More than seven decades after the end of World War II, Germany and Japan – two societies with complicated relationships with armed conflict – are building up defense capabilities.
Germany moved toward a more robust defensive posture in 2014, after Russia’s invasion of eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. “That was the game-changer for the Germans,” Christian Mölling, Deputy Director at the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), tells The Cipher Brief. “The Russians have triggered a reason for having a larger and more capable armed forces, which we haven’t had for a very long time.”
Germany has been dealing with the Russian threat ever since World War II ended. In the island nation of Japan, however, its neighborhood threat only recently appeared. China and Japan are in the midst of a maritime dispute in the East China Sea, and even though they are not bickering over the South China Sea, China is making its assertive presence known there as well.
North Korea also poses an increasing threat to Japan. The country, led by authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un, has become increasingly menacing and unpredictable over the past decade or so, launching four ballistic missiles in a test last month. Pyongyang claims it tested a hydrogen bomb last year, and although not verified, there is evidence Pyongyang is working on it.
Germany and Japan both rely on the United States as their top defense ally. Under the Obama Administration’s policy of pivoting toward Asia and letting stronger allies take more responsibility for their own defense, Germany faced the reality that the U.S. would be less involved in European security. Japan, while not feeling the change in U.S. policy as intensely, is a strong U.S. ally that could do more for its own defense.
Both countries’ strong economies make them ideal candidates for pressure from the new U.S. administration to bolster their own defenses. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on all NATO allies, especially Germany, to spend at least two percent of GDP on defense.
Germany has said it is moving toward that target, although to expect its spending to rise to two percent within the next few years is ridiculous. Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he would break with a 41-year-old policy of limiting Japan’s defense spending to one percent of GDP.
Internally, both societies have enough distance from World War II to allow their governments to head down the path of defense buildups. “To a certain extent, people think we have matured and don’t pose a risk to the rest of the world but see that we basically have to pay back for the stability we have enjoyed for quite a long time,” says Mölling.
Sheila Smith, a senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the way the Japanese think about using their military forces is changing. “Since the end of the Cold War, military coalitions have become the norm for responding to global conflicts,” she says. “Japanese leaders have gradually accepted the idea that Japan ought to contribute to these multinational efforts to provide for collective security.”
In 2014, Abe’s cabinet reinterpreted Article 9 of the Japanese constitution to allow for collective defense.
However, Smith notes that Japan’s Self Defense Force (SDF) is not deployed for combat abroad and is not allowed to use weapons freely when deployed in a coalition. “Constraints on the use of force still hold, even though Japanese largely see their military as a positive contribution to global security coalitions,” she says.
Still, the fact that Japanese can now deploy with UN peacekeepers in an armed capacity for “collective defense” is a “considerable shift in policy,” says Smith.
Germany signaled a major defense policy shift at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, where German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and other high-level German officials outlined their concept of Germany “leading from the center” and taking more responsibility for defense.
This idea was cemented in the 2016 White Paper on German Security Policy, which calls for an increase in defense resources and removes the politically-charged element of security and defense buildup for the future. In addition, it singles out Russia as a threat.
More recently, both Germany and Japan have taken concrete steps toward strengthening their defenses. Germany launched a new cyber command this week. Japan’s second biggest helicopter carrier, the Kaga, entered service at the end of March. Beginning in May, the Japanese plan to deploy the largest warship, the Izumo helicopter carrier, to the South China Sea on a three-month tour, in what Reuters contributors Tim Kelly and Nobuhiro Kubo call “its biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two.”
Publicly, Japanese and German politicians are supporting initiatives to bolster defense. “It is time we acquired the capability [for a first strike option to hit North Korea’s missile facilities],” said Hiroshi Imazu, chairman of the policy council on security for the Liberal Democratic Party (Prime Minister Abe’s party). “I don’t know whether that would be with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or even the F-35 [fighter bomber], but without a deterrence North Korea will see us as weak.”
Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party and foreign policy spokesman for the conservative bloc in the German parliament, has called for a debate on building a European nuclear deterrent in light of an increasingly disengaged and unpredictable United States. “Europe must start planning for its own security in case the Americans sharply raise the cost of defending the continent, or if they decide to leave completely,” he said.
The Trump Administration’s future foreign and security policy will partially determine whether Germany and Japan continue down the path of defense buildup. Russia, China, North Korea, and threats from terrorism and cyber spies will also play a role. In Germany, this year’s federal elections, in which the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has the chance to gain substantial ground in parliament, will decide whether the country will stick with its Merkel-era security policy.
Kaitlin Lavinder is a reporter at The Cipher Brief. Follow her on Twitter @KaitLavinder.
