The Defense Ministry said it will no longer hold an annual Self-Defense Forces review ceremony held in the presence of the prime minister because personnel are too busy trying to keep Japan safe from outside threats.

In its July 30 announcement, the ministry also cited a severe manpower shortage as adding to the burden of hosting the parade.

The annual ceremony was the most prestigious event on the SDF calendar. It had been hosted in turns by the Ground, Maritime and Air arms of the SDF and was attended by the prime minister in his capacity as the supreme commander.

Ministry officials had been weighing the decision for more than six months.

At the beginning of the year when Kazuo Masuda served as vice defense minister, he broached scrapping the review ceremony during a meeting with Gen Nakatani in the defense minister’s office in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district.

“With the MSDF increasingly busy with training exercises and missions in and outside the country, I think it will be difficult to continue the fleet review in the way it has been held to date,” Masuda told him.

Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, then chief of staff of the SDF’s Joint Staff and top uniformed officer, later joined the discussions along with other senior officials.

Eventually, Nakatani confirmed the intentions of the chiefs of staff of the Ground, Maritime and Air units and decided to end the review ceremony.

“It is difficult to maintain a seamless defense system if we have to hold the ceremony every year,” Nakatani said during a news conference on Aug. 1.

NO AUDIENCE SINCE 2020

Like military parades everywhere, the ceremony featured the latest defense equipment and a strong turnout of SDF members, placing a heavy burden on personnel due to a chronic manpower shortage.

The ceremony had been held on a reduced scale after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and with no audience since 2020.

A senior ministry official called the decision a “wise one.”

The MSDF pushed to discontinue the ceremony.

“We have been asking for it to be discontinued for the past 10 years,” a senior official said.

MSDF warning and surveillance missions have sharply increased in recent years due to China’s growing maritime assertiveness.

To deal with increased surveillance missions, the MSDF had to deploy minesweepers because destroyers alone were not up to the task without help.

Bringing in key vessels for the event ties them up for nearly one month if they come from distant waters for the review held in Sagami Bay on the Pacific coast.

The MSDF had to gather its ships from across the country to use them as lookout vessels to prevent fishing boats from entering the zone during the event.

“The fleet review could reveal shortcomings in our maritime defense,” a senior MSDF official said.

While the full quota of the SDF is about 247,000, the ratio of personnel to the staffing goal stood at 89.1 percent at the end of fiscal 2024, falling short of 90 percent for the first time in 25 years.

SDF recruitment in fiscal 2024, which ended in March, came to 9,724, or just 65 percent of its target.

The staffing ratio of low-ranking personnel was 60.7 percent.

“We are having a hard time recruiting young people,” said a ministry source, blaming the falling birthrate.

The review ceremony had been held annually since 1951, hosted by the SDF’s predecessor, the National Police Reserve.

It was aimed at promoting a deeper understanding of the SDF among the public through general visitors.

However, a Cabinet Office survey showed that in recent years, about 90 percent of the public harbors a favorable impression of the SDF.

“PR is important, but national defense missions must be the priority,” said a senior official, sharing a widespread view in the ministry.

SAPPORO SNOW FESTIVAL

In another change, it was announced in May that the GSDF will have a smaller presence at the renowned Sapporo Snow Festival in Hokkaido, where its members traditionally created two massive ice statues.

From now on, they will carve only one statue. Officials explained that an accumulative total of 8,000 GSDF members were tied up for more than a month to complete two statues.

“It was a difficult decision to make,” said a senior GSDF member. “But it is a case of putting the cart before the horse when the members can’t receive training because they’re too busy building snow statues.”

(This article was written by Mizuki Sato and Daisuke Yajima.)