Japan unveils $1.2B not-an-aircraft-carrier aircraft carrier, biggest Japanese ship since WW2

[Asher]

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/06/world/asia/japan-new-warship/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Japan launches largest warship since World War II

(CNN) -- Japan on Tuesday unveiled its largest warship since World War II, an 820-foot-long, 19,500-ton flattop capable of carrying 14 helicopters, according to media reports.
The ship, named the Izumo, is classified as a helicopter destroyer, though its flattop design makes it look like an aircraft carrier.

But the Japanese Defense Ministry says the ship is not intended to be used as an aircraft carrier and will not be used to launch fighter jets, state broadcaster NHK reported.

The launch of the $1.2 billion warship at a Yokohama dockyard comes at a time of increased military tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands in the East China Sea.
"The destroyer is aimed at better responding to various contingencies in waters near Japan," NHK reported.

China on Tuesday warned Japan against any moves of military expansion, according to a report from Global Times.

We are concerned over Japan's constant expansion of its military equipment. Japan's Asian neighbors and the international community need to be highly vigilant about this trend," the Global Times quoted the Chinese Defense Ministry as saying. "Japan should learn from history, adhere to its policy of self-defense and abide by its promise to take the road of peaceful development."

Both China and Japan claim sovereignty over the rocky, uninhabited islands between Okinawa and Taiwan, which are near important shipping lanes, rich fishing grounds and possible mineral deposits. They are known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

Last year, the Japanese government bought several of the islands from a private owner, angering Chinese authorities and provoking a spate of sometimes violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in many Chinese cities.

Chinese government ships have continued to frequently sail near the islands, engaging in maritime games of cat and mouse with Japanese coast guard vessels. Chinese planes have also flown through the area, prompting Japan to scramble fighter jets.

Tuesday's launch also came on the 68th anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.

Upwards of 60,000 people -- according to various estimates, about one-fifth of Hiroshima's population at the time -- were killed when a U.S. B-29 bomber dropped the bomb on August 6, 1945.

In remembrance ceremonies in Hiroshima on Tuesday, a list of 286,000 atomic bomb victims was presented, NHK reported. In a speech, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on the Japanese people to always remind the world about the consequences of nuclear war, NHK reported.

It certainly looks nothing like an aircraft carrier.

[snoopy369]

I'd love to cover that with a thin layer of ice and go skating on it. That would be awesome.

[Dinner]

Good. Now just wait for the JSF to come out and put those things on them. It's actually larger than the old British Invincible class carriers but no where near the new Elizabeth class much less the US Nimitz or Ford class carriers.

[Docfeelgood]

looks big for just helicopters

[kentonio]

We are concerned over Japan's constant expansion of its military equipment. Japan's Asian neighbors and the international community need to be highly vigilant about this trend," the Global Times quoted the Chinese Defense Ministry as saying.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Well, in China's defense, they didn't go around and conquer half of the continent 70 years ago, all the while engaging in genocidal actions that they've never apologized for.

[giblets]

Yes the "international community" is really worried about the rise of Japan

[PLATO]

Actually, China should be concerned...and that is a good thing.

[snoopy369]

Well, in China's defense, they didn't go around and conquer half of the continent 70 years ago, all the while engaging in genocidal actions that they've never apologized for.

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130119000008&cid=1101

Not exactly never apologized for, but yes. However, China's not apologized for just as much, so I'm not sure they get to make that argument...

[Imran Siddiqui]

A FORMER Japanese PM?

I mean if Jimmy Carter apologized for something, would people think the US government has made amends?

[snoopy369]

That is why I said 'not exactly, but yes'. It did, and does, have a positive meaning (even if not 100%).

If Jimmy Carter apologized to the Iraqi people for US atrocities (if we had anything like this), it would matter. It might get him lynched here, but it would matter.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That's ridiculous. The Iraqis wouldn't think it mattered (except to pressure the US government) and neither would the US.

[regexcellent]

Meh. The legalese "no really it's a helicopter carrying destroyer" thing is amusing but honestly I don't give a **** if they have a carrier and if it makes the Chinese **** their pants, all the better.

[The Mad Monk]

On the defensive:  The Maritime Self-Defense Force’s newest warship, the DDH183 Izumo, is launched at a ceremony in  Yokohama on  Tuesday.  | KYODO
National / Politics
U.S. worried by aggressive military posture
Visiting official relays warning about angering regional community by acquiring strike ability

Kyodo

Aug 7, 2013
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The United States has expressed concern about Japan’s desire to acquire the ability to attack enemy bases in an overhaul of defense policies pursued by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a government source said in Tokyo.

One of the American officials attending bilateral talks on foreign and defense policy cooperation late last month in Tokyo asked the Japanese side to consider the possible negative fallout on neighboring countries if the Abe administration embarks on such a policy shift, the source said Tuesday.

The U.S. official conveyed Washington’s message that Tokyo should not further worsen relations with China and South Korea, which have been plagued for months by territorial rows, as well as the issue of Japan’s wartime aggression.

The government is currently compiling new defense guidelines, and an interim last month stated that Japan should take on a greater regional security role and reinforce its defense capabilities, including enabling the Self-Defense Forces to attack enemy bases.

The proposal comes as Japan faces North Korea’s missile and nuclear threats. The government is planning to agree within the year on the long-term guidelines, which would also mention the need to counter China’s increasing military assertiveness.

At the working-level talks July 25, Japanese officials briefed their American counterparts on the interim report. The U.S. officials called for further explanation on what countries and measures Japan is considering while seeking to acquire the ability to strike enemy targets, the source said.

The U.S. side also said that Japan must carefully work to obtain understanding for the policy from neighboring countries, and the Japanese officials replied they will make efforts to that end, the source said.

“Japan needs to enhance its ability to respond to ballistic missile attacks in a comprehensive manner,” the interim report said in reference to the option of attacking enemy bases.

Some officials in Tokyo have said such an attack could possibly use U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. But other officials say difficulties remain in introducing such a measure, including the need to clarify what would be considered self-defense.

“We cannot easily decide on that,” a senior Defense Ministry official said.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/07/national/u-s-fretting-over-japans-desire-to-militarily-strike-enemy-bases/#at_pco=tcb-1.0&at_ord=2

[The Mad Monk]

Commentary / Japan
Japan’s security dilemma
by Brahma Chellaney

Aug 6, 2013
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LOS ANGELES – Japan’s alliance with the United States remains the centerpiece of its strategic policy, yet Washington appears increasingly reluctant to get drawn into Sino-Japanese territorial disputes. If anything, the U.S. seems concerned that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may view U.S. treaty guarantees as a shield for Japan to confront an increasingly assertive China in the East China Sea.

The hard fact is that Washington seems as concerned about a muscular China as it is about a revisionist Japan.

The U.S. has a major stake in maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with both Japan and China. Although Japan remains under the U.S. security umbrella, China — as a permanent U.N. Security Council member, an emerging great power, and the biggest buyer of U.S. Treasuries — matters more to U.S. interest now than possibly any other Asian county.

In fact, the more geopolitical heft China has accumulated and the more assertive it has become in pushing its territorial claims with its neighbors, the more reluctant the U.S. appears to be to take sides in the Asian territorial disputes, although they involve its strategic allies or partners, with Beijing seeking to change the status quo by force.

Washington has made it amply clear that despite its “pivot” toward Asia, it will be neither willing to put Americans at risk to defend its allies’ territorial claims against China nor act in ways that could damage its close political and economic engagement with Beijing.

After all, the “pivot” is intended not to contain China but to undergird the permanence of America’s role as Asia’s balancing power — an objective that has led Washington to tread a course of tacit neutrality on territorial disputes between China and its neighbors. The U.S. has been willing to speak up only when Chinese actions threaten to impinge on its interests, such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.

To be sure, the U.S. has an interest in preventing the emergence of a Sino-centric Asia. But it has no interest in getting entangled in Asia’s territorial feuds. If it can, it would like to find a way to support Japan without alienating China, a tough balancing act.

America’s tightrope-walk imperative seemingly has encouraged China to up the ante against Japan through a campaign of attrition over the control of the Senkakus. Incursions by Chinese ships into the five uninhabited islands’ territorial waters have become almost a daily affair, raising the risks of unintended military escalation. Yet China is unlikely to back off from this confrontation.

Chinese military planners have probably calculated that in a conflict confined to China and Japan in the East China Sea, with U.S. interests not directly at stake, America is unlikely to threaten devastation of China.

The dilemma for the U.S., however, is that if it did little to come to the aid of Japan in this scenario, it would seriously damage the credibility of American “extended deterrence” globally. That is why Washington is intent on averting a Sino-Japanese military conflict.

America’s dilemma, however, means that Japan must assume greater responsibility to protect itself, without being unduly dependent on the U.S. After a decade in which Japanese military spending slumped more than 5 percent while China’s jumped 270 percent, this means making investments to build requisite defense capabilities to ward off aggression.

In addition to mitigating its structural economic problems, this task, paradoxically, entails recourse to the very factor that has instilled disquiet in some quarters — Japanese revisionism. Japan’s U.S.-imposed antiwar Constitution must be changed to allow its “Self-Defense Forces” to become a full-fledged military and to acquire offensive weapon systems.

With 6,800 far-flung islands, Japan needs a more credible air-sea deterrent capability, including first-strike weapon systems like cruise missiles and strategic bombers as well as amphibious infantry forces that can defend the outlying islands. Japan also must accelerate moves to create a single, unified command for its army — the Ground Self-Defense Forces — which, during U.S. occupation, were deliberately divided into several regional commands to keep them institutionally weak as a voice in policymaking.

The U.S. — to help undergird its long-standing role in Asia — has an important stake in maintaining forward military deployments in Japan, especially in Okinawa. Yet Tokyo has legitimate reasons to worry that the U.S. might hesitate to militarily defend Japan if it is attacked by China over the Senkaku dispute.

Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s declaration that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands does not mean that if China employs military force in the dispute, the U.S. would take all necessary actions, including the use of its military capability, to repulse the Chinese action.

After the staggering cost in blood and treasure exacted by the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, a war-weary U.S. has absolutely no desire to get involved in another war, especially one where its interests are not directly at stake.

Indeed, Americans are not just war-weary, they are also war-wary. Significantly, the U.S. has taken no position on the Senkaku sovereignty issue.

Put bluntly, Japan must not overly rely on America for protection against China. In fact, the more powerful China grows, the less Japan can depend on U.S. security guarantees. The logical response to its security predicament is for Japan to strengthen its own conventional deterrent capability.

Japan, territorially, is a status quo power vis-a-vis China. Given that defense is always easier than offense, Japan, with more robust air and sea assets, can give China a bloody nose if it were attacked.

As for the U.S., the changing geopolitical landscape in the Asia-Pacific is diminishing the importance of its security alliance with Japan. With the U.S.-China equation at the center of the geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific, the obsolescence of the U.S.-Japan alliance as the strategic anchor of regional stability is now conspicuous, despite occasional claims to the contrary. In the coming years, Japan will find itself increasingly buffeted by developments in the U.S.-China relationship.

China will clearly prefer a Japan that remains dependent on America for its security than a Japan that plays a more independent role. The fact, however, is that the post-1945 system erected by the U.S. is more suited to keep Japan as an American protectorate than to allow Japan to effectively aid the central U.S. objective in the Asia-Pacific — a stable balance of power.

A subtle U.S. policy shift that encourages Tokyo to cut its dependence on America and do more for its own security can assist Japan in building a more secure future for itself that helps block the rise of a Sino-centric Asia.

Whatever Washington decides, it is past time for Japan to get serious about bolstering its defenses, reasserting the right to collective self-defense as permitted under international law, and forging countervailing geostrategic partnerships with like-minded Asian states.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/08/06/commentary/japans-security-dilemma/#at_pco=tcb-1.0&at_ord=5