While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is pushing ahead with his security policy initiative to fundamentally enhance Japan’s defense capabilities, the Self-Defense Forces are struggling to meet their recruiting goals.

With the seemingly unstoppable decline in the number of young Japanese amid low birthrates, competition for talent in this country is becoming fiercer.

Pursuing an unrealistically large SDF workforce could only raise doubt about the sustainability of the all-volunteer forces.

The active SDF troop strength for fiscal 2022, which ended in March, was 228,000, a shortfall of some 19,000 from the goal of 247,000. The ratios of actual numbers of personnel to the staffing goals during the past decade have been hovering around 91 to 94 percent.

The upper age limit for cadets to become fixed-term SDF personnel--the minimum eligibility age is 18--was raised to 32 from 26 in 2018 to cast a wider net.

But the step has done little to cure the SDF’s recruitment woes. The number of applicants has fallen by some 30 percent over the past decade.

Alarmed by the recruitment difficulty, the Defense Ministry set up in February a panel of experts to discuss possible measures to “strengthen the (SDF’s) human infrastructure.”

The panel released a report last month, which at its outset contended that no matter how much sophisticated defense equipment the SDF may have, it cannot make good use of its defense capabilities if it fails to secure sufficient human resources to operate the systems.

The report described securing manpower as vital for the nation’s security as acquiring effective defense systems.

The panel’s proposals included increases in salaries and allowances, measures to improve the working and living conditions for personnel including steps to eliminate harassment and enhanced support for SDF members who take care of young children or elderly family members or who seek new jobs.

The panel also called for a new system to recruit private-sector specialists in such cutting-edge areas as cyber and space defense by offering fixed-term jobs with high salaries.

The report also proposed to review a range of rules that clash with young people’s lifestyles, such as requiring living within bases or posts and restrictions on hairstyles and hair colors.

It is necessary to take a wide range of measures to find new recruits to fill the ranks of the forces. But at the root of the problem is the serious demographic challenge confronting the nation--the shrinking population of young people due to low birthrates.

While eliminating harassment is crucial, higher pay and improved working conditions alone will not solve the problem.

The government needs to adjust its plan to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities to the grim reality of a shrinking population. It should set clear priorities in allocating limited human resources while making every possible labor-saving effort.

This defense budget for the current fiscal year has been cast by the administration as the first year for achieving greater defense capabilities under Kishida’s initiative as defined by newly revised versions of the three key security policy documents.

However, the budget is less focused on bolstering the SDF’s human infrastructure than on measures to beef up the nation’s military muscle including the introduction of long-range missiles that can be used to strike enemy bases.

This imbalance between the expansion and upgrading of weapons systems and the staffing shortfall will ensure that the Kishida administration’s plan to buttress the nation’s defense capabilities will fall short of its objective.

Many experts say the government’s decision to ramp up defense spending sharply was based on an excessively ambitious predetermined goal, not on a careful assessment of priorities reflecting views and opinions of uniformed personnel.

New tasks and operations of new weapons systems that have been quickly increased under the government’s rush to strengthen the forces may be placing too many burdens on the men and women in uniform.

The government should adopt a more down-to-earth approach to enhancing national defense, well aligned to the nation’s demographic, economic and fiscal realities.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 24