As lawmakers continue their heated debate over the controversial security bills in the Upper House, the Defense Ministry is quietly but steadily preparing for what comes after the legislation's enactment — including determining who is eligible to fight in a war, according to journalist Yu Terasawa.
Since April, the ministry has been distributing "family cards" to personnel in the Maritime Self-Defense Force to fill in detailed personal information, ranging from their families' email addresses and cellphone numbers to their own health conditions.
The ministry insists these cards are simply to organize data on its personnel, but that is not how some insiders see things, Terasawa says.