Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2025 March 19 - 25 [POLITICS]

SDF new headquarters will possibly conduct enemy attack operations under US forces command

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Yamazoe Taku on March 24 at a House of Councilors committee meeting said that the essence of the newly-launched Self-Defense Forces “Joint Operations Command” is to create a structure to consolidate the SDF into the U.S. forces.

The new command headquarters was set up on this day in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district where the Defense Ministry is located. The new command will integrate operations of all three SDF branches (ground, maritime, and air).

At the Upper House Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Yamazoe said that it is pointed out that one of the purposes for establishing the new SDF command is to exercise centralized control over the unconstitutional enemy base attack capabilities of the three SDF branches.

Defense Minister Nakatani Gen in response admitted that the establishment of the new headquarters will allow for information sharing and operational cooperation in an integrated manner with the military command in allied countries. He also admitted that the new headquarters will utilize “counterattack capabilities (enemy base attack capabilities)” and conduct operational command.

Yamazoe referred to an argument made by U.S. President Trump’s nominee for the position of undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby, in his Senate confirmation hearing on March 4. Bearing in mind that under the U.S.-South Korea alliance, the commander of the U.S. forces in ROK is in command of contingency operations, Colby said that taking the U.S.-ROK alliance operating under a single command as a model of integration, the U.S.-Japan alliance also needs to move in this direction.

Regarding the U.S. official argument that the SDF should be placed under U.S. military command, Yamazoe pointed out that the Japanese government has firmly denied that the SDF is under U.S. military command as this violates the Constitution. He asked if the government intends to complain about this arrangement.

Nakatani in reply claimed that the SDF and the U.S. military conduct their activities in accordance with their own chain-of-command structure.

Past related article:
> Yamazoe opposes gov’t plan to establish ‘joint operations command’ in SDF [May 9, 2024]