Japanese politicians should take a “cowardly” approach toward war instead of touting self-sacrifice because Japanese deaths will be inevitable if the nation enters a conflict, a retired Defense Ministry official said.

Kyoji Yanagisawa, who was also assistant chief Cabinet secretary for crisis management from 2004 to 2009, was involved in the decision to deploy the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq for humanitarian assistance and security activities.

Based on those and other experiences, he has been calling on the nation to give serious thought to the price that Japan would have to pay in the event of war.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

QUESTION: As assistant chief Cabinet secretary, you helped the government map out a policy to send the SDF to Iraq, where the U.S.-led coalition was fighting. In your recent book, you wrote that the possible deaths of SDF members back then felt so real to you for the first time. Can you elaborate?

ANSWER: The government’s decision to deploy the SDF to Iraq had been made right before I took the post of assistant chief Cabinet secretary. But I drafted a document to order the extension of the SDF deployment for Cabinet approval.

The SDF was sent to a supposedly “noncombat zone,” but in reality, their camps were exposed to attacks from Iraqi forces.

The SDF was deployed at the order of the prime minister. But I felt that if the lives of SDF personnel were lost during the mission, I would be accountable as an official who advises the prime minister.

Q: How did you feel after the SDF completed its Iraq mission in 2009 with no fatalities?

A: As a bureaucrat, I felt a sense of accomplishment about that. But I have also kept asking myself: If some members were killed during the mission, what would I have said to their bereaved families? And in what sense would their sacrifice be significant?

I have found myself unable to find answers to these questions.

In 2015, the government revealed that of about 10,000 SDF members who had been sent to Iraq, 29 committed suicide while in service after they came home to Japan.

Frankly speaking, as an official ordering the deployment in a war zone, I did not foresee that the cost of sending the troops would take this form of sacrifice.

Q: The invasion of Iraq was meant to eliminate a threat posed by a country believed to possess weapons of mass destruction. How do you feel now about this purpose?

A: I, too, backed the cause the United States championed. But as it turned out, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. The Iraq war was an unnecessary, wasteful war.

How to accept the fact that policymakers can err is also a lingering question I have been faced with as a government official.

Q: You retired from the government in 2009. Could you not find answers to those questions while you were in office?

A: I have often been asked that question, but I could not (find the answers). You tend to be dragged by the tide of the times when you are part of the government. I decided to explore the questions after I retired and face them as an individual free from the organizational logic of the government.

My conclusion after prolonged soul-searching is that policymakers should be cowardly when the lives of people are at stake. War, after all, is having people so dear to their relatives, friends and others exposed to danger.

LIVES ARE AT STAKE

Q: I was struck by your choice of the word “cowardly” because it has negative connotations. Can you elaborate?

A: Leaders should be cowards when the lives of young people are on the line. Those who can send them to battlegrounds ought not to be courageous.

Q: Why were U.S. policymakers mistaken in the decision to open war against Iraq?

A: I can think of four reasons: They had excessive confidence in their military capabilities; baseless optimism on the postwar order: a burning desire for revenge for the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States; and the narrow sense of justice justifying the toppling of a dictatorship (in a message to Iran and North Korea, as well.)

COSTS FOR JAPAN

Q: Together with retired SDF officials and defense experts, you have been leading an initiative to renounce war while urging the population to learn more about the reality of war. How are renunciation of war and the reality of war connected?

A: We are proposing opting out of war because we live in a world where a new conflict may break out at any minute. Even if we argue that war must be ruled out, the reality is that war is always being fought somewhere on the globe.

Hostile parties have their own reasons for confrontations. We need to search for ways to manage fierce confrontations without letting them spiral out of control and take the form of war.

Q: What role can diplomacy play in preventing hostilities?

A: Investing in diplomacy to avert war means we should work hard to iron out differences with our adversaries over their seemingly irrational demands. That could require us to make big concessions against our better judgment.

Politicians and voters should be fully aware of the costs if Japan were to go to war. We need to weigh the scope of our likely losses caused by making diplomatic concessions to stave off war against the scope of losses we would suffer from waging war.

The question comes down to whether we will be ready to settle for a significant setback as the price to pay to avert war.

I do not mean to needlessly increase any sense of threat, but fighting China would result in Japan's firing missiles against a nation with formidable stockpiles of missiles and weapons.

If a Chinese missile hit an SDF vessel, that alone could cause casualties in the hundreds. Missiles could land on U.S. bases and civilian facilities in Japan, as well.

Q: The current Japanese administration is set to increase defense spending at an unparalleled pace and acquire capabilities of striking enemy bases (that are planning to attack Japan). What is your assessment of these moves?

A: Japan is ill-prepared to sustain hostilities. The nation is heavily dependent on foreign countries for energy and food supplies. Most politicians are inward looking. And the general population tends to maintain the status quo.

It is dangerous to develop an illusion that Japan can turn into a military power with increased defense outlays and with missiles capable of hitting enemy bases.

Q: Taro Aso, a former prime minister and the Liberal Democratic Party’s vice president, said in Taiwan last August that Japan, the United States and Taiwan must show “the resolve to fight” in reference to China’s intensifying military pressure on the territory. You called Aso’s comment “upsetting.” Can you explain why?

A: Aso’s comment did not appear to take into account the lives of SDF members that could be lost in the event of war.

His act is a classic example of a political leader raising the danger of war by making unnecessary provocations.

Q: Aso said that to ward off conflict, deterrence will be necessary. And to create a deterrence, showing a resolve to fight is indispensable. Do you agree?

A: The problem with his comment is that he, like many other politicians, would not discuss the kind of sacrifices that would be made, and who should be prepared to make them.

Are Japanese voters prepared to accept the deaths of SDF personnel and members of the public to defend Taiwan and the Taiwanese administration?

Japanese should grapple with this question. And policymakers should provide them with clear materials to better weigh the options.

Japan would likely take the wrong course if politicians and the population simply try to be courageous without using their imagination to gauge the price they would have to pay in war.

Q: Some politicians have argued that a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency. What is your stance on that?

A: Such an argument is not logical. First of all, a Taiwan contingency is a contingency between Taiwan and China. If the United States entered the conflict, it would be a war between China and the United States. It would be Japan’s contingency if Japan approves the use of military facilities in Japan and SDF cooperation requested by Washington.

There are two stages until the contingency in Taiwan becomes Japan’s. But it is not clear in the first place if the United States would enter the conflict.

SELF-SACRIFICE ISSUE

Q: Why are Japanese politicians shying away from discussing the specific costs of going to war? Are they afraid of a public backlash?

A: Politicians would not push their thinking beyond the merit of deterrence. They reason that Japan’s upgrades in deterrence will make war unlikely. Therefore, because they think war is unlikely, they feel they do not need to talk about Japanese sacrifices. 

Q: Should Japanese people accept that they and their relatives may have to sacrifice themselves for their country if Japan wages war again?

A: I do not believe so. The postwar Constitution prohibits the government from forcibly mobilizing its population for a war effort. It is ultimately up to each individual to decide whether they will perform potentially dangerous tasks.

When we think about war and what it would cost us, the question boils down to this: Do we have a society that we desperately want to defend, even if our lives are on the line?

Poet Shuji Terayama once wrote: “Do we have a country for which we don’t mind sacrificing our lives to defend? I believe that people are willing to protect a country that will protect its people.”

Q: Some Japanese politicians have begun calling for the resolve to fight for their nation, given the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, which have taken enormous tolls not only on troops but also civilians. What is your take on this move?

A: At times like this, we should be particularly vigilant about moves to espouse heroism and glorify the war dead. Russian President Vladimir Putin told mothers of fallen soldiers in the war in Ukraine that their sons’ lives were not wasted. He was espousing the idea that sacrificing one’s life for their country is meaningful.

Putin’s behavior illustrates the arrogance of a political leader using the lives of others as his tool.

FOCUS ON ARTICLE 13

Q: What should we do to prevent those in power from using us in the question of self-sacrifice?

A: We should reaffirm that we can decide the purpose of our lives on our own. That is the starting point for each individual. In the Constitution, the dignity of the individual and the right to pursue happiness are enshrined in Article 13 and other articles.

The starting point for politicians is to be in awe of such values. One reason for my deep commitment to renouncing war is that I have no authority over others’ lives.

When I was a Defense Ministry official, my main responsibility was to ensure consistency between war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution and Japan’s security policy. Today, however, I believe that if we contemplate the issue of war, we should first focus on Article 13.

Article 13 stipulates that all people shall be respected as individuals. Their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shall, to the extent that it does not interfere with public welfare, be the supreme consideration in legislation and in other governmental affairs.

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Kyoji Yanagisawa was born in Tokyo in 1946. He was formerly with the Defense Ministry and retired as a career bureaucrat in 2009. He had also served as assistant chief Cabinet secretary and head of the National Institute for Defense Studies. He represents an advocacy group called the Committee to Pacify the Dispute over the Japanese Self-Defense Forces’ Role and Article 9. He has co-written several books, including “Senso ha Dosureba Owaruka?” (What should be done to end war?)