Japan’s defense forces master disaster relief skills with heavy workload
Felix Kim
Natural disasters have long plagued the archipelagic country of Japan, where floods, typhoons and earthquakes are all too common. That volatility means the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) have averaged more than 200 annual deployments for missions of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) within the country.
“The SDF have been conducting disaster relief operations since the 1950s,” Tetsuo Kotani, a senior fellow at Meikai University’s Japan Institute of International Affairs, told FORUM. “But the real wake-up call came in 1995 with the Great Hanshin earthquake, which claimed 6,000 lives and required a massive relief effort. It then became clear that even though disaster relief was officially a secondary mission of the SDF, in reality, it was a primary mission.”
The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters prompted the Japanese government to structure and train the military in HADR operations with a keen understanding of its importance to national security.
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) personnel perform search-and-rescue missions, deliver aid to ships and aircraft in distress, and provide flood control, medical care, epidemic prevention, water supply support and transportation of personnel and supplies, according to Japan’s Ministry of Defense. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force conducts similar operations in Japan and other countries. Both forces deploy more than 200 times each year for HADR operations.
The JGSDF was deployed in early July 2021 to the coastal resort of Atami, Japan, where landslides destroyed dozens of homes and left at least 15 people dead, reported Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper. The rescue and recovery efforts also included police officers, firefighters and Coast Guard members.
A year earlier, when Japan’s island of Kyushu faced torrential downpours and flooding, more than 40,000 JGSDF personnel, Coast Guard members and firefighters were deployed for search-and-rescue operations.
Despite their importance to disaster relief, JSDF personnel are not first-responders, Kotani said. “The first to respond are police, Coast Guard and firefighters, and the primary responsibility rests on local governments rather than the central government,” he said. “Only when local governments request the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces will they conduct a disaster relief operation.”
Since 1987, Japan has also responded to international disaster relief requests, the Defense Ministry reported. Recent deployments include earthquake relief in Nepal in 2015, aid for flood victims in Djibouti in 2019 and assisting Australia in fighting bush fires in 2020. (Pictured: Japanese defense personnel assist earthquake victims in Nepal in 2015.)
The most significant disaster relief operation in Japan’s history was in 2011, when the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami triggered a severe nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Japan. It required the mobilization of 180,000 troops and logistical support personnel, coordinated with assistance from the United States that included the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group and the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force.
“Disaster response is in some sense similar to actual combat,” Kotani said. “You don’t fire, but you have a command-and-control amphibious operation, transportation, communication, logistics, all very similar to combat operations. So, we think our disaster response operations, as well as the allied response, sends a strong signal to the neighboring countries by demonstrating our capabilities.”
Felix Kim is a FORUM contributor reporting from Seoul, South Korea.
IMAGE CREDIT: JAPAN GROUND SELF-DEFENSE FORCE
