Late take-off, but Japan accelerates to boost air-defence potency

[tigershark]

Late take-off, but Japan accelerates to boost air-defence potency
BY NICHOLAS STUART
6/05/2008 7:59:25 AM
The omnipresent threat of North Korean missiles is leading to a sudden and radical renovation of the previously ossified Japanese air-defence structure, as the country begins to develop the world's first Missile Defence Shield. A little noticed but extraordinary paper given recently to a workshop in Canberra by the Australian National University's Professor Des Ball has highlighted the enormous strides Japan is rapidly taking to protect its homeland.

He has detailed the way these steps have involved massive expenditures on new technological systems as well as, perhaps more importantly, dramatic changes to the way the country is cooperating with the United States. These moves are likely to radically alter the defence equations in the northern hemisphere, as well as offering for the first time the possibility of protection against rogue states such as North Korea.

Until recently, the general approach of the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force could easily have been characterised as hidebound and rigid. In particular, the personnel allocated to the routine monitoring tasks that are so crucial for early warning rarely demonstrated any initiative as they went about their jobs. The natural tendency of organisations to slip into lethargy and bureaucratic rigidity had asserted itself, with the result that the air force planners could not cope with any out of the ordinary. The extent of this learned helplessness was driven home on September 1, 1983, when a Korean Airlines passenger jet was shot down by Soviet fighters.

At that time three large white domes, one of which still sits on the peak of a hill at the gateway to Hokkaido's beautiful north-west, were responsible for monitoring aircraft movement across the northern part of the Soviet Union. This radar station had been recording the 747's flight plan as the aircraft drifted off course for more than two hours before a Su-15 interceptor fired the missile which destroyed the plane in the early hours of the morning.

During the entire event the Japanese 1st Air Information Collection Unit proved it was unable to cope with what was happening. It was112 hours before Tokyo was notified that something extraordinary had occurred, and a further five hours before the radar information was passed to search-and-rescue teams searching for survivors.

The bases used by the Japanese had often been constructed by the US during the Cold War. When former US personnel returned to visit the sites they noticed that little had been done to renovate them the early-warning system still operated in the same way as it had in the 1960s.

In 2003 a returning US veteran wrote, "The operations area itself is the same! I mean exactly. It's like a time warp ... the old broken green tile on the (console) deck is still there." More seriously, it appeared that little had been done to modernise reporting procedures. Even the unit designations remained the same.

Today, however, Ball details the way in which the Air Self Defence Force has been infused with a new sense of urgency. Most significantly, there's been a dramatic change in the amount of cooperation between the Japanese and the US. Now they are working together to develop a Ballistic Missile Defence shield that would protect the Japanese islands (as well as the western US states) from any missiles launched by China or North Korea. This change was only formalised about three years ago, and was driven by political decisions in Tokyo. Until late 2005, the Japanese early-warning system had sat idly monitoring the airspace from 28 surveillance stations dotted on hilltops on the Japanese coastline. Even when Chinese jets had apparently violated air space (for example, in August 1995) the network appeared unable to deal with challenges.

US attempts to develop joint defences had been rebuffed it appeared the Japanese had decided they could complete their task by themselves, because they refused to share airspace surveillance data. But now a relocation of Japan's air-defence command alongside the US headquarters has physically emphasised the new mood of cooperation.

The importance of this is the technical capacity of the Japanese systems. Using passive radar-listening devices, bases on the home island's can pick up activity as far away as 800km. They do this by active listening and also by passively detecting electronic emissions from the aircraft they're monitoring. However, the US has much more capable systems for detecting satellite imagery and other intelligence. The necessity of cooperation was demonstrated when North Korea began testing missiles.

In the '90s the Japanese could track missiles after they were launched, but they still depended on US deep space warnings processed at Nurrungar in Australia for warnings that launches were imminent. The improvements in communications were demonstrated last year when North Korea test-launched more missiles in early July, although the Japanese air-defence network apparently still had difficulties in communicating data back to headquarters in real time.

Japan has also indulged in massive spending to upgrade the computer equipment that's used by the system. Ball has exhaustively catalogued the amount of money by going through the annual reports of companies as well as the tables of contracts that the Japanese air force has publicly reported. Although contracts for billions of yen have been awarded for "regular repair and maintenance", little has been divulged about the actual nature of the work being done. For example, one company, Tokimec, which had previously been engaged in leading-edge research and development work, is simply listed in the public reports as providing "repairs and spare parts".

The reality appears to be that Japan has genuinely managed to completely revamp its air-defence architecture as it struggles to provide itself with a nascent ballistic missile defence capability. The short distance that North Korean missiles would have to travel to reach the home islands of Japan makes early detection of any likely launch critical for Japan's politicians. A decision to genuinely engage with the US seems to be resulting in real change to the world's strategic architecture.

Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer.

Source
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/late-takeoff-but-japan-accelerates-to-boost-airdefence-potency/130526.aspx