Conference Report
By Kai Schulze

Expert Round Table
4th Japanese-German Dialogue on Security: Outlining future cooperation in light of thepolitical declaration between Japan and NATO
Berlin, September 6, 2013

On Friday, September 6, 2013 the Japanese-German Center Berlin (JDZB), the Heinrich Böll Foundationand the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (CPDNP) invited to the 4thJapanese-German Dialogue on Security. It broached the issue of Japan-NATO cooperation, which
gained momentum after both sides signed the first joint political declaration in April this year. The ultimate
aim of the conference was to identify areas of German-Japanese security relations within the frameworkof the newly established Japan-NATO cooperation. As in the previous years, the conference again
brought together the expertise of academics and practitioners, such as diplomats, government officials
and NGO-representatives, from Japan and Germany to discuss this highly significant issue in acooperative and constructive manner.
The conference started with opening remarks by Dr. Friederike Bosse, Secretary General of theJapanese-German Center Berlin and by His Excellency Nakane Takeshi, Japan’s Ambassador toGermany. Both speakers emphasized the need of a deeper cooperation between Japan and the NATO
based on shared values. Ambassador Nakane particularly pointed out that democracy is the basis forcooperation of the NATO members and Japan and he especially emphasized that democratic values
are major issues for Japan’s identity. Together with NATO, Japan now seeks to promote these values
internationally and aims at creating a more peaceful and therefore more secure world. In this context
Ambassador Nakane also countered apprehensions that Japan’s foreign policy could become more1nationalistic under the leadership of Prime Minister Abe Shinzô. Although there are severe problems
between Japan and China that eventually escalated in the years 2010 to 2012, for Japan and his Prime
Minister the relations to China remain one of the most significant relations that should not be violated by
the upcoming conflicts.
After these opening remarks the conference continued with two keynote speeches by Michael Gaulfrom the Emerging Security Challenges Division of NATO in Brussels and His Excellency Ambassador
Sakaba Mitsuo, Representative of the Government of Japan to NATO in Brussels.
First, Michael Gaul formulated the ultimate aim of the close cooperation between Japan and NATO toestablish a broad network that cooperates on security-related issues. Both regions - the Transatlantic
as well as the Asia-Pacific region - are essential for global security. Therefore, it is an outstanding
matter to establish cooperative security relations between the important political actors in both regions.
As Ambassador Nakane did in his opening remarks, Mr. Gaul also underlined the significance of sharedpolitical values between Japan and NATO member states. Furthermore, both sides also face the samechallenges, so the cooperation between Japan and the NATO could be defined as a natural partnership.
This enhanced security cooperation does, however, not mean that NATO aims at military presence in
the Asia-Pacific region or in East Asia, respectively. It is rather important to establish a trustfulpartnership between NATO and Japan, which is NATO’s longest standing global partner. Shared
operations on the Balkan, the Gulf of Aden and first and foremost Afghanistan could stand as examples
for the kind of cooperation Japan and NATO could strengthen in the future. Especially new security
threats that do not primarily have a military solution, such as terrorism, cyber-attacks and theproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) can provide a basis for deepened cooperation andjoint future projects.
After Mr. Gaul’s speech, Ambassador Sakaba Mitsuo also put focus on the interlinked security
challenges both sides are facing, such as for example WMD in North Korea, which although located in
East Asia reach beyond the East Asian region’s borders. He emphasized Japan’s willingness toincreasingly contribute to global security, which is so far almost solely provided by NATO. As an
example for Japanese engagement in global security related operations, Ambassador Sakaba pointed
at successful missions, such as in Afghanistan and the anti-piracy mission in Somalia. Other security
concerns include the situation on the Korean Peninsula as well as the situation in the Middle East andNorth Africa. As a next step to deepen the cooperation, NATO and Japan will organise a symposium inTokyo, in which they will establish a joint study group on humanitarian assistance.
After these keynote speeches the first of three sessions started. Session I dealt with the important topic
stof ‘Nuclear deterrence in the 21 century and next steps in nuclear arms control’. The session waschaired by Gregor Enste, Heinrich Böll Foundation. The speakers of this panel were Professor AbeNobuyasu from the Center for the Promotion of Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, Tokyo and Dr.
Oliver Meier from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin. Professor
Abe started with a short introduction to the broader global security environment with a special focus on2the East Asian region. He reminded the audience that US President Barack Obama addressed a global
nuclear disarmament initiative, but that Russia rebuffed the offer. Furthermore, in East Asia the threatsof North Korea and China are imminent, especially against the background of budgetary difficulties inmost NATO member states as well as in Japan. These difficulties do have severe consequences for thesecurity of the regions, since they lead to austerity measures that also include the defence budgets.
Nonetheless, Professor Abe also stated that most security-related concerns in East Asia are slightlyoverrated. Although China might catch up with the US economically by 2030, the military superiority of
the US will remain also beyond this point. By showing very enlightening figures of global defence andmilitary spending he also put fears about an arms competition in the East Asian region into perspective
and emphasized that especially China is not necessarily a military threat to Japan or any of the NATOmembers. Nevertheless, it is a good decision to keep the Ballistic Missile Defence programme just incase of unforeseen escalations of the numerous political conflicts in the region.
In the subsequent speech Dr. Meier took a slightly more critical position on the agreed NATO-Japancooperation. He firstly pointed at the prospects of nuclear disarmament. Dr. Meier emphasized thatthese prospects have worsened in the last three years, especially due to the negative developments in
the Middle East Region. Particularly the situation in Iran and the rather uncontrolled WMD in Syria
should be regarded as severe threats to the global security. Against this backdrop, Dr. Meier argues,
there is little space for practical cooperation between Japan and NATO regarding global arms control.
He pointed out two major problems for joint actions of NATO and Japan: First, NATO cannot be
considered an independent actor, but is rather fragmented into its individual member states; second,according to Dr. Meier there appears to be a significant lack of common interests, since NATO isprimarily aiming at Russia and Iran as the main security threats, while Japan is rather concentrating on
China and North Korea. Nonetheless the cooperation could be improved, especially by emphasizing
the cooperation between Japan and Germany in particular. Both countries could work together
effectively as so-called middle powers. Both countries should continue on following the path of pushing
forward multilateral institutions on arms control.
The second session on ‘How can we ensure that missile defence plans do not contravene nuclear arms
control efforts?’ was led by Professor Abe Nobuyasu as the chair. In this session Professor Götz
Neuneck from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, Hamburg and Dr. Tsuruoka Michito
from the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), Ministry of Defense and from the Royal UnitedServices Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) in London tried to answer this question.
Professor Neuneck made the start with a detailed presentation. He offered many technical details on
the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) programmes in Europe and East Asia, which led him to theconviction that severe technical problems exist, especially regarding radar systems. He concluded,
taking all aspects into consideration, all the programmes must be considered to be highly ambivalent.
On the one hand, the BMD could at least limit the damage in case of missile attacks and thus ensurestability. However, even in this rather positive appraisal of the BMD programmes it must be consideredthat such programmes always have a regional focus. A missile shield with global anti-ballistic aims is fortechnical reasons not feasible. On the other hand the development of BMD could also trigger an arms
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race and thus block global disarmament measures. It is therefore important to handle the question ofan enlarged BMD programme in Europe and East Asia carefully. It is much more important to establish
enhanced cooperation as well as confidence building measures and to put threat assessments intoperspective. According to Professor Neuneck, most of those threat assessments are actually not as
serious as they may seem, since they are very often used by political actors to negotiate a higher
budget for defence organisations.
In the following presentation Dr. Tsuruoka Michito compared the situations of BMD programmes in Asiaand Europe. Dr. Tsuruoka first pointed at similarities and differences between Asia and Europe, such as
the central significance of the US in both regions as well as at BMD programmes as a central part of aregional deterrence architecture; and at the existence of large regional opponents, namely Russia in
Europe and China in Asia. There, however, also occur very considerable differences between bothregions that need to be taken into consideration. While in East Asia exists a consensus among the USand its allies that North Korea poses a severe threat to the region, in Europe exist differing views on
whether or not Iran does pose an imminent threat to Europe’s security. Paradoxically, the second maindifference is that despite the consensus on the threat perception East Asia is strongly fragmented bybilateral BMD cooperation, while despite the disagreement on the threat perception Europe isdominated by multilateralism. Nonetheless Dr. Tsuruoka concludes his speech with the assessmentthat there are important links between the BMD programmes in Europe and Asia that enable bothregions to effectively cooperate on that matter.
The third and last session of this conference saw presentations by Vice-Admiral (ret.) Kaneda Hideaki,
Director of the Okazaki Institute in Tokyo, Dr. Michael Paul from the German Institute for Internationaland Security Affairs, Berlin and Professor Ueta Takako from the International Christian University inTokyo on the topic: ‘Maritime security by calming the eastern seas’. The session started with ViceAdmiral Kaneda’s presentation. He offered a detailed chronology of the two most significant territorial
disputes in East Asia, namely the disputes in the South China Sea and in the East China Sea and theirrespective strategic importance. While acknowledging the importance of the conflicts, Vice-Admiral
Kaneda also presented possible measures to ease these conflicts. He emphasized that China currently
has no intention to escalate any of the two conflicts into actual military confrontation, but rather uses apush-pull tactic against Japan in the East China Sea. This, however, enables Japan to take measuresfor easing the conflict, such as making efforts to build confidence between the conflicting parties. This
could be done, for example, by establishing effective communication mechanisms.
In the second presentation Dr. Paul talked about NATO’s involvement in the territorial disputes. He
highlighted that Europe should follow the Obama administration's strategic ‘pivot to Asia’, for example
by an enhanced NATO-Japan partnership. Yet, this might carry risks for NATO, since it could beinvolved in in political and military crises in East Asia, especially in the territorial dispute between Japanand China regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islets. In this context Dr. Paul stressed the point that thecooperation between NATO and Japan should therefore be a partnership of shared perceptions andapproaches rather than the establishment of a real practical cooperation. However, based on this4

political partnership NATO could help to reduce distrust in the Asia Pacific region and in doing so,reducing the likelihood of severe conflicts in the region. Since China’s success is according to Dr. Paulbased on a stable world order and stable trade relations, there is hope that a mixture of counterbalancemeasures against China together with increasing dialogue could significantly ease the occurring
conflicts in the region.
In the last presentation of the day Professor Ueta deepened this aspect. She underlined that while therespective approaches of China and Russia regarding the acceptance of global governance institutions
are turned upside-down – China accepts economic approaches and Russia accepts security measures– international conflict avoidance measures are important in the East Asian region. The integration ofChina in security related organizations and mechanisms would be one of those measures. Germanyand NATO could for example play a decisive role in internationalizing the Chinese People’s Liberation
Army and in establishing permanent security dialogues in East Asia that could be inspired by existing
European institutions like the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and theOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). By establishing those institutions andcommunication networks, NATO and Japan could jointly contribute to a more stable and more securepolitical environment in the East Asian region.
The conference offered very distinguished views on constraints and opportunities of future
NATO-Japan and Japan-German relations and their future impacts on the global and regional security
environment. However, while most presenters offered very optimistic views on the future of thecooperation, the limits and constraints also became obvious in this conference.

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