Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyer Kurama (R) leads destroyer Hyuga as a Japanese naval flag flutters during a naval fleet review at Sagami Bay, off Yokosuka, south of Tokyo October 14, 2012 (Yuriko Nakao/Courtesy Reuters).
Japan Looks to Protect Its Own Overseas -- Time
TOKYO – Well, that didn’t take long. Only weeks after 10 Japanese nationals were killed in a terrorist attack in Algeria, Japan’s military is practicing how to rescue citizens at risk overseas. Now all they need is a law that allows them to do it for real.
Some 80 members of the Japan Ground Self Defense Force joined with U.S. Marines in Thailand this weekend to whisk scores of Japanese and other foreign citizens out of harm’s way in a mock evacuation drill. The soldiers learned how to secure landing zones, screen evacuees, call in Marine Corps helicopters and coordinate with other foreign troops, administrators and relief workers. The Japanese “victims” were mostly volunteers and family from the embassy in Bangkok.
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My Comment: This was an unthinkable policy only a decade or two ago .... i.e. sending Japanese military forces into another country even if it is to protect Japanese citizens and to assist a nation under threat. But that was then .... today's international environment is very different from the one that Japan's post World War II population had to live in .... and it will not surprise me when I see such a policy being implemented sooner rather than later.
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