Page 10 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

650 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

on Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, which prescribes that the U.S. should defend Japan when
3
it was attacked . However, according to the other point of view, the concept would en-
hance Japan’s security relationship with the U.S. because Japan could not help relying
4
on the U.S. assistance to repel greater aggression than “limited and small scale.” But,
is it true that we can understand what the concept meant through the paradigm of “Au-
tonomous Defense vs. the Japan-U.S. Alliance”?
The purpose of my presentation today is to reconsider what the concept of “Repelling
Limited and Small-Scale Aggression without External Assistance” meant, from the view
point of “Defense Force Building” and “Operation.”

The NDPO 1976 and the concept of “repelling limited and small-scale aggression
without external assistance”
After World War II, Japan’s defense force was re-built in accordance with successive
four five-year plans. However, in the 1970’s, it became difficult to accomplish the goal
for defense force building due to the recession. Furthermore in Japan after World War
II, many were allergic to defense issues and some groups that regarded the Self-Defense
Force as an unconstitutional entity were powerful. Therefore, the policy to build defense
force against the Soviet Union threat as in the past, in spite of détente, had been facing
growing criticisms.
Since defense force building by a five-year plan as in the past became deadlocked,
the NDPO 1976 was formulated based on a way of thinking to build the “minimum nec-
essary” defense force. The NDPO is now the official document that sets forth the basic
policies for Japan’s national security, as well as basic guidelines for Japan’s defense
force in the future, including the significance and the role of Japan’s defense force, the
specific organization of the SDF and the target levels of major defense equipment to be
developed. Unlike previous five-year plans, the NDPO 1976 lasted for 19 years. Then
there were a question which asked “what was the ‘minimum necessary’ defense force?”
The NDPO 1976 answered that it meant defense force that “could repel to limited and
small-scale aggression without external assistance.” Concretely speaking, it meant Ja-
pan’s defenses included 180,000 personnel in the Ground SDF, 4 flotillas in the Mari-
time SDF, 430 combat aircrafts in the Air SDF.
Then, would Japan actually repel without the U.S. assistance when limited and small-
scale aggression occurred? In reality it was not. Noboru Hōshuyama, who was deeply
committed to the formulation of the NDPO 1976 as a staff in Division of Defense in
Bureau of Defense in Defense Agency, said in his oral history that:

3 Akihiro Sadō, Sengo Nihon no Bōei to Seiji [defense and politics in the postwar Japan] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbun Kan, 2005), pp. 274-278. See also Yū Takeda, “Nihon no Bōei Seisaku ni okeru ‘Jishu’ no Ronri: ‘Bōei
Keikaku no Taikō’ wo Chūshin ni,” [logic of ‘autonomy’ in Japan’s defense policy: featuring formulation of
‘National Defense Program Outline’] Kokusai Seiji Keizai Gaku Kenkyū [study of international politics and
economy] 17 (March 2006).
4 Norman D. Levin, Japan’s Changing Defense Posture (RAND: California, 1988), pp. 13-14. See also Shingo
Yoshida, Nichi Bei Dōmei no Seidoka: Hatten to Shinka no Rekishi Katei [institutionalization of Japan-
U.S. alliance: historical process of its development and deepening] (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppan Kai,
2012), pp. 272-275.