• Climate change : Japan’s defense policy Climate change : Japan’s defense policy By the Buenos Aires Herald, Argentina – Dec. 14, 2004 The weather here over the last week has been doing its best to vindicate the message of
• Climate change : Japan’s defense policy
Climate change : Japan’s defense policy
By the Buenos Aires Herald, Argentina – Dec. 14, 2004
The weather here over the last week has been doing its best to vindicate the message of the … international congress on climate change unfolding here with downpours of various intensity causing mild inconvenience here … and outright disaster in Chaco. At the time this editorial was written, some 10,000 people there had been displaced with over half a million hectares under floodwaters. …
As far as the direct subject of this conference goes — greenhouse gas emission — Argentina is neither better nor worse than the next country, emitting about 0.6 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases with around 0.6 percent of the global population. … But if Argentina is not a prime culprit for climate change, it is especially vulnerable to its effects in the form of rising waters, both coastally and inland. …
The supreme paradox is that with all the extra water from climate change causing so much damage, fresh water will be the 21st century’s oil more than ever. The floods of Chaco should not be seen as the only environmental blight facing us — think of the increasing dangers of skin cancer in a country lying so close to the main hole in the ozone layer. …
Environmental problems could use some cost/benefit analysis as much as other dilemmas — which will cost the world more, the cure or the disease? So far all the evidence is that climate change will cause the world a damage far worse than any terrorism, but let us keep an open mind.
From the Asahi Shimbu, Tokyo – Dec. 11, 2004
Japan’s defense policy has undergone radical change, as was graphically demonstrated by the new National Defense Program Outline adopted by the Cabinet on Friday. The new policy statement follows a decision to extend the term for stationing Self-Defense Forces in Iraq.
… Its emphasis is on having Japan’s defense policy fit into Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s “Japan-U.S. alliance in the context of the world.” The key point concerns how Japan will cooperate with U.S. troops in their global realignment to cope with new threats like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism. …
But should Japan blindly follow the United States as illustrated by the new defense program outline? Even though Japan and the United States are allies, it does not necessarily follow that it is in Japan’s interest to accept U.S. military strategy without qualification. Nor should it simply cooperate with the American viewpoint on everything that happens — from the way of seeing external threats to concrete steps to be taken in response to them. Looking at present-day realities concerning the United States and the world, it would be simplistic to say everything will be all right if only the alliance between the two countries is strengthened.
The world is in disarray over the war in Iraq that the United States started. The discord cannot be cured easily. Getting international cooperation back on track will not be achieved by simply following the United States. …
