In reality, North Korea launched many missiles into Japan Sea for many times in the last 10 years. That is why Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDFs) are building anti-ballistic missile defense system now (Current Japanese Constitution does not permit the government to have Army, Navy and Air Force. So, it has SDFs instead of them. Their main role is defense of Japan, and do not have weapons which can be regarded as ones just for offense such as aircraft careers).

The missile interception mission would be fight against time because the missile can reach Japan in a matter of minutes. In this situation, the commander in charge of the mission has to order missile troops to launch interception missiles as soon as possible. But, there is one difficulty for him/her. Because Japanese government is not permissible to exercise the right of collective self-defense, it cannot intercept missiles headed to other countries. This means the commander needs to judge whether a missile is certainly being headed to Japan or not before his/her order to shoot it down. If a missile intercepted by SDFs seemed headed to Japan but was actually launched against other country, the interception mission would be unconstitutional. This problem may prevent the commander from making a quick judgement.

Nevertheless, I object to the idea of changing the current interpretation of the right. One reason is it has a possibility to lead to endless expansion of interpretation. The Constitution should always be interpreted as the same. Of course, it may have a gray area where the interpretation cannot but slightly vary, but the change of interpretation which enables the government to exercise the right of collective self-defense is in a different dimension. If the government could change interpretation of the constitution in an arbitrary manner without amending it, it would become serious threat to the people’s freedom.

Therefore, the government should explain the necessity of the right to the people to make them focus on and have a deep discussion of the matter. Then, amendment of the constitution should be realized through the appropriate process of national referendum.

Ryota Nakatsuji, Master of Public Policy Candidate at Harvard Kennedy School, was a chief cabinet official in charge of National Security at Japanese Cabinet Secretariat and chief defense official at Japanese Ministry of Defense.