HUMINT Operations Abroad: Challenges to Japan’s Intelligence Services

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore a rather hypothetical assumption about Japan’s intelligence capabilities and the perspective of the emergence of case officers capable to run human intelligence (HUMINT) operations abroad. To examine this notion, the article first draws on the concept of intelligence culture and defines and analyzes the key attributes of an outstanding case officer as seen by top-tier intelligence agencies. Then, the study provides a brief overview of the historical development of the Japanese experience with HUMINT from the beginning of the twentieth century until the present. The final section dwells in bigger detail on the current state of affairs of Japan’s Intelligence Community and concludes that much importance should be paid to spotting and training the nation’s case officers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I owe a special debt of thanks to Professor Ken Kotani from Nihon University’s College of Risk Management for his invaluable insights.

Notes

1 Aleksandr Grishin, “You Give us Yens, we Give you Islands,” Kompsomol’skaya Pravda, 21 March 2012, https://www.kp.ru/daily/25854/2823198/ (accessed February 22, 2023) (in Russian), https://www.youtube.com/embed/VagsNJhRDbA?rel=0&wmode=opaque (accessed 22 February 2023).

2 William O’Rear, “A Peace-Drunk Fighter: Pacifist Norms and the Japanese Intelligence Community,” American Intelligence Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2010), pp. 128–135, at p. 131; Brad Williams, Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021), p. 177.

3 “The Legacy of WWII on Japan’s Intelligence Apparatus,” Stratfor, 5 March 2015, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/legacy-wwii-japans-intelligence-apparatus (accessed 22 February 2023).

4 Ken Kotani (ed.), The World’s Intelligence: Readings in the 21st Century Intelligence War (Tokyo: PHP Laboratories, 2007), p. 122 (in Japanese), cited in O’Rear, “A Peace-Drunk Fighter,” p. 132.

5 The most widely used word, joho, is interchangeably translated either as “information” or “intelligence.”

6 “National Security Strategy of Japan,” Cabinet Secretariat of Japan, December 2022, https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/siryou/221216anzenhoshou/nss-e.pdf (accessed February 25, 2023), pp. 1–36, at p. 26.

7 Mark Phythian, “Cultures of NJational Intelligence,” in Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies, edited by Robert Dover, Michael Goodman, and Claudia Hillebrand (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 33–41; Philip Davies, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States: A Comparative Perspective (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2012); Philip Davies, “Intelligence Culture and Intelligence Failure in Britain and the United States,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2004), pp. 495–520.

8 Christopher Andrew, “Intelligence, International Relations and ‘Under-Theorisation,’” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2004), pp. 170–184.

9 Jack Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1977), p. 45.

10 Colin Gray, “Out of the Wilderness: Prime Time for Strategic Culture,” in Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Culturally Based Insights into Comparative National Security Policymaking, edited by Jeannie Johnson, Kerry Kartchner, and Jeffrey Larsen (New York: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 221–242, at p. 225.

11 Phythian, “Cultures of National Intelligence,” p. 34.

12 Davies, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States, p. 500.

13 Michael Turner, “A Distinctive US Intelligence Culture,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2004), pp. 42–61.

14 Richard Aldrich and John Kasuku, “Escaping from American Intelligence: Culture, Ethnocentrism and the Anglosphere,” International Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 5 (2012), pp. 1009–1028, at pp. 1012, 1014–1016; Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), pp. 83, 88; Robert Bathurst, Intelligence and the Mirror: On Creating an Enemy (London: Sage Publications, 1993), p. 120.

15 Robert Baer, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin’s Russia (New York: Hachette Books, 2022, e-book), p. 80; Patti Koning, “Using Languages in National Security,” The Language Educator (February 2009), https://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/cb-lti/careerfocus.pdf (accessed March 22, 2023), pp. 32–37, at p. 33.

16 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (London: Basic Books, 1999), p. 338. See also Alain Rodier, L’Espionnage Russe (Toulouse: Entremises, 2023), p. 99.

17 H. K. Roy, American Spy: Wry Reflections on My Life in the CIA (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2019), pp. 77–78, at p. 144; Douglas London, The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence (New York: Hachette Books, 2021), p. 95; Jan Goldman (ed.), The Central Intelligence Agency: An Encyclopaedia of Covert Ops, Intelligence Gathering, and Spies (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016), p. 70.

18 Koning, “Using Languages in National Security,” p. 33.

19 Ishmael Jones, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture (New York: Encounter Books, 2008, e-book), p. 93.

20 José Quicios, “The North American Intelligence Community: Language Management As A Vital Tool in Generating Safe and Effective Future Intelligence,” The International Journal of Intelligence, Security, and Public Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2018), pp. 132–154, at p. 137.

21 “The Photos of the American Spies Arrested in Iran and the video,” Rohna.net, September 2019, https://tinyurl.com/2s47uwyf (accessed February 27, 2023) (in Farsi), p. 22.

22 “Damascus Station with David McCloskey,” Spybrary Spy Podcast: Spies and Books. Episode 173, 12 February 2022, https://spybrary.com/damascus-station-with-david-mccloskey/ (accessed 22 February 2023), 12:53–12:58.

23 Christophe Cornevin, “DGSE au Coeur de nos Services Secrets,” Le Figaro Magazine, 11 July 2014, p. 30.

24 “Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services,” The CIA’s Foreign Intelligence and Security Services Survey. Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Operations (March 1979), p. 20. The case officer training requires three years of studies at the Mossad training academy named after Eli Cohen in Herzliya.

25 Pete Earley, Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2007, e-book), pp. 51–52.

26 Vladimir Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB, My Life in Soviet Espionage (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), pp. 53, 62, 66–69; Aleksandr Kouzminov, Biological Espionage: Special Operations of the Soviet and Russian Foreign Intelligence Services in the West (London and Mechanicsburg, PA: Greenhill Books & Stackpole Books, 2005), pp. 46–48.

27 Earley, Comrade J, p. 53.

28 The entire language training was focused on enhancing conversational fluency. Thus, five out of eight subjects that made up the recruit’s final grade in the language course at The Andropov Red Banner Intelligence Institute were directly linked to speaking, i.e., pronunciation, expressive vocabulary stock, speech tempo, understanding spoken language, and ability to carry on a conversation. Filip Kovacevic, “German Language Grade Report of a Recruit at The Andropov Red Banner Intelligence Institute,” Twitter post, 15 May 2023, 5:00 p.m., https://twitter.com/ChekistMonitor/status/1658125287589048322 (accessed May 16, 2023).

29 Joseph Wippl, “I Am What I Am,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2021), pp. 816–819, at p. 817.

30 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky (eds.), More ‘Instructions from the Centre’: Top Secret Files on KGB Global Operations, 1975–1985 (Abingdon, UK: Frank Cass, 1992), pp. 1–5. Besides, the KGB resident in every embassy abroad had to submit to the HQ an annual plan for agent recruitment. The majority of these plans were unattainable, and each year the residents were forced to generate a significant volume of paperwork outlining the re-modifications of the plans. The plan also served as a tool of coercion exerted on the field officers in their recruitment efforts. Unknown Author, “KGB: The Center and the Residencies,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 27, No. 4 (1983), pp. 21–27.

31 “Exceptional Collector Award Ceremony. DCI’s Remarks” (no name of the DCI director and date are provided). Declassified: 14 May 2014. Document: RDP99-00777R000400940002-6. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp99-00777r000400940002-6 (accessed 10 April 2023).

32 Jefferson Mack, Running a Ring of Spies: Spycraft and Black Operations in the Real World of Espionage (Glenview, IL: Paladin Press, 1996), pp. 24–25, 50–51; Laurence Miller, “Undercover Policing: A Psychological and Operational Guide,” Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 2 (2006), pp. 1–24; Jeff Stein, “What Makes a Perfect Spy Tick?,” The Washington Post, 9 February 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/what-makes-a-perfect-spy-tick/2012/01/09/gIQAXWvL1Q_story.html (accessed 3 March 2023); Joseph Wippl, “The Qualities That Make a Great Case Officer,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 25, No. 3 (2012), pp. 595–603; “Geopolitical Country and Intelligence Assessment. Israel,” The South African National Intelligence Agency, DMS 100000342728 (date unknown), p. 23. Revealed by “Al-Jazeera Spy Cables,” 25 February 2015; Field Manual Headquarters, “Human Intelligence Collector Operations,” Field Manual No. 2-22.3 (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 6 September 2006), pp. 1-10–1-12, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/150085.pdf (accessed 23 April 2023).

33 Scott Shumate, Randy Borum, James Turner, and Nancy Fogarty, “Middle Eastern Mindset: Operational Analysis and Implications,” American Intelligence Journal, Vol. 24 (2006), pp. 45–55, at p. 45.

34 Simon Willmetts, “The Cultural Turn in Intelligence Studies,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 34, No. 6 (2019), pp. 800–817, at p. 803.

35 For instance, an alleged CIA manual on the recruitment of Iranians states that Iranians are emotion-driven people with a penchant for flattery and gifts. See “Counter-Espionage Exhibition of the Ministry of Intelligence,” Siasatrooz, 2 September 2019, https://www.siasatrooz.ir/vdcj8yev8uqevmz.fsfu.html (accessed 22 February 2023) (in Farsi). For other sources, see, for example, Max Hatzenbeuhler, “Scandinavians as Agents,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 15 (1971), pp. 89–102; Titus Leidesdorf, “The Vietnamese as Operational Target,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 12 (1968), pp. 57–71; A. Repin, “The Peculiarities of the Vietnamese National Character in the Process of Communication,” Trudy Vysshei Shkoly KGB, No. 27 (1982), pp. 173–186, https://www.kgbdocuments.eu/assets/books/journals/tvs/27.pdf (accessed 5 March 2023) (in Russian); V. Baronov and A. Petrenko, “Psychological Aspects of the Communication with the Candidates for Recruitment among the Defectors from the PRC,” Trudy Vysshei Shkoly KGB, No. 28–29 (1983), pp. 349–369, https://www.kgbdocuments.eu/assets/books/journals/tvs/28_29.pdf (accessed 5 March 2023) (in Russian).

36 London, The Recruiter, pp. 114–115.

37 Mack, Running a Ring of Spies, p. 25.

38 The New Field Intelligence, Strategic Execution Team, FBI, March 2008–2009, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/23901-strategic-execution-team-fbi-new-field-intelligence-march-2008-march-2009-2009 (accessed 10 March 2023), p. 42.

39 Ibid., p. 45 (emphasis added).

40 Mack, Running a Ring of Spies, p. 24.

41 London, The Recruiter, p. 61.

42 Douglas Martin, “Clair George, Spy and Iran-Contra Figure, Dies at 81,” New York Times, 20 August 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/us/21george.html (accessed 10 March 2023).

43 Ronen Bergman, “Operation Red Falcon,” Atavist Magazine, No. 47 (31 March 2015), https://magazine.atavist.com/operation-red-falcon/

44 Wippl, “The Qualities That Make a Great Case Officer,” p. 603.

45 Barton Whaley, Practise To Deceive: Learning Curves of Military Deception Planners (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2016), pp. 221–222.

46 Wippl, “The Qualities That Make a Great Case Officer,” pp. 599–600.

47 Ibid., p. 600.

48 Bergman “Operation Red Falcon.”

49 Jeffrey Cooper, Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2005), p. 6.

50 Earley Pete, Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2007, e-book), p. 54.

51 John Marks, The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate”: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), pp. 164, 172.

52 See, for example, The Psychological Types of Targets for Recruitment: General Characteristics and Methods of Detection in Operational Practice (unknown publisher, 1987) (in Russian); D. Erokhin, “The Tactics of Conducting Recruitment Operations by Applying the Model of Psychological Vulnerability,” Trudy Vysshei Shkoly KGB, No. 43 (1988), pp. 69–81, https://www.kgbdocuments.eu/assets/books/journals/tvs/43.pdf (accessed March 10, 2023) (in Russian); A. Khilkevich, “Psychological Aspects of Elicitation of Information in the Process of Counterintelligence Activities,” Trudy Vysshei Shkoly KGB, No. 25 (1982), https://www.kgbdocuments.eu/assets/books/journals/tvs/tvs_25.pdf (accessed March 10, 2023) (in Russian), pp. 339–346.

53 London, The Recruiter, p. 45.

54 Reuven Bar-On, The Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EQ-I): Technical Manual (Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems, 1997), p. 14.

55 Miller, “Undercover Policing,” p. 6.

56 Ibid.

57 A. Kiselev, “Some Aspects of Psychological Training of the KGB Agents for Engagement behind the Enemy Lines in Counterintelligence Activities,” Trudy Vysshei Shkoly KGB, No. 15 (1978), pp. 28–41, at pp. 32–34, https://www.kgbdocuments.eu/assets/books/journals/tvs/15.pdf (accessed 12 March 2023) (in Russian).

58 Ishmael Jones, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture (New York: Encounter Books, 2008, e-book), p. 43.

59 Baer, The Fourth Man, p. 80.

60 Wippl, “The Qualities That Make a Great Case Officer,” pp. 601–602.

61 Stein, “What Makes a Perfect Spy Tick?”

62 Robert Dreyfuss, “The CIA Crosses Over,” Mother Jones, January–February 1995, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/01/cia-crosses-over/ (accessed 20 March 2023).

63 Robert Steele, “Human Intelligence: All Humans, All Minds, All the Time,” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. Research Paper (2010), p. 39.

64 Ken Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2009), p. 6.

65 Inaba Chiharu and Rotem Kowner, “The Secret Factor: Japanese Network of Intelligence-Gathering on Russia during the War,” in Rethinking The Russo-Japanese War, 1904–05. Volume I. Centennial Perspectives, edited by Rotem Kowner (Kent, UK: Global Oriental, 2007), pp. 78–92, at p. 81.

66 Ibid., pp. 83–85; Alex Marshall, “Russian Intelligence during the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–05,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 22, No. 5 (2007), pp. 682–698, at p. 693; Kotani Japanese Intelligence in World War II, pp. 7–8; Aleksandr Polutov, “Intelligence Activities of Japan’s Commercial Agency in Vladivostok on the Eve of the Russo-Japanese War,” Vestnik DVO, No. 5 (2008), pp. 100–106, at p. 105 (in Russian).

67 Chiharu and Kowner, “The Secret Factor,” p. 90.

68 Danny Orbach, “The Military-Adventurous Complex: Officers, Adventurers, and Japanese Expansion in East Asia, 1884–1937,” Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 53, No. 2 (2019), pp. 339–376; Seizo Kimase, Mitsuru Toyama kämpft für Grossasien (München: Zinnen Verlag, 1941); Eiko Siniawer, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860–1960 (New York and London: Cornell University Press, 2008).

69 Richard Samuels, Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community (New York and London: Cornell University Press, 2019), p. 33.

70 Max Everest-Phillips, “The Pre-War Fear of Japanese Espionage: Its Impact and Legacy,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2007), pp. 243–265, at p. 259.

71 Samuels, Special Duty, p. 67.

72 Aleksandr Kulanov, Roman Kim (Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2016), pp. 200–201 (in Russian); Aleksandr Kulanov, “Roman Kim: The Ninja from the Lubyanka,” Historian, Vol. 80, No. 1 (2018), pp. 9–33, at pp. 18–21; Statement by Evdokiya Petrova who worked at the Japanese subsection of the NKVD from 1934 to 1942 and defected with her husband in Australia in 1954. See John Chapman, Richard Sorge, the GRU and the Pacific War (Kent, UK: Renaissance Books, 2021), p. 65, footnote 135.

73 Hiroaki Kuromiya and Andrzej Pepłoński, “Kōzō Izumi and the Soviet Breach of Imperial Japanese Diplomatic Codes,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 28, No. 6 (2013), pp. 769–784.

74 Kulanov, Roman Kim, pp. 167–168.

75 Hiroaki Kuromiya, “The Mystery of Nomonhan, 1939,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2011), pp. 659–677; Kulanov, Roman Kim, pp. 180–191.

76 Jon Chang, “East Asians in Soviet Intelligence and the Chinese-Lenin School of the Russian Far East,” Eurasia Border Review, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2018), pp. 45–65.

77 Shingo Masunaga, “The Inter-War Japanese Military Intelligence Activities in the Baltic States: 1919–1940” (paper presented at the University of Turku, Finland, 2017), https://www.plienosparnai.lt/e107_files/public/1613731827_2_FT13938_japanese_military_intelligence_activities_in_baltic.pdf (accessed 20 March 2023); Ewa Pałasz‐Rutkowska and Andrzej Romer, “Polish‐Japanese Co‐Operation during World War II,” Japan Forum, Vol. 7, No. 2 (1995), pp. 285–316; C. G. McKay, Emperor of Spies: Onodera’s Wartime Network in Northern Europe (Kindle Edition, 2020).

78 Alvin Coox, “The Lesser of Two Hells: NKVD General G.S. Lyushkov’s Defection To Japan, 1938–1945,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1998), pp.145–186 and Vol. 11, No. 4 (1998), pp. 72–110.

79 Richard Brown, “Anti-Soviet Operations of Kwantung Army Intelligence, 1940–41,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1962), pp. A7–A20, at p. A13.

80 Everest-Phillips, “The Pre-War Fear of Japanese Espionage,” p. 258.

81 Robert Pringle, “The Intelligence Services of Russia,” in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, edited by Loch K. Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 774–779, at p. 779.

82 Stephen Mercado, The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army’s Elite Intelligence School (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002).

83 Samuels, Special Duty, p. 58.

84 Mercado, The Shadow Warriors of Nakano, pp. 12, 14.

85 Iwaichi Fujiwara, F. Kikan: Japanese Army Intelligence Operations in Southeast Asia during World War II (Melbourne: Monash University Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1986); Samuels, Special Duty, p. 61.

86 Kotani, Japanese Intelligence in World War II, p. 76.

87 For example, the majority of more than 120 graduates of the Nakano School in Manchuria were either killed or captured by the Soviets, including Major General Akigusa Shun who died in Soviet captivity in 1949. See Stephen Mercado, The Shadow Warriors of Nakano, pp. 170–171.

88 Williams, Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy, pp. 175–176.

89 John Hail, “Soviets Accuse CIA of Rude and Filthy Methods,” UPI, 10 April 1984, https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/04/10/Soviets-accuse-CIA-of-rude-and-filthy-methods/2606450421200/ (accessed 18 March 2023); William Branigin, “Soviets’ Spy Charge Backfires in Bangkok,” Washington Post, 14 April 1984, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/04/14/soviets-spy-charge-backfires-in-bangkok/d16a2bc4-9d88-462d-9920-8be67fd99b63/ (accessed 20 March 2023)

90 Williams, Japanese Foreign Intelligence and Grand Strategy, p. 159; Yoshiki Kobayashi, “Public View of Intelligence Organizations: Analysis of Results of Public Opinion Polls in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada,” Governance Studies, No. 19 (2023), pp. 57–98, at p. 92, https://www.meiji.ac.jp/mugs2/journal/6t5h7p00000osvhy-att/review_19.pdf (accessed 18 February 2023) (in Japanese).

91 E-mail exchange with an expert, 3 March 2023.

92 Juan Aranguren, “The Communicative Dimension and Security in Asia-Pacific: A Communicative-Viewing Proposal for Reform of the Japanese Intelligence Services,” UNISCI Journal, No. 41 (2016), pp. 29–52, at pp. 32–36, https://www.ucm.es/data/cont/media/www/pag-83486/UNISCIDP41-2LOPEZARANG.pdf (accessed 13 March 2023); Yoshiki Kobayashi, “Assessing Reform of the Japanese Intelligence Community,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 28, No. 4 (2015), pp. 717–733, at pp. 718–720.

93 By October 2018, twelve Japanese citizens were arrested in China for espionage activities. Probably all of them were ordinary citizens who had been coopted by the PSIA to conduct surveillance. Without proper training and cover, they were caught red-handed. This reveals the amateurish nature of the PSIA’s attitude toward HUMINT. See Samuels, Special Duty, pp. 218–220.

94 Andrew Oros, “Japan’s Growing Intelligence Capability,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 15, No. 1 (2020), pp. 1–25, at p. 11.

95 Anton Lavrov, “Japan’s Military Intelligence,” in Military Intelligence, edited by Ruslan Pukhov and Paul Robinson (Moscow: The Center of Analysis and Technologies, 2021), pp. 318-335, at p. 324 (in Russian).

96 Yuki Tatsumi, “Japan’s National Security Policy Infrastructure: Can Tokyo Meet Washington’s Expectation?,” The Henry L. Stimson Center. Research Paper (November 2008), p. 110.

97 David Rubin, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision: Assessing the New Architecture of Japan’s Intelligence Community,” Intelligence, Politics, and Policy in Asia. Research Paper (April 2016), p. 10.

98 Samuels, Special Duty, p. 182.

99 Cameron Barr, “Asia Eyes Japan’s New Military Intelligence Unit,” The Christian Science Monitor, 21 March 1997, https://www.csmonitor.com/1997/0321/032197.intl.intl.4.html (accessed 13 March 2023); “Defense of Japan, 2020: Enhancing Intelligence Capabilities,” Japan’s Ministry of Defense (2020), https://www.mod.go.jp/en/publ/w_paper/wp2020/pdf/R02040300.pdf (accessed 13 March 2023).

100 Rubin, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision,” p. 10.

101 Tatsumi, “Japan’s National Security,” p. 110.

102 David Sanger, “Tired of Relying on U.S., Japan Seeks to Expand Its Own Intelligence Efforts,” New York Times, 1 January 1992, p. 6.

103 Tatsumi, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision,” p. 119.

104 “GSDF Sent Spies Abroad without Oversight: Source,” The Japan Times, 29 November 2013, p. 1.

105 “Japanese Spy Detained Near Russian Military Unit,” Lenta.ru, 15 September 1999, https://lenta.ru/news/1999/09/15/japan_spy/ (accessed 26 February 2023) (in Russian).

106 Chiyuki Aoi, “Conditions for Effective Intelligence and Information Sharing: Insights from Dutch-Japanese Cooperation in Iraq, 2003–2005,” in Information Sharing in Military Operations, edited by Irina Goldenberg, Joseph Soeters, and Waylon Dean (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2017), pp. 147–164, at pp. 156, 159–160.

107 Samuels, Special Duty, p. 188; “GSDF to Establish 70-Strong Overseas Intelligence Corps,” Yomiuri, 31 December 2006, p. 1 (in Japanese); Daily Summary of Japanese Press 01//07, 3 January 2007, Wikileaks Diplomatic Cables, https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WL0701/S01271.htm?from-mobile=bottom-link-01 (accessed 28 February 2023).

108 O’Rear, “A Peace-Drunk Fighter,” p. 134; Robert Eldridge, “Organization and Structure of the Contemporary Ground Self-Defense Force,” in The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force: Search for Legitimacy, edited by Robert Eldridge and Paul Midford (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 19–56, at p. 37; “GSDF Kodaira School,” Japan Defense Focus, No. 76 (May 2016), p. 6.

109 “GSDF Kodaira School,” p. 6.

110 Eldridge, “Organization and Structure of the Contemporary Ground Self-Defense Force,” p. 32.

111 Aranguren, “The Communicative Dimension,” p. 35.

112 David Rubin, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision,” pp. 6–7; Aranguren, “The Communicative Dimension,” p. 35.

113 Oros, “Japan’s Growing Intelligence Capability,” p. 5.

114 Kitamura Shigeru, Intelligence and the State: The Origin of Intelligence that Supported the Longest Administration in Constitutional History (Tokyo: Choukoron-Shinsha, 2021), pp. 96–97 (in Japanese).

115 O’Rear, “A Peace-Drunk Fighter,” pp. 132–133.

116 Tatsumi, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision,” pp. 117–118.

117 “INR Assistant Secretary Fort Consults with Japanese Counterparts: 24 October 2008,” Wikileaks Diplomatic Cables, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08TOKYO2980_a.html (accessed 28 February 2023); e-mail exchange with an expert, 23 March 2023.

118 Yoshiki Kobayashi, “Assessing Reform of the Japanese Intelligence Community,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 28, Vo. 4 (2015), pp. 717–733, at p. 725.

119 “INR Assistant Secretary Fort Consults with Japanese Counterparts.”

120 Linda Sieg and Nobuhiro Kubo, “Japan Wants to Create an Overseas Spy Agency,” Reuters, 6 March 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/r-japan-eyes-mi6-style-spy-agency-as-it-seeks-to-shed-pacifist-past-2015-3?international=true&r=US&IR=T (accessed 26 February 2023).

121 Reiji Yoshida, “Three Japanese Women Killed in Tunisia Museum Attack,” The Japan Times, 19 March 2015, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/19/national/three-japanese-confirmed-killed-tunis-terrorist-attack/ (accessed 16 February 2023).

122 “Japan Launches Anti-Terrorism Unit Ahead of Summit, Olympics,” Associated Press,

8 December 2015, https://www.voanews.com/a/japan-launches-anti-terrorism-unit-ahead-of-summit-olympics/3093258.html (accessed 28 February 2023).

123 Ibid.; Ken Kotani, History of Japanese Intelligence after WWII (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2022) (in Japanese).

124 “Efforts to Counter International Terrorism,” CIRO’s website, https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/gaiyou/jimu/jyouhoutyousa/en/counter_terrorism.html (accessed 28 February 2023).

125 Kotani, History of Japanese Intelligence after WWII, p. 235.

126 Desmond Ball, “Whither the Japan-Australia Security Relationship?,” APS Net Policy Forum, 21 September 2006, https://nautilus.org/apsnet/0632a-ball-html/ (accessed 6 March 2023); Yusuke Ishihara, “Japan-Australia Security Relations and the Rise of China: Pursuing the ‘Bilateral-Plus’ Approaches,” UNISCI Discussion Papers, No. 32 (2013), pp. 81–98, at p. 84.

127 Paul Maley, “Spies Like Us: ASIS Training Japanese,” The Australian, 21 March 2015, https://besobernow-yuima.blogspot.com/2015/03/blog-post_22.html (accessed 16 February 2023).

128 Kitamura Shigeru—the director of the CIRO between 2011 and 2019—was awarded in 2021 the Australian Intelligence Medal “for outstanding contributions to Japan-Australia cooperation in the field of intelligence,” https://americanglobalstrategies.com/team_member/shigeru-kitamura/ (accessed 1 March 2023); “Japan and Australia Ink ‘Landmark’ Security Pact to Counter China,’” The Japan Times, 22 October 2022, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/10/22/national/politics-diplomacy/japan-australia-fumio-kishida-anthony-albanese/ (accessed 16 February 2023).

129 Rubin, “Shinzo Abe’s Vision,” p. 28.

130 Ken Kotani, “Japan,” in Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies, edited by Robert Dover, Michael Goodman, and Claudia Hillebrand (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 201–208, at p. 205.

131 Robert Huntington, “Comparison of Western and Japanese Cultures,” Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 23, No. 3–4 (1968), pp. 475–484, at p. 477.

132 Ibid., p. 477.

133 Yujiro Shinoda, Pride and the Japanese People (Kyoto: PHP, 1980), p. 204 (in Japanese).

134 Ibid., pp. 204–205.

135 Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1976), p. 30.

136 Edward Seidensticker, Tokyo Rising: The City since the Great Earthquake (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 19.

137 Helen Hardacre, “Aum Shinrikyô and the Japanese Media: The Pied Piper Meets the Lamb of God,” History of Religions, Vol. 47, No. 2–3 (2007–2008), pp. 171–204, at pp. 172–173; Stefano Bonino, Il Caso Aum Shinrikyo (Chieti: Edizioni Solfanelli, 2010), pp. 66, 83–84.

138 Ian Reader, “Globally Aum: The Aum Affair, Counterterrorism, and Religion,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2012), pp. 179–198; Bonino, Il Caso Aum Shinrikyo, pp. 82–83.

139 Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior, p. 121.

140 Chie Nakane, “Social Background of Japanese in Southeast Asia,” The Developing Economics, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1972), pp. 115–125, at pp. 120, 123.

141 Aoi, “Conditions for Effective Intelligence,” pp. 159–161.

142 Andrew Reimann, “Intercultural Communication and the Essence of Humour,” Journal of the Faculty of International Studies, Utsunomiya University, Vol. 29 (2010), pp. 23–34, at p. 25; Sachiko Kitazume, “Do the Japanese Have a Sense of Humor?,” Sociology, Vol. 47 (2010), pp. 35–37, at p. 35.

143 Peter McGraw and Joel Warner, The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny (New York and London: Simon and Schuster, 2014, e-book), p. 153.

144 Ron Dore, City Life in Japan: A Study of a Tokyo Ward (New York and London: Routledge, 2005, e-book), p. 354.

145 Mercado, The Shadow Warriors of Nakano, p. 12.

146 Andrew Tiernan, “UK Army Life and Corporate Japan Share Much In Common,” Acumen: The Magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, May–June 2022, https://bccjacumen.com/civvy-street-tokyo/ (accessed 16 March 2023).

147 Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior, p. 32.

148 Aoi, “Conditions for Effective Intelligence,” p. 159.

149 Maley, “Spies Like Us.”

150 Akiba Ryota, “The Development of Japan Special Operations Command’s Capability: 21st Century Samurai Diplomats,” Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 24 May 2017, pp. 1–8, at pp. 5–6, https://dkiapcss.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/final_Ryota-Akiba-The-Development-of-Japan-Special-Operations-Command…….pdf (accessed 16 March 2023).

151 Yehoshafat Harkabi, Intelligence as a State Institution (Tel Aviv: Maarachot Publishing, 2015), pp. 25–26 (in Hebrew), cited in Michael Milstein, “‘Thou Shalt Never Change … Thou Shalt Change’: The Lack of In-Depth Understanding about Objects Researched by the Intelligence Community,” Intelligence in Theory and Practice, Vol. 2 (2017), pp. 67–77, at p. 75.

152 Ken Kotani, “Japan’s Five Eyes Chance and Challenge,” Asia Forum, 26 August 2021, https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/08/26/japans-five-eyes-chance-and-challenge/ (accessed 25 February 2023).

153 Samuels, Special Duty, p. 254.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Grigorij Serscikov

Dr. Grigorij Serscikov is an independent researcher and consultant. With more than fifteen years of experience in consulting, he provides strategic advice and analysis for companies in the energy and financial sectors. He holds a Master’s Degree in Crisis and Security Management from Leiden University and a Ph.D. from the University of Dundee. The author can be contacted at [email protected].