A hint of desperation was detected when a recruitment officer of the Self-Defense Forces addressed about 50 college and high school students in Nagoya in late March.

“Even if it is not your first choice, please include the SDF in your job options,” Eishiro Ishii, a lieutenant colonel at the SDF’s Aichi Provincial Cooperation Office, asked the students.

He made the pitch at a joint job fair for prospective civil servants in public security, where his rivals were local police and fire departments and the Japan Coast Guard.

Ishii also tried to appeal to the parents of prospective recruits at the event, the first of which was held four years ago.

“The SDF has large numbers of troops, and its benefits are large,” he said.

However, most of the interest was for firefighting positions.

A high school student from Miyoshi, Aichi Prefecture, said he wanted to become a firefighter “to help people directly.”

Although the other options, including the SDF, also engage in work that directly supports people, the student’s mother favored his choice.

“Serving in the SDF or the Coast Guard may send my son on a dangerous mission in the event of a contingency,” the mother said.

ENLISTMENTS DECLINE

For years, the SDF has been fighting an uphill battle to find recruits.

The active SDF troop strength is set under law. The SDF is supposed to have personnel in the 240,000 range to fulfill its responsibility to defend Japan.

The number has remained more or less the same since fiscal 2007, but the actual number of enlistments has been declining.

As of the end of fiscal 2022, the number of SDF members fell nearly 20,000 short.

The pool of potential recruits is also drying up.

In 2040, the number of people in Japan aged 15 to 64 is projected to plummet by 20 percent from the current level.

The shortfalls come at a time when the SDF’s missions could shift away from Japan’s long-held purely defensive policy.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, underscoring the need to build up defense, has described the current security environment surrounding Japan as “the most difficult and complex in postwar years.”

At the same time, SDF troops continue to be dispatched to regions struck by large-scale natural disasters.

It is essential for the SDF to secure enough young members, but it has been a challenge, given the demanding nature of the job.

The SDF is now seeking cooperation from local governments and schools in its recruitment drives.

In 2018, it significantly eased its enlistment standards by allowing people up to 32 years old to apply. The previous maximum enlistment age was 26.

But that did not resolve the problem, and the disparity between the targeted troop strength and the actual size has widened.

Many experts fear that a short-staffed SDF will be unable to function properly in the years ahead, even with sufficient equipment and funding.

Masahisa Sato, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who was formerly with the Ground SDF, has pressed the Defense Ministry to bolster its recruitment efforts.

At an Upper House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense on May 9, Sato, reading a letter from a Maritime SDF member seeking improved work conditions, said the SDF faces a “manpower crisis.”

“Despite the slogan to drastically strengthen Japan’s defense capabilities, the SDF will end up with fragile forces if it cannot come up with sufficient troops,” he said.

Defense Minister Minoru Kihara promised that the ministry will do its best to address the issue, but he acknowledged the enormous challenge in turning things around.

“The race to attract recruits will only get more severe in the years to come because every Japanese industry is experiencing a serious labor void,” he said.

The SDF is offering higher salaries to attract and retain recruits for particularly difficult work.

The fiscal 2024 budget includes funds to increase allowances for crews of destroyers and submarines, as well as those working at radar sites and in cybersecurity.

In addition, MSDF vessels are expected to introduce special equipment that will allow crew to exchange texts with family members. Submarine crew members can only receive texts.

Younger generations have tended to shun the MSDF more than the other two branches. MSDF duties can entail long tours at sea with no mobile connections for their smartphones.

Legislation enacted this year includes a provision that makes it easier for the SDF to hire reservists and provide higher salaries for cyber and other highly skilled specialists.

These measures were among a set of proposals made by a panel of experts formed last year by the Defense Ministry.

The panel recognized Japan’s low birthrate as a “silent contingency” undermining the country from within. It said improved work conditions for SDF personnel are needed to maintain strong defense capabilities in a shrinking pool of potential members.

However, these are considered stop-gap measures in line with the government’s policy to retain recruitment targets through fiscal 2027.

Many SDF recruiters have said it will be extremely difficult to expand Japan’s defense capabilities while sticking with the goal of maintaining the size of the SDF, given the failure to reach the target for many years.

The expert panel’s report also asked for a “review of the SDF’s strategy for combat and enhanced defense capabilities from a long-term perspective based on the acknowledgement of the grave demographic challenge confronting the nation.”

At one meeting, ministry officials pressed panel members to weigh measures that will improve SDF recruiting strategy and treatment of troops.

However, many panelists agreed that such measures will not lead to a fundamental solution.

SHRINKING POOL

Tetsuro Kuroe, who served as the highest-ranking bureaucrat in the Defense Ministry, and Ryoichi Oriki, former chief of staff of the SDF, pushed for revamping Japan’s defense strategy based on the shrinking and aging of the population.

Kuroe recalled being “stunned” to learn from data presented at a panel meeting that the population of 18-year-olds is expected plunge to around 70 percent of the current level by 2040.

In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, he acknowledged that the SDF has been forced into a cutthroat battle for recruits against employers both in the private and public sectors.

“We need to squarely face reality and rethink how to fight so that the SDF can retain defense capabilities with understaffed forces while introducing unmanned defense equipment and artificial intelligence programs in the chain of command,” Kuroe said.

Diet members have formed a nonpartisan group to discuss future operations of the ministry and the SDF amid the shrinking and aging society.

One issue raised during the group’s discussion was the role of the SDF.

The SDF’s primary role is the defense of Japan, but its mission has expanded over the years, including protecting Japanese nationals, rescue and rebuilding efforts in disaster-hit regions, and overseas dispatches for international contributions.

At a meeting in late February, a Defense Ministry official involved in recruitment urged group members to start a national debate to pick the best targets for SDF resources. At that time, troops had been deployed for rescue operations on the Noto Peninsula, which was struck by a powerful quake on Jan. 1.

“In the event of a contingency, we should do only what we can do,” the official said, referring to a response to an armed attack.

Seiko Noda, a senior LDP member who heads the nonpartisan group and was once minister in charge of countermeasures against the declining birthrate, acknowledged the “tough situation” the SDF has been in.

“As Japan’s birthrate keeps decreasing, mothers feel strongly that they do not want to see their children sent to a danger zone,” she said.

Noda also said that although the declining birthrate directly erodes Japan’s defense ability, LDP lawmakers well versed in national security issues have only talked about military hardware.

Noda also suggested shifting more SDF personnel to defend Japan’s territorial waters. The GSDF currently accounts for 60 percent of all SDF members.

But she also mentioned the need to have troops stationed across Japan so that they can immediately respond to natural disasters.

In fact, deployment to disaster-hit regions for rescue operations is what 88 percent of the public seeks from the SDF, the most common answer, according to a Cabinet Office survey two years ago.

It was followed by efforts to ensure Japan’s security, cited by 78 percent, the survey, which allowed multiple answers, showed.

Noda also stressed the importance of diplomacy to avert war.

TECHNOLOGY REPLACEMENTS?

Taking advantage of newly emerging technology, such as artificial-intelligence systems, will be essential for the SDF to maintain its defense capabilities when it cannot bring in enough recruits.

“It will become critical for the SDF to continue operating defense equipment while avoiding breakdowns caused by understaffed forces,” said a Masahiro Morimoto, former MSDF member who is now president of AI company Fronteo.

In the private sector, experienced engineers can assess the condition of factory equipment by studying daily logs kept by operators. The engineers can then take steps to prevent breakdowns.

Morimoto said AI can be trained to acquire the expertise of such engineers and then pass on the skills to MSDF members for maintenance work on vessels.

In that respect, introducing AI systems over the next five years will be crucial for the successful transfer of knowledge because the task will get harder after more veteran SDF members retire.

But the idea of supplementing humans with new technology will inevitably lead to pursuits of unmanned defense equipment and highly sophisticated weapons.

“The only available option will be to come up with weapons that have more power, longer range and more precision to hit and destroy the target,” a senior ministry official said.

An extension of this way of thinking is the move to bolster Japan’s deterrence by allowing it to strike enemy bases that are preparing to attack the nation.

Another extension is the increasing reliance of AI-assisted weapons.

However, the shift to this direction has the potential to shake the root of Japan’s postwar defense policy, whose central tenet is pacifism, as enshrined in the Constitution.