[lbo-talk] 'Japan studied strike against N Korea'

[Ulhas Joglekar]

HindustanTimes.com

Thursday, May 8, 2003

Japan studied strike against North Korea to prevent missile attack: Report

Agence France-Presse
Tokyo, May 8

Japan has studied the feasibility of carrying out a pre-emptive air attack
on a North Korean military base to prevent an imminent missile launch toward
its territory, a press report said on Thursday.

The study was made in 1993 by a small group of military and civilian
officials at Japan's Defence Agency following North Korea's launch of a
Rodong missile into the Sea of Japan, the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper said.
They concluded it was technically difficult to carry out such an attack
because the country had no bombers while its most fighters did not have the
range for round trips between the two countries, the daily quoted
unspecified sources as saying.

A press officer at the agency could not immediately confirm the report.
Japan has not conducted any similiar research since, but its capability for
overseas military action has advanced with the introduction of AWAC
(airborne warning and control systems) radar planes and inflight refueling
aircraft, the daily said.

The report was made at a time when Japan is braced for a fresh threat from
North Korea which has hinted that it had and was developing nuclear weapons.

Shigeru Ishiba, Japan's hawkish defence chief, said in parliament in January
that Japan could ask US forces to launch a pre-emptive strike on North
Korean missile bases if Pyongyang was preparing to fire missiles at the
archipelago.

In 1998, Pyongyang sent shockwaves around the world by test-firing a
suspected Taepodong-1 missile, which flew over Japan's main island of Honshu
and into the Pacific.

The 1993 launch of a Rodong missile, which has a range of 1,300 kilometres
followed the North's testing of crude Scud missiles.

The newspaper noted that the Tokyo government in 1956 stated that it was
within the legal definition of self-defence to strike a foreign military
base when it is preparing to launch a military attack on Japan.
But such an attack has been widely regarded as a taboo issue as Japan's
post-World War II constitution bans the use of force in settling
international disputes.

The pacifist charter has been interpreted to mean that the country could
have forces strictly for defensive purposes which could therefore only
respond once an attack was under way.

The 1993 study was "research in concrete terms concerning an attack on enemy
territory," the daily quoted one source as saying.

It concluded that Japan's air force could launch limited attacks on North
Korea by sending its F-1 or F-4EJ fighter planes equipped with 500-pound
bombs or air-to-ship missiles modified for ground attacks, the daily said.
But Japanese F-1 pilots would have to eject in the Sea of Japan on the way
back from a sortie, while the F-4EJs could only be dispatched and return to
one base on Japan's main island because of their short flying range.
At the same time, Japan does not yet have hi-tech electronic planes capable
of jamming enemy radar to make such a sortie a success.

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