Shielding the ‘Hot Gates’: Submarine Warfare and Japanese Naval Strategy in the Cold War and Beyond (1976–2006)

Abstract

The build-up of Japan's military apparatus in the 1990s and 2000s has been often regarded by security analysts as indicative of a departure from the country's Cold War strategic posture. Japan appears to be engaged in a process of militarisation that is eroding the foundations of its ‘exclusively defence-oriented’ policy. In the case of the archipelago's naval strategy, such assessments overlook the longstanding significance of a core feature of its defence policy, namely the surveillance of maritime crossroads delivering the wealth of the country. The paper reassesses the evolution of the Japanese strategy since the Cold War by examining the development of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force's submarine force, one of the key components of the defensive shield for these crossroads. The paper argues that with the changes in the security environment of the 1990s, Japan already fielded a mature force with state-of-the-art submarines, and that the rise of a new naval competitor aiming at controlling key strategic points along Japan's sea lanes reconfirmed the critical importance of submarine operations to Japanese national security.

Key Words:

• Japanese Militarisation
• Japanese Naval Strategy
• JMSDF
• Diesel Submarine
• Intelligence
• Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to express deep gratitude to Vice Admiral Kōda Yōji, JMSDF, Commander-in-Chief Self-Defence Fleet, Vice Admiral Kaneda Hideaki, JMSDF (Ret.), Captain Ishibashi Tokuetsu, JMSDF, Captain John F. O'Connell, US Navy (Ret.), Lieutenant Manuel Moreno Minuto, Italian Navy, Robert Dujarric, Temple University Japan, Narushige Michishita, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), and the anonymous reviewer of the Journal of Strategic Studies for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

¹Kaijōjieitai ().

²The most recent example is the visit exchange between China and Japan, the first between the two countries since the end of World War II. The Chinese missile destroyer Shenzhen visited Yokosuka in Nov. 2007 and was followed in June 2008 by the visit of the destroyer Sazanami (DD-113) to Zhanjiang, in the South China Sea, where the warship delivered 300 blankets and 2,600 emergency food items in support to the victims of the May earthquake in the Sichuan province. ‘Japanese ship's arrival marks significant event’, China Daily, 24 June 2008, <http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2008-06/24/content_6788163.htm>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008.

³David Arase, ‘A Militarised Japan?’, Journal of Strategic Studies 18/3 (Sept. 1995), 84–103.

⁴Richard Tanter, ‘Japan's Indian Ocean Naval Deployment: Blue water militarization in a “normal country”’, Japan Focus, May 2006, <http://japanfocus.org/products/topdf/1700>, accessed on 20 April 2008; The Asahi Shinbun, Eriko Osaki, Michael Penn (trans. by), ‘Japan's New Blue Water Navy: A Four-year Indian Ocean mission recasts the Constitution and the US–Japan alliance’, Japan Focus, Nov. 2005, <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/topdf/1812>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008; Richard Tanter, ‘Japanese Militarization and the Bush Doctrine’, Japan Focus, Feb. 2005, <http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/1989>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008.

⁵Richard Tanter and Masaru Honda, ‘Does Japan Have a National Strategy?’Japan Focus, May 2006, <www.japanfocus.org/products/details/1938>, accessed on 18 Nov. 2007; Christopher W. Hughes and Ellis S. Krauss, ‘Japan's New Security Agenda’, Survival 49/2 (Summer 2007), 157–76; on Japan's initiatives to strengthen the defence cooperation with the US, Christopher W. Hughes, Japan's Re-emergence as a ‘Normal’ Military Power , Adelphi Paper 368–9 (London: OUP for IISS 2004), 97–115, 139–47; for a comprehensive presentation of the Japanese political discourse on security and defence, Richard J. Samuels, Securing Japan. Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2007), Chs. 1 and 5.

⁶Tanter, ‘Japanese Militarization and the Bush Doctrine’.

⁷Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, ‘Japanese Maritime Thought: If not Mahan, Who?’, Naval War College Review 59/3 (2006), 23. The authors expressed similar views in a more recent publication, Yoshihara and Holmes (eds.), Asia Looks Seaward. Power and Maritime Strategy (Westport, CO, London: Praeger Security International 2008), Ch.8.

⁸In Japanese they are called Bōei Keikaku no Taikō, or Taikō (). Depending upon the context, the word Taikō () itself can be rendered in English both as ‘outline’ or ‘guideline’. The 2004 edition of the Taikō was the first to be translated as a National Defence Programme Guideline, for it aimed at emphasising its stronger flavour of ‘strategic vision’ for future defence policy. Author's conversation with Senior Official, Defence Policy Bureau, Tokyo, 18 Dec. 2004.

⁹Alessio Patalano, ‘“If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them”: US–Japan Military Exchanges and the Development of the Japanese Post-war Submarine Force, 1995–2005’, paper presented at the Naval History Symposium, Annapolis, MD, 20–22 Sept. 2007.

¹⁰Capt. John F. O'Connell, USN (Ret.), correspondence with the author, 7 Oct. 2007.

¹¹Boeichō (). Since Jan. 2007 the Japan Defence Agency has become Japan Ministry of Defence (JMoD), or Bōeishō ().

¹²Patalano, ‘If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them’. A tear-drop hull is a submarine hull design which emphasises hydrodynamic flow above all other factors. This design was first introduced on the submarine USS Albacore (AGSS-569).

¹³Yoshida's moderate views, though not officially formalised, substantially informed his successors' politicies and for this reason, they are frequently referred to as ‘Yoshida Doctrine’, or ‘Yoshida's Line’. Hughes, Japan's Re-emergence as a ‘Normal’ Military Power, 21–7; Samuels, Securing Japan, 29–37; Nakajima Shingo, Sengo Nihon no Bōei Seisaku: ‘Yoshida Rosen’ wo Meguru Seiji, Gaikō, Gunji[– Japan's Post-War Defence Policy. Politics, Foreign Policy and Military Affairs about the ‘Yoshida's Line’] (Tokyo: Keiō Gijuku Daigaku Shuppankai 2006), 5–14.

¹⁴Japan Defence Agency (JDA), Defence of Japan 1977 (Tokyo: Japan Defence Agency 1977), 100.

¹⁸Masataka Kōsaka, Options for Japan's Foreign Policy, Adelphi Paper 97 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies 1973), 3.

¹⁵Kaiyō Kokka ().

¹⁶Tsūshō Kokka ().

¹⁷Masataka Kōsaka, ‘Kaiyō Kokka Nihon no Kōsō’ [– The Concept of Japan as Maritime State], Chūō Kōron 9 (1964), 48–80; Masataka Kōsaka, ‘Tsūshō Kokka Nippon no Unmei’ [– The Fate of Japan as a Trading State], Chūō Kōron 11 (1975), 116–40.

¹⁹Prof. Kōsaka was one of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru's most authoritative biographers and the first to use the term ‘doctrine’ in reference to Yoshida's political legacy. Cf. his Saishō Yoshida Shigeru ron[– On Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru] (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha 1968).

²⁰JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi[– JMSDF's Fifty Year History] (Tokyo 2003), 121.

²¹Cdr Hideo Sekino, Imperial Japanese Navy (Ret.), ‘Japan and her Maritime Defence’, US Naval Institute Proceedings 97/5 (1971), 98–121.

²²Kaijōkōtsūhogo ().

²³JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 31.

²⁴Euan Graham, Japan's Sea Lane Security, 1940–2004: A Matter of Life or Death? (New York/Abingdon, UK: The Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series 2006), 121.

²⁵Ibid., 128.

²⁶Ibid., 248.

²⁷The submarine force maintained 15 boats in service throughout the 1980s, reaching the stated goal of 16 units for the first time in 1995. Editorial Department, ‘Kaijōjieitai Sensuikanshi’ [– History of the JMSDF Submarines] Sekai no Kansen , 10 (2006), 42, 50, 58.

²⁸JDA, Defence of Japan 1977, 64–5.

²⁹Ibid., 29–31.

³⁰Ibid., 105.

³¹On US Navy submarine intelligence operations, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of Cold War Submarine Espionage (London: Arrow Books 1998); on British submarine information-gathering, Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (Woodstock and New York: The Overlook Press 2001), 527–9, 539–40; on similar Soviet activities, Gary E. Weir and Walter J. Boyne, Rising Tide. The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines that Fought the Cold War (New York: Basic Books 2003).

³²Asahi Shimbun JSDF's 50 Year Research Group, Jieitai: Shirarezaru Henyō[– The JSDF: Understanding the Transformation] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha 2005), 327–8.

³³Hiroshi Kimura, ‘The Soviet Military Build-up: Its Impact on Japan and its Aims’, in Richard H. Solomon and Masataka Kōsaka (eds.), The Soviet Far East Military Build-up: Nuclear Dilemmas and Asian Security (Dover, MA: Auburn House 1986), 107.

³⁴JDA, Defence of Japan 1977, 17, 29.

³⁵Brian Ranft and Geoffrey Till, The Sea in Soviet Strategy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), 120.

³⁶Sekino, ‘Japan and her Maritime Defence’, 119.

³⁷Osamu Kaihara, ‘Shīrēn Bōei Mondai wo Kangaeru: Jissai Mondai Toshite Fukanō’ [– On the Sea Lane Defence Problem in Dispute: Such a Mission is Impossible], Sekai no Kansen 12 (1982), 130–1.

³⁸Quoted in Hiroshi Kimura, ‘The Soviet Military Build-up: Its Impact on Japan and its Aims’, 110.

³⁹Adm. Tsuguo Yada, CMS, JMSDF, Chakunin ni Saishi Kunji [–Official Instructions of the Chief of Maritime Staff], Maritime Staff Office, Japan Defence Agency, 15 Feb. 1980.

⁴⁰Ibid.

⁴¹Capt. Kazuo Greg Kōta, JMSDF (Ret.), interview with the author, 16 Aug. 2007.

⁴²Owen R. Cote Jr, The Third Battle: Innovation in the US Navy's Silent Cold War Struggle with Soviet Submarines, Newport Papers No.16 (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press 2003), 30.

⁴³Kaijōbakuryōchō ().

⁴⁴Kōta, interview with the author.

⁴⁵Capt. John F. O'Connell, USN, ‘Discussion of JMSDF Submarine Requirements’ (Tokyo, Aug. 1980), 3. Vice Admiral Abe's first contacts with the American submarine community dated back to the second half of 1954. At that time, as Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Abe was part of the Japanese team responsible for the administrative affairs related to the attendance of JMSDF's submarine officers to the 100th class at the Submarine School in New London, CT, USA. O'Connell, correspondence with the author, 7 Oct. 2007.

⁴⁶Adm. Ryōhei Ōga, JMSDF (Ret.), ‘Kaijōjieitai to Watashi’ [– My Experience with the JMSDF], Sekai no Kansen 1 (1999), 176–7; JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 141–142. The JMSDF's emphasis on intense training, reminiscent of an attitude common with its Imperial ancestor, led on two occasions to collisions with civilian vessels in Japanese waters. The most dramatic occurred in July 1988, when a new boat, Nadashio (SS-577) collided with a pleasure fishing boat, killing its 30 passengers. The other reported incident occurred in Nov. 2006.

⁴⁷O'Connell, ‘Discussion of JMSDF Submarine Requirements’, 3.

⁴⁸ Renkei ().

⁴⁹Yada, Chakunin ni Saishi Kunji.

⁵⁰Adm. Kazutomi Uchida, JMSDF (Ret.), ‘Naval Competition and Security in East Asia’ in Jonathan Alford (ed.), Sea Power and Influence – Old Issues and New Challenges (IISS Adelphi Library 2, Westmead, UK: Gower 1980), 108.

⁵¹Capt. John F. O'Connell, USN (Ret.), correspondence with the author, 9 Jan. 2008.

⁵²Adm. Ryōhei Ōga, JMSDF (Ret.), ‘Sensuikansen to Taisensuikansen’ [– Submarine and Anti-Submarine Warfare], Sekai no Kansen 8 (1982), 112–13.

⁵³Isaku Okabe, ‘Kaijōjieitai no Sensuikan Operēsyon Gojūnen’, [ 50 – Fifty Years of JMSDF's Submarine Operations], Sekai no Kansen 7 (2005), 94. Also, Kōta, interview with the author; Capt. Itō Toshiyuki, interview with the author, 20 May 2005.

⁵⁴Rear Adm. Yōichi Hirama, JMSDF (Ret.), ‘History of the Japanese Submarine after WWII’, Marines & Navales: Hors Série Sous-marins–Spécial Sous-marin Diesel (Paris 2004), <http://www3.ocw.ne.jp/∼y.hirama/yh_e_top.html>,  accessed on 29 Aug. 2007.

⁵⁵JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 200.

⁵⁶Shireikan [].

⁵⁷JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 201–3.

⁵⁸Hirama, ‘History of the Japanese Submarine’, <http://bea.hi-ho.ne.jp/hirama/yh_e_html>.

⁵⁹Ibid.

⁶⁰Vice Adm. Hiromi Koshima, JMSDF (Ret.), ‘Kaijōjieitai Sensuikan no Gijutsuteki Tokuchō: Sentai’ [– Technical Characteristics of JMSDF Submarines: Hull], Sekain no Kansen 10 (2006), 118.

⁶¹Ibid.

⁶²Hirama, ‘History of the Japanese Submarine’, <http://bea.hi-ho.ne.jp/hirama/yh_e_html>.

⁶³ Kaijōjieitai Pāfekuto Gaido[– Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force Perfect Guide] (Tokyo: Gakken 2005), 90–3.

⁶⁴Koshima, ‘Kaijōjieitai Sensuikan no Gijutsuteki Tokuchō: Sentai’, 118. On the question of the sources of noise created by submarines, cf. Appendix 1 of E.V. Miasnikov, ‘The Future of Russian Strategic Nuclear Force: Discussions and Arguments’, Centre For Arms Control, Energy And Environmental Studies, MIPT 1998, <http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/snf0322.htm>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2007.

⁶⁵Cf. Cote, The Third Battle, Chs. 2–4. SOSUS was a chain of underwater listening posts originally deployed throughout the northern Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdon – the so-called GIUK gap and later on located also in the Western Pacific.

⁶⁶Hirama, ‘History of the Japanese Submarine’, <http://bea.hi-ho.ne.jp/hirama/yh_e_html>.

⁶⁷Akio Watanabe, ‘Has Japan Crossed the Rubicon?’, Japan Review of International Affairs (Winter 2003), 239; Richard Sims, Japanese Political History since the Meiji Renovation (London: Hurst 2001), 332–4.

⁶⁸For an in-depth analysis of the main currents animating the Japanese debate on security, cf. Samuels, Securing Japan, 109–32; Hughes, Japan's Re-Emergence as ‘Normal’ Military Power, 49–57.

⁶⁹In Japanese, the 1995 NDPO was named Shin Bōei Keikaku no Taikō, or Shin Taikō []. The word ‘shin’ means ‘new’ and it was used to distinguish it from the previous edition.

⁷⁰Watanabe, ‘Has Japan Crossed the Rubicon?’, 240.

⁷¹Advisory Group on Defence Issues, The Modality of the Security and Defence Capability of Japan (Tokyo 1994), 6; Japan Defence Agency (JDA), Defence of Japan 1996: Response to a New Era (Tokyo: The Japan Times 1996), 70, 78–9. On this matter, in 1992 the Japanese Diet passed a legislation (the International Peace Cooperation Law) to allow the participation of the JSDF in UN peacekeeping operations. Since its enactment, SDF personnel have participated to UN missions in Cambodia (1992), Mozambique (1993), Zaire (1994), the Golan Heights (1996), and East Timor (2002). More recently, the SDF were dispatched to Indonesia (2004), as part of the international emergency assistance provided in the wake of the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

⁷²Advisory Group on Defence Issues, The Modality of the Security and Defence Capability of Japan, 4–5; JDA, Defence of Japan 1996, 29, 42, 45.

⁷³JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 568–70.

⁷⁴Japan Defence Agency, Defence of Japan 1996, 81.

⁷⁵Kibin [].

⁷⁶Tekikaku [].

⁷⁷Adm. Katsuya Natsukawa, JMSDF, Chakunin ni Saishi Kunji [– Official Instructions of the Chief of Maritime Staff], Maritime Staff Office, Japan Defence Agency, 25 March 1996.

⁷⁸Advisory Group on Defence Issues, The Modality of the Security and Defence Capability of Japan, 22.

⁷⁹For a comprehensive account of the crisis, cf. Robert S. Ross, ‘The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation: Coercion, Credibility, and the Use of Force’, International Security 25/2 (Autumn 2000), 87–123; Douglas Porch, ‘The Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996’, Naval War College Review 52/3 (1999), 15–48.

⁸⁰Chris Rahman, ‘Ballistic Missiles in China's Anti-Taiwan Blockade Strategy’, in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine (eds.), Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-Strategies, 1805–2005 (Abingdon, UK/New York: Routledge 2006), 217.

⁸¹Ibid., 219.

⁸²Bernard D. Cole, The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2001), 147.

⁸³Piers M. Wood and Charles D. Ferguson, ‘How China might invade Taiwan’, Naval War College Review 54/4 (2001), 60–1; Rear Adm. Eric A. McVadon, US Navy (Ret.), ‘China's Maturing Navy’, Naval War College Review 59/2 (2006), 97. In March 2007, American sources confirmed that China purchased Klub-S 3M-54E / SS-N-27 ‘Sizzler’ subsonic/supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles from Russia, a weapon defined by a US naval weapons-systems evaluator as a ‘carrier-destroying weapon’. David Crane, ‘US Navy Aircraft Carriers Vulnerable to SS-N-27B Sizzler Anti-Ship Missile’, Defence Review, 8 April 2008, <http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1116>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008.

⁸⁴JDA, Defence of Japan 1996, 45.

⁸⁵Ibid., 87, 93.

⁸⁶JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 564.

⁸⁷For instance, at its closest point (i.e., the island of Yonaguni in the Nansei Islands), Japan is about 120km from Taiwanese shores (see Figure 1).

⁸⁸In 2007, Singapore confirmed its leadership as the world's busiest port, handling 27.9 million containers. Rachel Kerry, ‘Singapore Retains Busiest Port Title’, Channel NewsAsia, 10 Jan. 2008, <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporebusinessnews/view/321856/1/.html>, accessed on 10 Jan. 2008. The National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), East Asian Strategic Review (Tokyo: The Japan Times 2005), 13; T.S. Gopi Rethinaraj, ‘China Energy and Regional Security Perspectives’, Defence and Security Analysis 19/4 (2003), 377–88.

⁸⁹‘Maritime Industry Forecast to Grow in Asia-Pacific Region’, Asia Bulletin, 10 Jan. 2008.

⁹⁰Vice Adm. Yōji Kōda, JMSDF, interview with the author, 17 Aug. 2007.

⁹¹Editorial Dept., ‘Chūmoku no Shingata Sensuikan’ [– Next Generation Submarines], Sekai no Kansen 1 (1996), 142–3.

⁹²Rear Adm. John D. Butler, US Navy, ‘Building Submarines for Tomorrow’, US Naval Institute Proceedings 130/6 (2004), 52; also cf. Norman Polmar, The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the United States Fleet, 18th ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2005), 75.

⁹³Jane's Information Group, ‘Japan Launches Latest Harushio’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 20 Feb. 1993, 14.

⁹⁴JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi, 564.

⁹⁵Joris Janssen Lok, ‘Japan Invests in Second Stirling’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 11 March 2005, 36.

⁹⁶Richard Scott, ‘Boosting the Staying Power of the Non-Nuclear Submarine’, Jane's International Defence Review, 1 Nov. 1999.

⁹⁷ Kaijōjieitai Pāfekuto Gaido, 85.

⁹⁸Richard Scott, ‘Japan Signs up for Stirling AIP’, Jane's Navy International, 1 Sept. 2005.

⁹⁹Kensuke Ebata, ‘Japan to Receive Four Warships’, Jane's Defence Weekly, 25 March 1998.

¹⁰⁰Editorial Dept., ‘Kaijōjieitai no Kokusan Sensuikan Zentaipu: Oyashio Gata’ [– All Types of JMSDF's Domestic Built Submarines: The Oyashio Class], Sekai no Kansen 5 (1997), 94–5.

¹⁰¹Hughes, Japan's Re-emergence as ‘Normal’ Military Power, 98–101.

¹⁰² Guidelines for Japan–US Defence Cooperation, 23 Sept. 1997 in Japan Defence Agency, Defence of Japan 2006 (Tokyo: Fujisho 2006), 502–3. In May 1999, the Japanese Diet passed a ‘Defence Guidelines Bill’ which legally empowers the JSDF to offer support to the US military in the case of a regional contingency affecting Japanese security.

¹⁰³Graham, Japan's Sea Lane Security, 181–2.

¹⁰⁴From 1963 to 2002, Japanese submarines and a total of 3,667 men made 42 visits to the American submarine base in Hawaii for training purposes, spending some 79–95 days to complete the programme. Visits to Hawaii continue today, notwithstanding the continuous budget cuts imposed on the JSDF. This further demonstrates the JMSDF's perception of their importance both from a professional and an alliance-commitment perspectives. JMSDF, Kaijōjieitai Gojū Nenshi – Shiryōhen [– JMSDF's Fifty Year History – Data, Tokyo: 2003], 238.

¹⁰⁵Capt. Ishibashi Tokuetsu, JMSDF, interview with the author, 9 Aug. 2007.

¹⁰⁶Council on Security and Defence Capabilities, Japan's Visions for Future Security and Defence Capabilities (Tokyo: 2004), 11–13; Japan Defence Agency (JDA), Defence of Japan 2005 (Tokyo: Intergroup 2005), 118–19; National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), ‘Japan – Responding to the Changing Security Environment’, East Asian Strategic Review (Tokyo: The Japan Times 2007), 228–9.

¹⁰⁷Ibid., 13.

¹⁰⁸In this text, the expression ‘good order at sea’ is used in the acceptation used by Prof. Geoffrey Till in Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century (London: Frank Cass 2004), Ch.10.

¹⁰⁹Jūnansei [].

¹¹⁰Adm. Furushō Kōichi, JMSDF, Chakunin ni Saishi Kunji [– Official Instructions of the Chief of Maritime Staff], Maritime Staff Office, Japan Defence Agency, 28 Jan. 2003.

¹¹¹JDA, Defence of Japan 2006, 112.

¹¹²National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), ‘Japan – NDPG and Defence Capabilities for the 21st Century’, East Asian Strategic Review (Tokyo: The Japan Times 2005), 228.

¹¹³International Institute for Strategic Studies, ‘East Asia and Australasia’, The Military Balance 2004–2005 (London: OUP for IISS 2004), 161–2.

¹¹⁴Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, 79–80; David Shambaugh, Modernizing China's Military. Progress, Problems, and Prospects (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: Univ. of California Press 2002), 164–5. For a view more critical of the Chinese military capability to invade Taiwan, cf. Marshall J. Beier, ‘Bear Facts and Dragon Boats: Rethinking the Modernisation of Chinese Naval Power', Contemporary Security Policy 26/2 (2005), 307–9.

¹¹⁵Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, 54–66, 169–72.

¹¹⁶Gabriel Collins, ‘An Oil Armada? The Commercial and Strategic Significance of China's Growing Tanker Fleet’, in Yoshihara and Holmes, Asia Looks Seaward, 111–24; also Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, ‘Command of the Sea with Chinese Characteristics’, Orbis 49/4 (2005), 685–7.

¹¹⁷Graham, Japan's Sea Lane Security, 203–4; Cole, The Great Wall at Sea, Chs. 2 and 3.

¹¹⁸Liu Yi-Chien, ‘China's 21st Century Navy Prospects’, Ta Kung Pao, FBIS China Daily Report, FBIS-CHI-1999-1011, 1 Sept. 1999, quoted in Graham, Japan's Sea Lane Security, 205. Similar concerns were recently expressed by China specialist Hiramatsu Shigeo, ‘Chūgoku no Senryaku’ni Nippon wa Zettai Maki Komareru[– In ‘China's Strategy’ Japan Will Be Completely Involved] (Tokyo: Kabushiki Kaisha Tokuma Shoten 2008).

¹¹⁹National Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS), ‘China’, East Asian Strategic Review (Tokyo: The Japan Times 2001), 199–202; JDA, Defence of Japan 2006, 99.

¹²⁰JDA, Defence of Japan 2005, 207–9. In Sept. 2005, a JMSDF P3-C aircraft identified five PLAN's destroyers – including one of the modern Sovremenny units – navigating in the area of the Kashi (in Chinese, Tianwaitian) gas field near the midway line between China and Japan in the East China Sea. JDA, Defence of Japan 2006, 48.

¹²¹Japan Ministry of Defence (JMoD), Defence of Japan 2007 (Tokyo: Intergroup 2007), 131; also JDA, Defence of Japan 2005, 129.

¹²²JMoD, Defence of Japan 2007, 239–42.

¹²³Hiromi Koshima, ‘Kaijōjieitai Sensuikan no Gijutsuteki Tokuchō: Sentai’, 123.

¹²⁴Editorial Dept., ‘Kaijōjieitai no Shingata Kantei:2,900-ton Gata Sensuikan’ [: 2, 900 – New Ships of the JMSDF: The 2,900-ton Submarine Class], Sekai no Kansen 1 (2004), 142–3.

¹²⁵Ryū [ or ], Sō-ryū [– Blue-dragon].

¹²⁶Shio [].

¹²⁷Vice Adm. Hideaki Kaneda, correspondence with the author, 17 Jan. 2008.

¹²⁸Hataraku Jidai [].

¹²⁹Ishizue wo Kizuku Jidai [].

¹³⁰Seijuku no Jidai []. Adm. Toru Ishikawa, JMSDF, Chakunin ni Saishi Kunji [– Official Instructions of the Chief of Maritime Staff], Maritime Staff Office, Japan Defence Agency, 27 March 2001.

¹³¹Graham, Japan's Sea Lane Security, 179.

¹³²Author's attendance at the rehearsal of the JMSDF Fleet Review 2006 onboard JDS Chōkai (DDG176), held on 25 Oct. 2006, courtesy of Capt. Umio Ōtsuka, JMSDF, Chief Education Section, Maritime Staff Office, Japan Defence Agency.

¹³³Information on the museum is available at its official website in Japanese as well as in English language, <http://www.jmsdf-kure-museum.jp/en/>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008.

¹³⁴In 1969–70 the USN used submarine surveillance of drug runners off the California coast to assist the Drug Enforcement Administration. Similarly in 1967, the USN employed diesel submarines to monitor deck cargoes of Soviet merchant ships transiting through the Hainan Strait to North Vietnam. Capt. John F. O'Connell, USN (Ret.), correspondence with the author, 9 Jan. 2008.

¹³⁵On China's expansion in South and South-East Asia, cf. James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, ‘China's Naval Ambitions in the Indian Ocean’, Journal of Strategic Studies 31/3 (June 2008), 367–94. In particular, open intelligence sources recently confirmed the existence of PLAN's deep underground submarine base on the island of Hainan, in the South China Sea.

¹³⁶Lt. Manuel Moreno Minuto, Italian Navy, correspondence with the author 14 Jan. 2008.

¹³⁷Masashi Nishihara, ‘Maritime Japan Should Reinforce Maritime Defence Capability’, The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) – Commentary, No.37, 17 July 2008, <http://www.jiia.or.jp/en_commentary/200807/17-1.html>, accessed on 29 Aug. 2008.

¹³⁸It is worth noting that between 1980 and 2007, the average age of the boats of the JMSDF's submarine force has been rather low, ranging from six years in 1995 to nine in 2000. In 2007, this average was approximately eight years.

¹³⁹Norman D. Levin, Mark Lorell and Arthur Alexander, The Wary Warriors: Future Directions in Japanese Security Policies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1993), 49–56.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alessio Patalano

Note on the phonetic transcription of Japanese words and names: This paper adopts the revised Hepburn Romanisation system; in the text, Japanese names are given with family names preceding first names. By contrast, in the bibliographical references, names of Japanese authors are given according to Western practice.