Early in September, Israeli F-15s bombed a remote part of the Syrian desert three days after a North Korean merchant ship docked in that country. At first the Israeli press was forbidden to discuss the attack, but hints later emerged in various places, including the United States, that the Israelis had destroyed a Syrian nuclear installation, perhaps one involved with Iran. The Syrians were uncharacteristically quiet about the blatant Israeli violation of their airspace, but the North Koreans protested vehemently. What was going on?
One possibility suggests itself. In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when no evidence of the Iraqi nuclear program was found, a few analysts suggested that the nuclear program had simply been moved across the border into Syria to preserve it. There seems to have been widespread agreement that the Iraqis had a viable bomb design, and that the main barrier to their building a bomb was the absence of fuel in the form of either plutonium or U-235. At one point the Iraqis were using lasers to separate the required uranium isotope, but the facility involved was destroyed by United Nations inspectors.
Now think about North Korea. The North Koreans have demonstrated that they have the fuel, in the form at least of plutonium, and probably also some purified uranium. They have agreed to dismantle their program, but that leaves them with an unknown amount of potential bomb fuel. In the past, North Korea has profited considerably from weapon sales, such as that of ballistic missiles (there were claims that Iranians were present at the last round of North Korean long-range missile tests). Surely bomb fuel is among North Korea's most valuable products. It would make sense to imagine that in the Syrian desert, the fairly mature Iraqi bomb program and the fuel it lacked were being brought together.
From an Israeli perspective, that combination justified armed action. The Syrians have North Korean-type Scud missiles with sufficient range to reach Israeli population centers. They have shown interest in arming these weapons with chemical warheads (reportedly some Iranian scientists died in July when such a mating test failed). The North Koreans may well have seen Syria as a possible home in exile for their own bomb program; there is little or no reason to imagine that they have given up all interest in nuclear deterrence for self-protection, or for a nuclear attack elsewhere. Moving the program out of North Korea would allow the regime to accept the carrots now being offered without making what it sees as an excessive sacrifice.
The fact that North Korea alone seems to have voiced public outrage over the Israeli attack suggests that something rather important was happening in that country. As hosts to Iraqis and North Koreans, the Syrians might regret losing their share of the bomb program, but they would not be nearly as upset as the North Koreans. They might also observe that the Israelis had shown up Syria's rather expensive air defense program as an empty gesture.
Japan's Stance
Any analysis of North Korean thinking naturally brings us to Japan, Korea's historical enemy, and probably the one topic on which North and South Koreans most often agree. Under the pressure of a North Korean missile and nuclear threat, the Japanese government has gradually turned away from its pure self-defense posture, as enshrined in its constitution. Thus the Japanese Air Self Defense Force has been allowed to buy tankers and extend the range of its fighters, and it is now obvious that the same precision bombs bought to deal with attacks on Japanese shores can also be used against foreign targets. In a larger sense, the problem of North Korea has made it obvious that few if any weapons can be categorized as purely defensive (or, for that matter, purely offensive, since they have deterrent effect). That was obvious many years ago, when attempts were made to limit arms in Europe to purely defensive ones.
In August, Japan launched its largest warship to date, the 13,500-ton Hyuga. The ship is characterized as a helicopter-carrying destroyer, a direct replacement for the 5,000-ton Haruna class. The latter has a conventional superstructure with a helicopter hangar abaft amidships and a large flight deck aft. The Hyuga goes much further. Although early sketches showed a hangar amidships and decks fore and aft, the completed ship has a full-length flight deck. She looks like a small carrier.
Moreover, the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force has been trying to build a small carrier for years, because it needs some sort of sea-based fixed-wing air capability to execute the agreed-upon task of protecting Japanese shipping out to about 1,000 miles from Japan. The rub has been the widespread feeling in Japan that carriers are fundamentally offensive ships and are therefore unconstitutional (there is also a report that the U.S. Navy successfully headed off a 1983 Japanese proposal to build a 20,000-ton vertical/short-takeoff and landing [VSTOL] carrier accommodating 20 fighters or 20 helicopters).
The issue of exactly what is needed to exercise sea control is one that affects all navies. If the only anti-shipping weapons are submarines, then sea control is a matter of surface escorts, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft. Helicopters flying from surface ships are important, and it can be argued that a ship carrying more of them can keep them airborne longer. This argument supports helicopter carriers like the Hyuga.
In reality, however, the threat to shipping often involves missile-carrying aircraft. During the Cold War the U.S. Navy argued strenuously that it was pointless to concentrate only on shooting down the missiles, which is what surface missile ships could do. They had to be considered backstops, because unless the aircraft were destroyed, they could keep coming back. Eventually the surface ships would run out of weapons, and they and their flocks would then be destroyed. During the Cold War, this thinking led to interest in the Outer Air Battle under the slogan "shoot the archer, not the arrow." The Japanese may be thinking this way. China is building a force of fighters that can carry stand-off anti-ship missiles, and also has some medium bombers (Badgers) that already carry such weapons. Although these missiles are always advertised as antidotes to U.S. carriers, they can also be used to deal with convoy escorts and merchant ships.
In this context it is difficult to imagine how the Japanese can limit themselves to an antisubmarine definition of shipping protection, and it is also difficult to see how they can be certain that U.S. naval fighters will always be in place to protect their vital shipping. In that case the Hyuga is a first step to see how the Japanese public views a carrier. Because no VSTOL fighter is currently in production, she cannot be considered a full carrier. Once the VSTOL version of the F-35 enters production, the situation will change dramatically, and it will be interesting to see whether the Japanese buy the aircraft. There was, incidentally, a report that at one time Japan was interested in license production of the Harrier VSTOL fighter, which could have operated from a small carrier or, for that matter, from the big helicopter destroyers that already exist.
A big challenge facing Japan is that many other Asian nations remember previous Japanese depredations, for which the Japanese government has never adequately apologized. These countries could see the Hyuga as the opening wedge in the offensive rearmament of Japan, and they may already see the interest in protecting Japanese shipping in somewhat distant waters as the beginning of a strategy making Japanese strength in, say, Southeast Asia a matter of defense rather than offense. One possible consequence would be a campaign by the Chinese government to present itself as the best Asian shield against a resurgent Japan. The Chinese may advertise their own naval program as a way of offering the region insurance against such a problem. So, what is an offensive capability at sea? Is the word at all meaningful?