Dec 27 08:40 PM US/Eastern(AP) - TOKYO, Dec. 28 (Kyodo) — Another year has gone in which the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces have been dragging their feet amid a series of scandals and misdeeds involving their personnel.
But as they enter 2009 -- and the new U.S. administration led by Barack Obama enters the scene -- they face uncertainties over how the new U.S. leader will approach Japan-U.S. security relations.
Among the challenges they may face is a possible ground mission in Afghanistan, which Obama, the incoming commander in chief of U.S. forces, says he will focus on in the "war on terror."
A U.S. ally, Japan has forces committed only to a refueling mission in the Indian Ocean as part of the antiterrorism campaign, now that it has ended its Iraq mission involving air and ground defense forces.
The possible Afghan deployment presents Tokyo with a dilemma given the need to ensure the safety of SDF personnel and unresolved questions over the legality of SDF involvement in the antiterrorism campaign under the war-renouncing Constitution, especially if it may entail combat.
"I can't deny the possibility of (the SDF) getting involved in combat activities (in Afghanistan). That is problematic under the Constitution," Prime Minister Taro Aso said in a Diet session in October.
The Constitution also places legal restrictions on SDF activities, such as limits on the use of weapons overseas.
Defense officials say Afghanistan is far more dangerous than Iraq, where Japanese ground and air troops were deployed for nearly five years without a single loss of life, and fear that potential casualties would shake both SDF personnel and the Japanese people.
Still, "We cannot remain idle for so long without playing any new role," while Washington keeps the pressure on Tokyo to do more, a senior ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
As piracy activities intensified in waters off Somalia, concerns grew over the safe passage of commercial ships in the region, where several vessels related to Japan have fallen victim to pirates this year.
Japan soon began considering the utilization of SDF ships or patrol aircraft to join warships from other countries, including those from the United States and several countries from the European Union, to protect ships from bandits in the waters.
There has been a temporary lull in the move, however, after government officials and lawmakers began favoring the passage of a general law to enable such an overseas dispatch.
The enactment of such a law remains uncertain given the logjam in the opposition-controlled House of Councillors, whereas a special law that would limit the area of operations might be enacted more easily.
China's recent dispatch of warships to the region to combat pirates in concert with other countries added to concerns among defense officials and politicians that Japan may be left outside the circle.
"Now is the time to send the SDF. If we fail to do so by the end of January, the momentum will be lost," said the same senior official, who favors a special law for the mission.
In the past week or so, government officials and lawmakers have begun warming to the idea of applying existing maritime policing rules under the SDF law to the mission, if only on the grounds that it would be quicker to dispatch the forces.
A top defense official notes, however, that problems abound with such a solution.
"All the SDF can do (under the rules) is to protect Japanese ships. There are also limits on the use of weapons, but will that be all right? We have no choice but to be negative" about a dispatch under the rules, he said on condition of anonymity.
Maritime policing, which was first applied in 1999 against North Korean spy ships in Japanese territorial waters in the Sea of Japan, also assumes operations in waters around Japan, not waters thousands of miles away.
A relative lack of interest in the piracy issue among the Japanese people does not seem to have helped the drive at a time when economic issues remain the topic of the day.
Meanwhile, the ministry and the SDF were put on the defensive over the robustness of civilian control of the forces due to a controversy involving former Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami.
In an essay, the outspoken Tamogami argued that Japan was a benevolent colonial ruler and not an aggressor in other Asian countries, sparking an instant uproar that cost him the job of top ASDF officer.
As head of an academy for ranking officers, Tamogami had also started a course on "views on history and the nation" in 2003 and invited some lecturers who serve as executives of a group that edited a history textbook whitewashing Japan's militaristic past.
The scandal came at a sensitive moment for the ministry as it eyes strengthening the authority of ranking officers over SDF operations and weakening that of civilian bureaucrats in ministry reforms.
Critics fear that the Tamogami case has cast a cloud over the assumption of a government panel report on which the reform plans were based. The report, issued in July, claims that "civilian control has been nearly internalized by the SDF."
"If authority over SDF operations is transferred from the suit-clad group to the uniform-wearing group, there will be no more civilian control," opposition Social Democratic Party leader Mizuho Fukushima recently told reporters, referring to bureaucrats and officers.
On Dec. 23, the Defense Ministry unveiled its basic policy on the ministry reform but ended up toeing the line recommended by the panel report, which was issued before the Tamogami case surfaced.
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