Japan is more serious about defense than it was a decade ago. It plans to double defense spending and buy expensive hardware and weapons systems—as much as a weak yen allows. But this won’t matter so much if Tokyo can’t recruit enough people to serve in the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF).
A friend asked what this all meant and why it happened.
The Jieikan (service members) tend to be overworked because they don’t have enough people in the services. I’ve heard this complaint more than once. That is terrible for morale. It also can make training—especially realistic ones—difficult to accomplish. Even carrying out necessary missions is difficult without enough personnel. And suppose you’re fighting a war and people get killed or injured, then you need replacements. If you have too few people to start with, well … good luck replacing casualties.
Also, because JSDF missed recruitment targets—50 percent this year, 35 percent the year before, and by 20 percent for many years—it is an “older” force. The average age is actually relatively high. War and military operations, in general, are a young person’s business. An “old” force is going to have trouble.
Remember a year or two ago when Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) was talking about building two ships specifically as AEGIS platforms? They had so few MSDF sailors that they were talking about forcing a few hundred Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) personnel to join the MSDF to man the ships.
And a decade ago, recall when MSDF was ordered to add several submarines to the fleet. There were serious concerns about finding enough crew to man the extra submarines.
Notice that the MSDF has two “big” amphibious ships. You really need to have at least three: While one is at sea, the other is getting ready to go to sea, and the other is in port being repaired and maintained. If you’ve only got two ships—and don’t have enough sailors to man a third ship—you can see the problem. If you’re at sea when you should be in port or resting, you’re stressing both the ship and sailors.
MSDF is probably half the size it needs to be to conduct the required missions to defend Japan. It obviously can’t expand in size unless it has enough sailors.
One data point gives a sense of the problem: The MSDF has about 50 “warships.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has about 350—and the number is rising steadily.
When GSDF sends units overseas, say to California and Australia, to train, it tends to send small detachments—maybe a company-sized unit and sometimes a little larger. It ought to send bigger units to give more troops experience and train officers in command and control of and operation of larger units. But it doesn’t have enough people, so it usually sends units that are too small to these exercises.
Yes. As I mentioned, if Japan needs a bigger navy, for example, how will it man the ships?
If the GSDF will have extra missile batteries and air defense systems, it needs the personnel to man them. So Japan can easily buy or build hardware, but it needs more (and enough) people to operate the systems.
What about the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF)? It needs to be doubled in size to handle all its required missions. It’s feeling the effects of just responding to Chinese aerial incursions in southern Japan. The Chinese air forces are expanding as fast as the Chinese navy, so the imbalance is worsening as time passes.
And I'll say it again for all services: What happens if you take casualties in combat? What would you replace them with?
The terms of service—pay, housing, and benefits—are not very good for Jieikan and their families. Also, consider that Japan’s government and its elite class—politicians, officialdom, academia, most of the media, and even much of the public—have given the JSDF zero respect throughout its entire existence. Service in the JSDF is not a respected profession in most of Japan.
The people who join the services are real patriots. They aren’t doing it for money. My many years of working closely with Jieikan have shown that their quality is excellent—the equal of U.S. service people. But they are in a terrible system that treats them poorly.
Jiekan are considered government employees—sort of like the person at the ward office who issues bicycle licenses. This is ridiculous. JSDF personnel are ready to die for the nation. They deserve better treatment and some extra respect—do that, and more people might join.
Look at the U.S. system: Pay is very good; housing is also good. There is good health care for service people and their families. A GI bill also provides lifelong benefits—housing loans, education, etc.—and the pension for 20 years or more of service is generous. None of these benefits exist in JSDF, and pensions are stingy and much too small.
Also, when JSDF personnel are transferred, they have to do all the arrangements and packing themselves, and there are often huge out-of-pocket expenses. This is insane.
Nothing much, as far as I can tell. I gather the increased defense spending will not allocate much more, if anything, to personnel. They are going to blow it all on hardware. This is the wrong approach. If they don’t take care of military personnel, they won’t have enough of them to operate the hardware and will have morale problems—very unhealthy for any military. The U.S. military in the 1970s was in terrible shape. Then President Ronald Reagan came along and gave the military some respect by praising it often and loudly—and he also paid to increase salaries, improve housing, etc. That was indispensable to improving the U.S. military. Japan should study the American experience.
The MOD has done this, but it does little good. The main problem is that you need more younger people to join the JSDF. The JSDF doesn’t need more “oyajis” (old men).
I honestly can’t say the MOD is doing anything meaningful to attract more recruits. Every year, I read the MOD white papers, hoping they'll prioritize JSDF personnel for improved terms of service and also just basic respect. They never do.
Is that the MOD’s fault? Partly. Many civilian staff in the MOD internal bureau don’t seem to like the uniformed service members very much and see their role as “keeping the JSDF on a leash.” Strange.
Outside MOD, the civilians running the show in Japan deserve immense blame for not valuing the JSDF and thus leaving the nation vulnerable. The Japanese government spends so much money on useless things that it can certainly afford to spend to make Jieikan live better—and make service more attractive.
I would note that the United States needs a much more capable JSDF to operate alongside it. The U.S. military would be hard-pressed to take on the Chinese military alone. So Japan’s failure to address recruiting shortfalls harms the JSDF’s quality and capability, thus making the JSDF (and Japan) a much less useful ally and partner to the U.S. forces than it needs to be.
And keep in mind that it’s not just the People’s Liberation Army that Japanese defense officials and planners have to worry about. The Russian and North Korean military threats further stretch the too-small JSDF. And no … the Americans cannot make up the difference.
The only people happy about this state of affairs are in Beijing—and Moscow and Pyongyang.
