Japan and U.S. have held 19 joint exercises this year

Nineteen major Japan-U.S. joint military exercises have been held using
185 days this year, reported Akahata of August 23.

As these joint exercises take place, the Koizumi Cabinet is calling for
a study of the possibility of allowing Japan to exercise the right to
collective self-defense, which will enable the Self-Defense Forces to take
part in U.S interventionist wars.

They are also suggestive in that the JSDF is spurring on to its
participation in multinational joint exercises in the Asianregion in an
attempt to implement the 1997 Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation.

In the multinational mine-sweeping exercises in the West Pacific, the
first such exercise in Asia, the Maritime SDF sent three mine sweepers,
including the Bungo. It is the first time for Japan to send such vessels
overseas since it dispatched them to the Persian Gulf ten years ago.

Mine sweeping units of Japan and the U.S. also conducted exercises in
the Inland Sea of Japan last February.

In the U.S.-Thai joint exercises called Cobra Gold in May, the SDF for
the first time dispatched eight personnel from its three forces and the
Joint Staff Council as observers. The Defense Agency in the White Paper on
Defense 2001 expressed its hope that the SDF units may officially take part
in multinational exercises.

The Liberal Democratic Party's defense group argues that the
constitutional framework banning the use of the right to collective
self-defense is blocking SDF participation in such multinational exercises.

Therefore, a scheme to allow the SDF to take part in multinational
exercises is in step with the move of the Koizumi cabinet to allow the SDF
to use the collective right to self-defense. (end)