The Rising Threats in the Indo-Pacific: Insights from Japan

Colonel Cathy Blue, our visiting defence
fellow, introduces the Vice-Admiral

 This week, the Centre for Security, Intelligence, and Defence Studies (NPSIA's research centre on such stuff) hosted Vice-Admiral (ret.) Toshiyuki Ito who was visiting Ottawa. 

Admiral Ito gave a comprehensive talk about the threats facing Japan and everyone else in the region from Russia to North Korea to China.  As a retired officer, he could be more direct about the threats perhaps than an active one, and he humorously invoked "academic freedom" anytime he said something that was a bit controversial.

Japan has to scramble aircraft twice a day to confront Chinese and Russian aircraft.  Ito spoke on a record-setting day as North Korea sent more missiles near and over Japan while it was also engaging in greater tensions with South Korea.  He did not address the difficulties with South Korea that would make a more coordinated response more complicated.  

Ito discussed Canada's exercises in the region including the monitoring of sanctions against North Korea and the freedom of navigation operations in the South China seas.

Perhaps most striking, Ito made it clear to the Canadian audience that a Taiwan scenario--the imminent attack by China (sometime between now and 2027)--is also a Japan scenario for a couple of reasons.  First, there are some Japanese islands mighty close to Taiwan, and it is hard to imagine these islands would not become part of China's invasion plans.  Second, the US has pivotal bases in Japan, which might be specifically targeted to prevent US intervention in a Sino-Taiwan war. 

Here, Vice-Admiral Ito illustrates the
evolution of Self-Defence and
how it fits into the constitution

Ito talked about the need for what he called counter-attack systems--which are essentially first strike systems designed to hit missiles aimed at Japan before they are launched.  This is part of a larger effort to squeeze today's realities into the constraints posed by Article 9 of the Japanese constitution.  That clause prohibits Japan from having a military, although Japan has one by another name: Self-Defense Force.  Its navy, Ito said, was the second largest or more powerful in the world after the US.  The dodge has always been that all sovereign countries are entitled to defend themselves, so the SDF is legitimate (not all Japanese parties agree).  But what counts as defense?  Knocking down incoming missiles is obvious.  Having the ability to pre-emptively strike those that have not yet launched?  Hmmm.  

Japan is doubling its defense spending, getting to 2% when the controversy used to be whether it would exceed 1% of GDP on defense.  What will it spend money on?  Perhaps F35s and missiles?  Unfortunately, we ran out of time so we could not get more specific answers to this and other questions.

It was very useful and interesting to see the Indo-Pacific from a different perspective.  I always this this map I saw all over Tokyo in government offices to illustrate:

This point of view best illustrates how China
is hemmed in by Korea/Japan/Taiwan/etc.

Real Problems in The World

Trump is, well, a freaking disaster when it comes to pretty much everything but especially foreign policy.  One of the less obvious ways he is fucking up discussions of foreign policy is not the possibility that realism might become tainted, but that we don't notice important stuff.  So, a quick run of the news and what we are missing by focusing on the epic dumpster fire train wreck (imagine a train of dumpster fires derailing) that is Donnie.

• Indonesia seems ready to start a war in the South China Seas as it is promising to sink more than 70 foreign fishing boats.  I cannot claim to be an expert on anything in the Pacific, at least not until I spend a month in Japan, but, to this amateur's eyes, this does not look good.  China is already riled up over losing the adjudication decision.  This will be some kind of independence day for Indonesia--starting a war!  Woot!  No, not woot.  Most of the impounded ships are not Chinese, but some are.  Apparently destroying impounded ships is nothing new, but a grand symbolic gesture?  Right now, after China's big loss?   Not good.  The link above has a great gif showing the various claims and trends.  
• Russia just bombed Syria via planes based in ... Iran.  This is NEW and completely unnecessary.  The latter first: Russia can and has been bombing Syria from planes based in Russia and in Syria.  Russia does not need bases in Iran for that chore.  The former: no foreign troops have been based in Iran since ... 1979.  So, Iran is compromising slightly on its tradition of robust independence since the revolution by letting the Russians fly out from its territory.  A great way to say "screw you" to the US.  The Russia-Iran friendship, largely built on keeping Assad in power and a shared interest in undermining US interests in the region is now becoming an alliance.  A couple of key implications are:
• Iraq once again has let the Russians use its airspace.  Sure, Iraq has no anti-aircraft capability, but the symbolic stuff is important.  And this symbolic stuff says: Iraq is heavily influenced by Iran and is willing to do stuff that contradicts the US even though the US is spending a heap of resources helping Iraq take back its territory from ISIS.  
• It might must provide some support for ye olde Iran nuclear deal.  Remember, the sanctions required multilateral support, especially Russia's.  If there were no deal, would Russia be sanctioning Iran today?  My guess is that the sanctions regime would have broken by now.  So, we got a decent agreement before the chances for one disappeared.
• The NYT is overreaching---calling Russia the "primary broker in the region."  Please.  US still has heaps of influence, friends and allies in the region.  Russia is a significant spoiler, but the US is still the biggest player.
•  Canada is still trying to figure out where to make its new peace operations commitment with MND Sajjan on a tour of Africa.  I will try to remember to write tomorrow for why Canada should focus on Haiti and/or Colombia.
• Brexit?  I have no idea the state of play there, but then again, does anyone else?

I am sure there are heaps of other hotspots and crises that are getting too little attention, but that is a quick tour of the stuff that our Trump focus is causing us to miss.

Busy Day in Applying Ye Olde Research and Teaching To Today's News

I am doing something I have never really done before: try to write an academic piece for a real deadline.  I have written stuff for conference and workshop deadlines, but I am working right now on a very current piece--the coalition against ISIS--for a journal that has set a deadline for me.  Good and bad, of course.  But as a result, I can only really post some quick hit thoughts on many of thing bits of news today

• Perhaps the most important or least important item might be the announcement that Russia is setting up a new security service.  Now it might be aimed at new threats or whatever, but the proliferation of security services is often viewed by those who study civil-military relations as coup-proofing.  That is, efforts aimed at making it harder for the military to overthrow the government.  Or, in the case of a place like Russia, creating alternative security organizations may be aimed at helping to put down protesters if older agencies are seen as less reliable.  That it happened a day after the Panama Papers indicate that Putin and friends might be a smidge corrupt is probably just a coincidence.   Hmmm.  Very interesting.
• Indonesia just blew up a bunch of foreign fishing boats as part of the larger South China Sea territorial disputes.  The most obvious thing to note: no Chinese boats despite China being the most aggressive violator of pretty much all things territorial in that area.  Is Indonesia conveying strength via this act or weakness via its targeting?  Hmm.
• Things continue not to look good in the Caucuses with Azerbaijan and Armenia set to re-start their 1990s war.  Is it fair to call a country seeking to reverse the irredentism of another country irredentist too?  Sure, as the effort to take back territory that is seen as lost is not really that dependent on the time of the loss.  For Azerbaijan, the loss is quite real and quite recent (much irredentism is based on mythical losses or historically distant ones), so yes, trying to get Nagorno-Karabakh back is irredentism.  However, this sprung from Armenia's irredentist campaign 25 years ago, so only Armenia's excellent PR efforts in the West and, oh, Azerbaijan's tainted authoritarianism make Armenia seem like a victim in all of this.  And, yes, Russia is playing both sides.  I discussed this a bit more yesterday.

Your irredentist tweet of the day. https://t.co/zdyBEsgp3H

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) April 5, 2016

• NATO folks are pushing back against Trump.  NATO clearly is a good investment for the US and the West--deterring Russia, coordinating all kinds of stuff (peacekeeping in Kosovo, counter-terrorism in the Mediterranean, counter-piracy, training in Afghanistan, etc), and on and on.  Robert Keohane was right about at least one thing: once you build an institution, folks want to keep it around to address new problems because setting up institutions is hard.  NATO needs to adapt to the 21st century, but its bugs will remain since they are necessary for the alliance to operate.  Countries have to be able to opt out or impose caveats on missions and operations or else they will not give consent for such efforts.  The US is one of those that insisted on such opt outs, so we have to live with them.   
• Folks are pondering who is more racist: the US or Europeans?  My hot take was: look at some stats.  Intermarriage between (religious, racial, linguistic, whatever) groups is higher where?  What about segregation?  Yes, US is highly segregated but stories about Muslim communities in France and Belgium are suggestive.  As always, I link to old posts about comparative xenophobia.

As always, I miss teaching Intro to IR as I could be talking about all of this stuff to students who are puzzled by this stuff.  Anyhow, I have and will write more about much of this, but for now, this will do.