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Defense Ministry bureaucrats to lose their rank superiority over SDF officers

JIJI

The Diet has enacted legislation that strips civilian defense bureaucrats of their seniority over uniformed Self-Defense Forces officers, placing them instead on an equal footing.

Lawmakers passed the bill on Wednesday in a majority vote, with support mainly from the ruling coalition and Ishin no To (Japan Innovation Party), at a plenary meeting of the House of Councilors. The bill cleared the House of Representatives in May.

Concerned that the revision could weaken civilian control over the SDF, the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, among others, voted against it. The bill will revise the law for the establishment of the Defense Ministry.

The superiority of senior defense bureaucrats over ranking SDF officers stemmed from a clause originally created when the Defense Agency, the ministry’s predecessor, and the SDF were set up in 1954. It was based on lessons learned before and during World War II, when the Imperial Japanese military led the country down the path to a disastrous conflict.

The change purportedly reflects the increasing importance of the judgment of SDF commanders as the forces’ roles have expanded to include U.N. peacekeeping missions overseas and disaster relief.

Article 12 of the previous law stipulated that the head of the defense minister’s secretariat and ministry bureau chiefs assist the minister in directing and supervising top uniformed SDF officers.

The revised clause calls for the secretariat and bureau heads, along with the chief of staff at the Joint Staff Office and those at the Ground, Maritime and Air SDF, to assist the minister jointly.

The defense bureaucrats will provide assistance in policy terms, while the uniformed SDF officers will give advice from a military aspect.

Still, the senior bureaucrats will be in charge of comprehensive policy coordination under a separate clause added to Article 8 of the revised law.

Also under the amendment, the ministry’s Bureau of Operational Policy, in charge of managing SDF operations including disaster relief, is to be scrapped. Its functions will instead be integrated into the Joint Staff Office of the SDF.

The organizational change “will enable swifter decisions on SDF deployment,” a senior ministry official said.

Furthermore, a new ministry-affiliated agency tasked with defense equipment research and development, procurement and exports is now set to be launched as early as October, with a total of 1,800 staff members drawn from both ministry officials and SDF personnel. The government says this is aimed at reducing procurement costs.

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  • Richard Solomon

    Beware when military personnel get to have more say in defense policy making and implementation. They typically, if not always, over estimate how easily military force can resolve problems, do not foresee challenges that might arise, and rarely have back up plans for worst case scenarios. Civilians can provide a broader, more cautious albeit admittedly more ponderous perspective for decision makers to rely on.

    The military had direct access to the Emperor in the years leading up to WW II. With the benefit of hindsight, that turned out to be disastrous. I hope Japan is not moving down the same slippery slope that it did in the early years of the 20th century.

    • jwtn

      Unfortunately, The US gov is directly behind this.

  • Al_Martinez

    What the hell kind of banana republic is Japan becoming?

  • JimmyJM

    If ministry officials and SDF officers are “on an equal footing”, it’s logical to assume that civilian ministry officials are not needed and military officers can fill those positions. Currently, Thailand, North Korea, and Egypt are good examples of that situation. 1937 Japan is also a good example.