Japan Reflects on Defense and Normalization

Video Transcript

Ben Sheen: Hello and thank you for joining us. My name is ben sheen and I’m joined here today by Stratfor’s Roger Baker. We'll be talking a little bit about Japan’s approach to dealing with various overseas threats as exemplified by the recent kidnappings of Japanese nationals overseas. So Roger, what we’ve seen from the most recent kidnappings is actually a fairly muted Japanese response. What could they have done? Could they have done anything differently? Why were they in the position they were when it came to possibly a lack of action in terms of getting their people back?

Roger Baker: Well there were a couple of issues with the Japanese kidnapping in this case. First of all, these individuals were not on any official government activity. Second, they were in a country that the government had issued a warning against going to. Japanese law requires any sort of action that they are going to do to have the permission of the country in which that action may take place, and in this case, they were not getting permission from the Syrian government. But finally the Japanese law and the way in which they continue to interpret their constitutional restraints on their military really limits their ability to deploy forces for the protection of Japanese citizens abroad in this case. They don’t have a way to send a rescue operation in.