By Paul Kallender-Umezu
Chairman, Policy Research Council's Research Commission on Security, LDP of Japan
As chairman of the Policy Research Council's Research Commission on Security of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), lawmaker Hiroshi Imazu has a lead role in formulating Japan's security policy along with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, and other top Japanese defense movers and shakers.
Changes and challenges are coming thick and fast for Imazu and Japan during the second Abe Cabinet, which under the banner of a new security policy labeled "proactive pacifism" has seen Japan issue a new national security strategy, reform and bolster its National Security Council to speed up decision-making, and, historically, in July 2014, allow Japan limited rights of collective self-defense.
This month is a busy time for US-Japan security relations, with both sides looking to conclude a 2+2 Japan-US Security Consultative Committee and Japan-US Defense Cooperation revision talks, ongoing since October, before Abe's April 28 White House visit and April 29 speech to a joint session of the US Senate and House of Representatives.
By the June 24 close of the current Japanese Diet session, Imazu is leading the charge to ram through some 10 new laws to enable collective self-defense rights. And Abe hopes to amend Japan's constitution's Article 9, which forbids both the use of force to settle international disputes and the maintenance of regular armed forces, to allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to engage in police actions overseas, such as freeing hostages.
Read the full story at DefenseNews