Japan committed naval forces outside its home waters for the first time since 1945 to support U.S.-led coalition operations in response to the 11 September terrorist attacks. Because there are no borders at sea, such multilateral naval cooperation between Japanese, U.S., and other forces is helping to build a common regional foundation for coping with maritime-related problems.
This year, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding. The successor to the Japanese Imperial Navy, which was disarmed and dissolved at the end of World War II, the JMSDF began with 6,000 personnel as the Maritime Patrol Force within the Maritime Safety Agency. In its initial guise, the JMSDF consisted of a small number of ships, including four patrol frigates and two landing craft on loan from the U.S. Navy. Since then, the JMSDF has spent most of its life in the severe but predictable environment of the Cold War. During this period, Japan's domestic political and legal climate did not greatly support the Self-Defense Forces, and a national policy that set economic development as the highest priority did not allow the allocation of a budget sufficient for adequate national defense. More than ten years after the end of the Cold War, the strategic environment in Asia Pacific has changed. Japan's domestic debate concerning national security also is drastically different. Given these changes, the range of activities of the JMSDF has been expanded. This year, the JMSDF plans to host a number of multilateral naval activities. It is worth explaining the JMSDF's intent for hosting these unprecedented multilateral events.
At the 15th International Seapower Symposium in 1999, then U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson indicated that future naval operations will tend to be conducted within coalitions, and maritime leaders from around the globe participating in the symposium agreed with his assessment. For the JMSDF, the meaning was clear: If, in the future, the JMSDF participates in any international cooperation effort, those activities, whatever their nature, will be conducted with other nations' navies. The events of 2001 provided the first opportunity to put this new prescription into action.
The Japanese government enacted a new law in response to the terrorist attacks on 11 September. After significant political debate, the JMSDF dispatched five ships to the Indian Ocean to provide logistics support to the coalition forces conducting Operation Enduring Freedom. This support not only is significant in that the JMSDF is committed to a "new war" that is far beyond the traditional concept of international conflict, but also is epoch making in that it marks the first occasion when the JMSDF has been committed to coalition activities. Through its current experiences in the Indian Ocean, the JMSDF is learning what coalition operations are all about. This is an invaluable opportunity to accumulate knowledge and to prepare for the future.
Evolution of Multilateral Naval Cooperation
The JMSDF has maximized its opportunities to build international relationships. Since the 1950s, the JMSDF training squadron has visited foreign ports all over the world and conducted bilateral exercises with navies that accepted our ship visits or that visited Japan for the purpose of enhancing goodwill. This is a key example of bilateral engagement to establish and promote navy-to-navy connections in support of the JMSDF's broad commitment to protecting global sea lines of communication. JMSDF ships have visited 62 countries, and naval ships from 30 countries have visited Japan. The JMSDF also has conducted bilateral goodwill exercises with 32 navies.
The primary mission of the JMSDF always has been the defense of Japan. During the Cold War, responding to the threat of East-West confrontation was Japan's most imminent security problem. For the JMSDF, guided by an exclusively defense-oriented policy, it was necessary to construct a posture that combined its defensive capabilities with the offensive capabilities of the U.S. Navy. This division of roles worked flawlessly during the Cold War, which the JMSDF helped win by supporting the defense of sea lines of communication in the vicinity of Japan and by steadily building up defense capabilities to deter and defeat aggression. The alliance with the United States will continue to be the keystone of Japan's defense policy.
Since the 1990s, a new regional trend toward multilateralism in security affairs has emerged in Asia Pacific. There still are regional security problems left over from the Cold War, as well as new security challenges that have emerged in the past decade. To achieve regional stability, it is essential to cope with these problems in a collective manner; the multilateral approach is the most appropriate framework. Current examples are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) regional forum on the government-to-government level and the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) on the navy-to-navy level.
One of the lessons Japan learned from the Gulf War was that to secure peace and stability for Japan, it needed a deeper commitment to international peace and stability. Consequently, beginning in the 1990s, Japan began to participate actively in U.N. peace operations. Japan also contributed ideas when the ASEAN regional forum was established. Based on changes in the international security environment and broader expectations of the Japanese public toward the Self-Defense Forces, the National Defense Program Outline, which dictates Japan's defense posture and buildup goals, was revised in 1995.
Consistent with a series of domestic policies to adapt to the post-Cold War security environment, Japan and the United States conducted extensive discussions over the appropriate posture of the alliance and made their conclusions known in the Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security. The declaration reaffirmed that the Japan-U.S. alliance would remain the cornerstone for a stable and prosperous environment in the Asia Pacific region into the 21 st century, and that the two governments would continue working jointly and with other countries in the region to cultivate multilateral regional security dialogues and cooperation. Through these processes, Japan clearly underscored a commitment to stabilization of the international security environment. It affirmed that Japan's national security rested not solely in the defense of Japan, but also in the maintenance of peace and stability throughout the region.
Emergence of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium
The Western Pacific Naval Symposium, the sole multilateral framework for naval cooperation in the region, consists of 17 member and 4 observer nations that include all major regional navies.1 The genesis of the WPNS was discussions at the Western Pacific subcommittee of the ninth International Seapower Symposium in 1987, where participants agreed to establish the WPNS to promote mutual understanding among regional navies. Since its first meeting in 1988, the WPNS has convened every other year, attended by the members' naval chiefs. In addition to the symposium, WPNS workshops have been conducted every year since 1992, with working-level officers building the agenda and exploring topics to facilitate discussion.
In its early stages, the WPNS provided a forum for discussion to deepen mutual understanding among member navies. In the mid1990s, with Russia as a new participant, maritime confidence-building measures were introduced to the forum for discussion and debate. Since the fifth symposium, hosted by the JMSDF in 1996, when it was agreed that maritime confidence-building measures would be listed as an official document, the WPNS has provided opportunities to implement these kinds of initiatives. In addition, cooperation among WPNS members has been sought in the area of military operations other than war. The first Western Pacific mine countermeasures exercise subsequently was adopted, hosted by the Republic of Singapore Navy in 2001, marking the first multilateral exercise conducted under the framework of the WPNS. The symposium has evolved in the decade since its foundation from a forum to talk to a place to implement constructive activities.
This evolution might seem like a small change, but it is a significant development in view of the diversity of the member nations and their navies. WPNS participants once were divided into the First, Second, and Third Worlds, and some navies had no contact with each other until a decade ago. In addition, while maritime stability is the common economic interest for the nations in this region united by the sea, each nation has diverse political interests. And finally, with the size and technological levels of regional navies being quite varied, it is not easy for these navies to interact operationally. The WPNS has allowed a variety of participants to develop multilateral naval relations from scratch, without any precedents to guide the process. A consensus-based decision-making approach and implementation at a comfortable pace have taken a great amount of time—but also have resulted in steady progress.
The Future of Multilateral Naval Cooperation
Through various activities under the framework of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium—including symposia, workshops, and exercises—the trend toward naval cooperation in the region can be enhanced, and mutual confidence can be built in the process. In particular, continued periodic meetings of the naval chiefs in the region has led to significant personnel exchanges. Engagement in the multilateral framework also provides opportunities for the navies that lack historical bilateral relationships to engage with one another. And finally, a variety of measures to promote interoperability and the exercises in the WPNS have laid the foundation for possible cooperative activities in the future. Mine countermeasures is the most advanced area of cooperation at present, but other areas, including search and rescue and disaster relief, are being considered for cooperation as well.
This October, the JMSDF is hosting the eighth WPNS. The JMSDF views this opportunity as one of the significant events to commemorate its 50th anniversary, along with the International Fleet Review and a multilateral search-and-rescue exercise. By hosting these events, the JMSDF seeks to emphasize its commitment to shaping regional peace and stability.
In addition to this international commitment, the JMSDF maintains capabilities for deterrence and fighting, as it did during the Cold War. In this regard, the "spear and shield" relationship between the JMSDF and the U.S. Navy remains largely unchanged. The JMSDF leadership also views multilateral naval cooperation as indispensable to its goal of maintaining regional peace and stability, and ultimately it believes this contributes positively to the security of Japan. If the JMSDF is able to develop its role as a trustworthy regional player by taking the initiative in promoting multilateral naval cooperation, it will enhance the Japan-U.S. relationship. Likewise, if the JMSDF-U.S. Navy partnership is strengthened, the JMSDF likely will be accepted as a more trustworthy player in the region. This "constructive spiral" for regional security will favorably affect the stability of the international security environment.
There are no borders at sea; the navies of the world share the high seas as a common domain. Multilateral naval cooperation builds a common foundation to cope with maritime-related problems by developing relationships that foster stability. Japan's activities in the Indian Ocean in support of coalition operations are an important step for the JMSDF on its road to naval multilateralism.
1 Members: Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, United States, and Vietnam. Observers: Canada, Chile, France, and India.
Admiral Ishikawa is Chief of Staff of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.