Circumlocutions - Why It Has To Be A Missile

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Scholar Earl Kinmonth, who has very little tolerance for ungrounded concepts, has a post up on the SSJ Forum on the proliferation of phrases describing the North Korean launch vehicle as being "really a missile" -- with the emphasis on the adverb -- a subject I touched upon in my bantamweight post of Saturday.

Last night, NHK tried out a brand new phrase describing the DPRK launch vehicle:

人工衛星としている、実情にミサイル

"The what-is-in-reality-a-missile, acting out the part of an artificial satellite..."

On Saturday, I half out of facetiousness, half out of actual confusion, asked the reader to chose a potential force mandating these verbal tangles.

Yesterday, I played around with the idea that refusing to call the DPRK launch vehicle a "rocket" was a way of expressing contempt for the DPRK's history of sophistry and duplicity. However, that theory had a weakness in that it is hard to get everyone to share a feeling, even in a mass-market society with a strong conformist streak.

This morning I think I have it...and it is one these, "Duh, MTC, what else could it have been?" answers that leaves one thankful there is coffee for solace's sake:

Japanese media outlets do not call the North Korean rocket a rocket because if it were a rocket, then the Self Defense Forces could not shoot it down.

The Japanese government is a stickler about terminology most of the time. On defense and security issues, however, it is outright fanatical. Fall into any kind of linguistic fuzziness on security and one runs the risk of slamming right into the wall of Article 9 of the Constitution.

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) has been judged permissible under Article 9. The term is translated directly; in Japanese it is "dando misairu boei" (弾道ミサイル防衛). If one is to use BMD to bring down anything, that thing had better be a missile. Shooting at anything else would be unconstitutional.

So, as is so often the case with these tortured circumlocutions, the reasoning is transparently practical. Call it a missile and you can shoot at it. Call it anything else and you are left with nothing but watching and praying.

It Was A Drag When You Left; It Was A Drag When You Were Here

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, With the flameouts and censures last fall of Defense Minister Ishikawa Tatsuo and Consumer Affairs Minister Yamaoka Kenji, the two close confidants of Ozawa Ichiro in the Cabinet, the cabinet of Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko became essentially Ozawa-influence free. In order to fill the holes in the cabinet ranks he appointed Tanaka Naoki, a weak Ozawa ally (and a defense ignoramus) as his new minister of defense and the incompetent Hirano Hirofumi, former Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio's right hand man, as his minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology -- the latter choice seemingly an attempt to drive a wedge between the underrepresented Ozawa and his ally/puppet Hatoyama.

However, as a part of his promise to be a "no sides" leader of the ruling party – i.e., willing to appoint members of all the Democratic Party of Japan's various sub-groups to positions in the government and the party, the sub-cabinet level senior vice-ministerial and parliamentary vice-ministerial posts were filled chock-a-block with Ozawa loyalists.

So it was not terribly surprising that in what may have been meant as a symbolic action on Friday night, four Ozawa loyalists offered their letters of resignation from their government posts, this after the Cabinet approved the bill raising the consumption tax to 10%. Nor was it terribly surprising that 29 Ozawa loyalists offered their letters of resignation from their party posts over the weekend.

Today, Prime Minister Noda, after indicating he would ask the four sub-cabinet officials to withdraw their resignations, brought the resignation letters to the Cabinet, which promptly accepted them. (J)

One reason given for this change of heart is the demand, made by the Liberal Democratic Party yesterday (before, during or after the storm?) that the party status of Financial Services Minister Jimi Shozaburo and the four Ozawa loyalists be clarified before the LDP would acknowledge the government’s representatives sent to Diet committee meetings. (J)

While the complaints of the main opposition party might play a part in the Prime Minister Noda's calculations, his following through on the acceptance of the resignation of the four is only a means to pretend to follow the LDP's lead when he is indeed acting out of his own self-interest. One cannot avoid the impression that LDP leaders have transformed themselves into the Sideshow Bobs of this process, barking complete nonsense from the sidelines. As for Noda, he asked his least credible interlocutor, Chief Cabinet Secretary Fujimura Osamu, to make the calls asking for the four Friday night walkouts to come back.

Accepting the resignation of the four sub-cabinet officials sends two messages. One is to the 29 DPJ MPs who have tendered their resignations from their party posts. The message reads, "Don't believe what the papers say. You're next."

The other message is to Ozawa Ichiro himself. It most likely reads something like, "If you, of your own volition, want to rid the DPJ of your influence by having your people resign from their government and party positions, be my guest. Oh, and by the way, if you have been reading the papers, you may have noticed that the LDP and the New Komeito have targeted your friend Tanaka for a censure motion (E). Considering how much he has done for me and my reputation, please do not expect me to fight too hard on his behalf."

Tanaka Naoki And Censure

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Yesterday was an another bad day in the House of Representatives Budget Committee for beleaguered Minister of Defense Tanaka Naoki. Opposition questioners summoned him to the microphone an astonishing 50 times over the course of 3 hours. The minister with the next highest number of questions put to him was Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hirano Hirofumi. He answered only 5 questions. (J)

As his stunning lack of knowledge of even the most basic issues of Japanese security and defense has demonstrated, Tanaka Naoki has no business being Minister of Defense. As he has zero credibility in the Diet and in the public eye, he cannot serve as the chief administrator of his ministry. He also cannot serve as a credible representative of Japan in meetings with his international peers.

However, getting rid of Tanaka is rather difficult. A Democratic Party of Japan-dominated House of Representatives will not pass a no-confidence measure against him. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko cannot ask Tanaka for his resignation, as it was only three weeks ago that Noda picked Tanaka for his present post. Tanaka could, on his own, resign -- but that is likely to happen only if Tanaka's wife, the formidable Makiko tells him, "That's it honey. You're done."

The other possibility is that Tanaka would resign or be forced to resign after the passage of a motion of censure against him in the House of Councillors. However, the submission of such a motion is unlikely to happen any time soon. While it is true that Tanaka's predecessor, the equally uninformed Ichikawa Yasuo was censured by the House of Councillors and dropped from the cabinet by Prime Minister Noda, the opposition delayed the passage of the motion of censure to the very last day of the extraordinary Diet session. It was simply too delicious to have the unqualified Ichikawa around, waiting for his next blunder. That Ichikawa learned to keep his head down, not extemporize but instead just read his briefing notes and largely stay out of trouble for much of tenure did not spare him from the censure axe.

What was true for Ichikawa is even more true for Tanaka. Like cats keeping alive the mice they have captured in order to play with them before killing them, the opposition loves having Tanaka around, despite the damage his continued presence will have on morale inside the Ministry of Defense and on the international standing of Japan in defense matters.

While on the subject of censure motions, I would like correct a possibly incorrect impression created by this blog post by Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically, successful censure motions are exceedingly rare. As the chart on the Wikipedia page for monseki ketsugi shows, a blizzard of censure motions were submitted to the House of Councillors during the DPJ's time in opposition. However, the House of Councillors has passed a motion of censure only seven times since 1956. Of these, the DPJ is responsible for only three of the successful motions, the first against Minister of Defense Nukaga Fukushiro in 1998 (Nukaga resigned), the second against Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo in 2008 (Fukuda stayed in office) and the third against Prime Minister Aso Taro in 2009 (Aso stayed in office).

Three instances in 11 years, with only one minister resigning as a consequence.

By contrast, the LDP-New Komeito alliance has been responsible for the passage of four motions of censure against cabinet ministers in the 17 months since it seized of control of the House of Councillors. In all four cases, the ministers in question did not survive the subsequent reshuffling of the cabinet.

Tanaka, if he does not resign of his own accord, would clearly be the fifth in the line, except, of course, that the opposition has an incentive to censure Prime Minister Noda first for having appointed the flailing Tanaka to his ministerial post.

Hi, My Name Is Tanaka Naoki And I Do Not Know Anything

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, It was cruel. It was theater.

On the one side was Koike Yuriko, the Iron Butterfly, attack dog of the Liberal Democratic Party in the non-Japanese media.

On the other was Tanaka Naoki, the Minister of Defense, about whom not much of substance can be said.

Koike - "What is the strategic goal of 'AirSea Battle'"?

Tanaka - "We welcome the new strategy of the United States...but as far as what has been said so far, I don't really understand it."

Koike - " Uhhh...I am at a loss for words...but seriously, in the ABCs of defense, this is 'A'."

(Link - J)

***

What was he thinking? The "he" in this case being Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, who plucked Tanaka out from well-deserved obscurity to take over for the disastrous Ichikawa Yasuo, he of the "I am an amateur in defense matters...but this is the very essence of civilian control [of the military]" fame. The guy who did not know about the 1995 child rape case that set off the frantic rounds of Japan-U.S. discussions resulting in the plan to move Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko. The guy who was censured by the House of Councillors for his embarrassing lack of knowledge of defense matters.

Noda should have known the knives would be out for his next minister of defense. He should have known he would have to pick a sharpie to meet the onslaught from the opposition.

So what does the PM do? He picks his new minister of defense based on the number of times the man in question has been elected to the House of Councillors...because the cabinet needs to have a balance of members from the House of Representatives and from the House of Councillors.

It has been a raining snafus ever since.

- The promise to "begin construction at the Henoko site by the end of the year." Huh? Anyone tell the governor of Okinawa about this? (E)

- Confusing the weapons usage restrictions placed on Self Defense Forces members when they are assigned to peace-keeping operations with Japan's three principles on arms exports. (E)

- Upon visiting the city of Ginowan, where the operations of helicopters in and out of the Futenma base are viewed as a threat, particularly since one fell on a nearby university in 2004, Tanaka remarked to his aide, "There don't seem to be so many [helicopters flying about]." (E)

- When asked what country's forces will be cooperating with SDF personnel in a PKO in South Sudan, Tanaka responds, "That has not been decided yet." His senior vice minister pipes up, "The request has been put to a Bangladeshi construction battalion." Tanaka is forced to apologize. (E)

- Leaving the committee room from the same questioning session without informing the chair, Tanaka brings the session to a halt. When he returns 15 minutes later to cries of "Where have you been?" he apologizes for disappearing, saying that since his nose had been running uncontrollably he had gone to his office to get some cold medicine. (J)

- So frustrating the LDP's Sato Masahisa with his answers that the former SDF colonel and commander of Japan's forces in Iraq blurts out, "Gibberish! Trying to debate policy with an unqualified individual like you just drives one out of one's mind!" (J)

In an essay published by the East Asian Forum last week, I described Defense Minister Tanaka Naoki as a defense naïf. In my first draft, I had used the phrase "defense ignoramus." On the advice of friends, I softened my remark.

Possibly a bad instance of self-censorship.

The irony in all this? Prime Minister Noda's father was a career SDF man...a fact not lost on former colonel Sato:

"Prime Minister Noda's father was an SDF soldier. In his heart, the PM must be thinking, 'I would hate to have had my father working under this man.'" (ibid - J)