Comments on: Japan approves new military space policy

By: RayGun

RayGun — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:46:48 +0000

If you are wondering how Obama feels about missile defense. This video on youtube is the reason he can never be President. http://youtube.com/watch?v=YmPhXd9aW74

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 May 2008 02:41:53 +0000

Spectator,

The parsing difficulty came from the original constitutional provision that led to the ruling in the 60s that the requirement that Japan only use space for peaceful purposes meant that any and all military use of space was forbidden. The new law readdresses the peaceful use provision as meaning something a little more literal and less broadly inclusive in the idea of peaceful use only requirements.

Granted, the news reports have focused on this aspect largely because the opposition to the bill was on the peaceful use grounds. The bulk of the legislation has to do with broader organizational imperatives.

Granted, what this all means in practice will come out more clearly in the course of passing the implementing legislation over the next year or so.

By: spectator

spectator — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:30:31 +0000

I have only read the news reports, not the document. What I read only said that offensive operations weren’t allowed by this new bill. I think most any politician can present a kinetic system as “not offensive”. This bill will allow Japan to suit herself on supporting nearly any American system that travels in space.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:36:27 +0000

TO flesh that out a little bit, while it is being reported as a space militarization thing, the deal is that under the old provision any military use of space was forbidden, so launching something like an imaging or early warning satellite was close enough to the line that it created an unholy mess of legal problems. Now, the provision is that Japan cannot use space for any “agressive” purposes, which allows much easier implementation of things like reconnaissance and so on. This is important as it opens up a major domestic market for their space industry (think about what state the US space industry would be in without the DoD as customer).

But past that, while the military provision has been the sticking point, it’s the rest of the legal structural changes in policy that have the potential.

By: spectator

spectator — Thu, 22 May 2008 06:13:21 +0000

This bill was long expected from the Japanese but still a major accomplishment for the waning Bush administration. When Bush came into office, Democrats were opposed philosophically to missile defense with many cassandras over the abrogation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Now the Dems are split on the issue abut 50-50 for and against BMD.

Well look now. Europe is on board the implementation of a US built ballistic missile system on European soil. Japan is on board with greater commitment of money and burden sharing with the passage of this bill. Already the Japanese are helping to built sensors for the follow-on SM’s used by the Navy. Now they are clear to actually do some shooting in space, along with the US, using their own hardware.

The irony of all of this is about 4 years ago, Canada had the option of joining the US on BMD. They refused and thought themselves smart guys by sticking it to their southern neighbor. Now they are the ones isolated and looking fairly foolish. It was just a couple months ago that Nato voted to strongly support the Polish and Czech anti-missile sites, a vote that Canada took part and was a unanimous in favor. Funny Canada would vote to protect Europe in 2008 but not themselves in 2004/5.

Key question for Obama. Does he support Bush’s BMD policies? Will he continue the bilateral policies with Japan and Europe, if elected to the presidency? Will he feel the same urgency to develop BMD that Japan and Europe now feel? Finally, will he continue the robust funding of the Bush years or revert back to the life support levels of Clinton?