"From the moment the Foreign Ministry cleared up the issue of how to deal with the United States, it stopped thinking about defense and became really cold toward us. All it was worried about was looking good," a high-ranking Defense Ministry official said, referring to the Foreign Ministry's lead in the Japanese government's approach to agreeing to a draft treaty banning cluster munitions.

The Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister's Office focused all their attentions on dealings with the United States and forced a clause in the treaty draft allowing for joint exercises with non-signatory parties, including the U.S.

Once its Japan-U.S. alliance responsibilities had been discharged, however, the Foreign Ministry suddenly turned all its attentions toward a treaty completely banning cluster munitions. From that point on, no matter how much the Defense Ministry tried to bring up the issue of Japan's own defense, the calls fell on deaf ears.

"It was totally useless," a top-ranking Defense Ministry official said. "The momentum had already built up.

Left behind, there was no way for the Defense Ministry to resist.

On the morning of May 30, immediately before the draft treaty banning cluster munitions was adopted in Dublin, Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed his displeasure at events to reporters at a news conference.

"It's not like we've got our cluster bombs to play with, or for a joke," the Cabinet minister said. Ishiba said the SDF's cluster munitions were kept "as a defense against an enemy landing and are capable of holding down a large coastal area.

Many in the Defense Ministry wonder how the SDF will be able to counter the vacuum created by the loss of cluster munitions, and some fear the complete ban will weaken national defense.

"Britain (which decided at the last minute to support the cluster bomb ban) is all right, it's surrounded by European countries. Japan's got China and Russia nearby, so the security environment is totally different. We need those bombs as a defense (against China and Russia)," another high-ranking Defense Ministry official said, criticizing Japan for allowing itself to be dragged along with European countries in supporting the ban.

What has saved the Defense Ministry is the treaty allowing signatories to conduct joint exercises with non-participating countries.

"If there's a crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. will use cluster bombs. We've got to be able to keep shipping lanes open, so we've cleared the way for the SDF and transport companies to ship materiel over to the Americans," a Defense Ministry source said.

There are still many problems the cluster bomb ban poses for the ministry. The Air and Ground Self-Defense Forces possess four varieties of cluster munitions, costing taxpayers 27.6 billion yen.

All of these weapons will be outlawed by the treaty, which becomes even costlier when the vehicles used to launch the munitions are also made redundant, so the financial burden is considerable. One top brass from the ASDF estimates the cost of disposing of the cluster munitions will be 10 billion yen for the air branch alone.

In a time of tightening budgets, debate will now shift toward what the ministry can do to come up with an alternative. The draft treaty permits some latest-version cluster munitions, but changing over to these will take both time and a lot of money.

"These weapons are a powerful deterrent, but if we've agreed to the treaty for the sake of the nation and our citizens, then we've got no other option but to go along with it and get rid of them," a top Defense Ministry official said, with a grimace. (By Takeshi Uzuka and Ryuko Tadokoro)

Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. Mainichi features the best news in Japan, current news in Japan, Japan news in English, Japan business news, Tokyo Japan news, and Japan entertainment news. Mainichi News is syndicated in accordance with editorial regulations: personal and noncommercial purposes.

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