Japan self-defence forces' overseas dispatch operations in the 1990s : effective international actors?

Abstract

This thesis investigates Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) overseas deployment operations (ODO) of the 1990s to evaluate whether the JSDF were effective international actors. This study fills a significant gap in extant literature concerning operational effectiveness, most studies having concentrated upon constitutionality and legality. This study places operational evaluations within the context of international actors during the vital decade of the 1990s, and within the broader context of Japanese security policies. JSDF performance is studied in four mission variants: UN peacekeeping, allied support, humanitarian assistance, and disaster relief operations. A four-stage analytical framework is utilised, evaluating JSDF effectiveness, efficiency, and quality, comparing between missions, mission variants, and with other international actors, thereby cross-referencing evaluations and analyses. The historical development of the JSDF profoundly affected their configuration and ability to conduct operations, not least the mechanisms of civilian control, the constitution, and mediated passage of ODO-related laws. However, these factors have not prevented the development of significant JSDF ODO-capabilities, and their development is traced through the target decade, and linked to the successful completion of post-2001 operations in Iraq and East Timor. It is found that although JSDF ODO in the 1990s provided effective, quality services, operational efficiency was frequently compromised by lack of investment in key capabilities and limited scales of dispatch, despite the relative cost-effectiveness of ODO. Compared to other armed forces, JSDF capabilities developed well in the early 1990s but the Forces failed to comprehensively capitalise upon their achievements unlike a diverse range of international ODO actors. The JSDF during the 1990s thereby developed as an effective, albeit narrow-spectrum, ODO actor, highly capable and well respected, yet compromised by investment, restrictions, and culture. This operational development matched the development of security policies that increasingly attempted to link military, diplomatic, and non-traditional security elements within an emergent Japanese strategy.