North Korean missile flies over Tokyo as Japan stands by

(click on picture to enlarge)

Shame on the Japanese leadership for failing to protect your nation. When missiles were sent over Northern Japan back in August 1998, no-one did anything. I watched from London, glued to the news feeds: when the missile sailed over mainland Japan, the Japanese Army and Navy did nothing. 11 years later, North Korea's missile will sail over Tokyo's 35 million inhabitants, and again Japanese leaders plan to do nothing but sweep up the debris.

In his daily interview today, the Japanese PM had nothing to say beyond "making sure we work together with the UN Security Council" (asahi.com). For any other country it would be as simple as, 'don't do it or we will take out the missiles and your missile capability, if not counter-attack with overwhelming force'. Imagine a missile blithely sailing over London and the South-East. Is that acceptable? In Japan, the answer is yes.

10 days ago, the response of the Japan Navy to this was "to shoot down a satellite that North Korea plans to launch early next month if it shows any signs of striking [our] territory" (see here), but today, mere days away from launch the response has toned down to insignificance "Officials in northern Japanese coastal cities today began setting up emergency networks and running drills to prepare for falling debris in case the launch fails" (Guardian). Hillary Clinton pontificates: "this provocative action [...] will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences" in case of launch. How different things would be if the launch was due over Washington DC.

Pages 143-144 in Yoichiro Sato's book Japan in a Dynamic Asia detail clearly what happened back in 1998: the attack took place in August 98, missile flew over Japan, Japan pulled out of the light-water nuclear reactor-cum-food aid program KEDO in political protest. Then they fell back in line before the end of 1998 (!) because of political pressure from the US for its new pre-North/South Korea reunification fever plans to bring peace to the peninsula... i.e. nothing happened. Japan complained that the US intelligence didn't give them the right information until after the missile had passed over the country, but that is hardly acceptable with such a modern Army and Navy. As a response, Japan launched their own spy satellite in 2003 so as not to rely on US intelligence.

The failure of Japanese leadership to protect their own people speaks volumes about the spine of the Japan defense agencies and their will to do the job they are paid to do. Shame on them if they let this through... again.