THE RISING EAST
Japan rethinks issue of self-defense
By Richard Halloran
The Japanese navy is preparing to build two small aircraft carriers, the first in more than 60 years, according to Japanese and U.S. officials.
Lockheed Martin
The plan for the warships is further evidence that Japan is gradually shedding the pacifist cocoon in which it has wrapped itself since its devastating defeat in World War II.
Short takeoff, vertical landing warplanes such as this one could soon give Japan enhanced capability to defend its sea lanes against incursions by China, North Korea and other potentially hostile nations.
The two warships will be capable of carrying STOVL (short takeoff, vertical landing) aircraft, also called "jump jets," which can fly as fighters or bombers, plus armed helicopters. The ships will displace 13,500 tons, and about 16,000 tons when fully loaded, and will sail at more than 30 knots.
That will make them comparable to Spain's 16,700- ton Principe De Asturias, which carries 17 planes, but larger than Thailand's 11,500-ton Chakri Nareubet with its 12 planes. The Japanese carriers, however, will not come close to the newly commissioned United States leviathan, the 98,000-ton Ronald Reagan with its 80 warplanes.
The Japanese carriers can be deployed as command ships in a task force to give the Maritime Self-Defense Force, as the Japanese navy is called, a modest ability to project power into the sea lanes that are vital to Japan's trading economy.
That capability is likely to draw protests from China, North Korea and South Korea, all of which experienced Japanese invasion before and during World War II. Beijing, Pyongyang and Seoul routinely criticize any attempt by Japan to enhance its security.
In contrast, U.S. political leaders, beginning with President Jimmy Carter's administration in the late 1970s, have encouraged Japan to do more for its own defense. Tokyo has been reluctant until recently, when many Japanese began to perceive an immediate threat from North Korea and a longer-term threat from China.
In its 2003 white paper on defense, published last week, the Self-Defense Agency asserted in more forceful terms than in earlier versions that the nation must build up its fundamental defense capabilities to ensure its independence.
In that respect, Japan is on the verge of building a missile defense, of dispatching troops to Iraq for reconstruction, and has just launched a second pair of intelligence satellites to watch North Korea. Tokyo recently has enacted laws giving the self-defense forces wider latitude in defending their homeland, which other nations would consider the normal duties of their armed forces.
Money for the first small carrier has been included in Japan's defense budget for fiscal 2004 (beginning next April 1) while the second carrier is scheduled for fiscal 2005. The first ship is to be commissioned in 2008, the second in 2009. Two more may be built later.
The plan calls for equipping the carriers with new SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, which are designed to patrol the ocean, to detect submarines and to protect the fleet. They are made in Japan under license from Sikorsky, a U.S. company.
Japanese naval officers call the new ships "destroyers" instead of "aircraft carriers" in an effort to subdue Japanese opponents who are against enhanced defense, and from China and the Koreas. Yet drawings of the warship show the flat deck of a carrier and an "island," or command structure, at the starboard or right edge of the deck.
Moreover, said officials familiar with the ship's design, the deck and hangar below are capable of handling aircraft such as the joint-strike fighter being developed by Lockheed Martin, a leading U.S. defense contractor. That fighter, also called the F-35, is scheduled to go into production in 2008 just as the first Japanese carrier is ready for sea duty.
The F-35, which comes in land-based, carrier-based, and STOVL versions with 80 percent of each one's components identical to the others, will be capable of 1.5 times the speed of sound and will incorporate "stealth" technology to enable the plane to evade radar detection. Northrop Grumman of the United States and BAE Systems of Britain are partners in the project.
The $200 billion program calls for producing 3,000 aircraft intended to replace the U.S. Air Force's F-16, the U.S. Navy's F-18, and the U.S. Marine Corps' AV-8 jump jet. Britain will make similar replacements while Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Turkey are considering taking part.
A spokesman for Lockheed Martin said Japanese officials had not expressed "formal interest" in acquiring the joint-strike fighter. Earlier, the Self-Defense Force hoped to buy jump jets for four 14,700-ton assault ships but ran into political opposition.
That was before the Japanese got worried about North Korean missiles and nuclear arms.
