On the Defensive

THE NUMBER of angles from which to consider Korean Airlines Flight 007 continues to grow. Forger for the moment questions of who was to blame, who warned or didn't warn whom, how to avoid such tragedies in the future, and so on. Consider this instead.

You live in Japan, a nation constitutionally pledged solely to defense, but your air force is obsolete, and you don't have a navy. Your nation depends on the outside world for most of its raw materials and commerce. Your strongest ally, the United States, under whose protection your people were able to build the most efficient and productive economy in the world, has gradually taken on larger and wider responsibilities in other parts of the world. In recent years the Americans have asked your country to make a relatively large increase in defense spending, something you've been able to avoid until now. To top it all off, an airplane massacre has provided an uncomfortably close--and particularly bloody--reminder of the Soviet Union's military strength. How should you feel?

Before the KAL shouting about half of the Japanese people they agreed with the government's desire increase defense spending Eight percent went no for as to say they would refine to fight if Japanese were to be invaded. Now, after the tragedy, Prime Minister Nakasons of Japan continue to battle an image of himself or a "hawk" the worst possible label to incur in Japanese polities. And his national five-year defense plan, moderate in increases by any standards, is already behind schedule.

In American officials are a press successfully their completely just demands for increase in Japanese defense spending. It is essential that they consider the problem of Asian defense in the fight of the problems the Japanese government faces when proposing such increases to its people. In the first place, the U.S. has only itself to blame for any "imbalance" of defense responsibility in the Far East, Written directly in the American-designed Japanese constitution in a renunciation of "the threat or use of force as a means of setting international disputes." And further, "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained."

Thus, unlike West Germany, which was admitted into NATO in the '50s, Japan was never asked until recently to take an active role in her own defense. American air and troop bases on the islands, and the Navy's 7th Fleet, were considered adequate protection. For the U.S. to request a rapid reversal of this situation is somewhat hypocritical and more than a little unrealistic.

BUT SOMETHING must be done soon, for reason existent before the shooting and only more pressing now. The past two decades have seen an enormous buildup of Soviet power in the Far East. Since 1970, the Soviet Pacific Fleet has increased its total tonnage from one million to 1.6 million, while the 7th Fleet's tonnage has decreased from one million to 600,000. The Soviets have stationed Backfire bombers and $$-20s--the same type of nuclear missile threatening Europe--within range of Japan. In addition, Russian troops are in possession of several small northern Japanese islands. Finally, the Soviet-Vietnamese Pact of 1978 ensures access for Soviet ships to the U.S. built naval base at Cam Ranh Bay. Vietnam. Essentially this gives the Soviet Union the ability to multiply many fold its operations in the Western Pacific, and to protect power along Japan's vital seaplanes.

It is in this question of sea power--not numbers of ships, planes or men--that the true problem exists. Japan is the closest thing to a totally dependent yet still strong nation that the world has ever seen. She imports nearly 100 percent of her energy and raw materials and over half of her food. A simply staggering amount of Persian Gulf oil flows to Japan, and it travels a long way through several easily-attacked points, Considering the volatility of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the growing strength of the Soviet navy in these areas, and Japan's value to us both as an ally and a friend, could the U.S. defend these far-flung supply routes in the event of crisis and still honor its responsibilities elsewhere? It is this concept of "stretched-thinness" that worries U.S. policy makers. And the Japanese should be worried too.

However, up to now little has been done by the Japanese in response to the Reagan Administration prodding. True, Nakasone has pledged that his country will be an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" for the U.S., and that he will push for defense increases. But his program is already lagging. Future resistance is likely to be stiff. Japanese schools still teach the evils of militancy, and of course the older generation clearly remember the horrors of 1945.

From these roots can be traced Japan's famous policy of "friends, and especially traders, with everyone." Commerce is almost always the driving impetus behind Japanese foreign policy. Thus, as Japan's largest customer, the U.S. has an additional lever in negotiations beyond our special defense relationship. Yet Japanese real defense spending stands at only 9 percent of its Gross National Product compared to five to six percent for the U.S.

The murder of 269 civilians so close to home shores will have an unpredictable long-range effect on the Japanese. Ideally, it will galvanize them into recognition of their changed situation. Then they will be able gradually to take on the duties of national self-defense that have thus far been handled by the U.S.