News Analysis: If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's almost certainly Abe's new aircraft carrier

Japan's official commissioning of the largest ship in the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) fleet that has the capability of detecting some of the most highly- advanced submarines in the world, and boasts a flight deck of nearly 250 meters, has raised the eyebrows of both the nation's neighbors and defense analysts here due to a number of worrying events and related contradictions that have transpired.

The ship was officially commissioned on Wednesday as the largest of the MSDf's fleet, with the 24,000-ton vessel and its 248-meter flight deck capable of carrying up to nine Mitsubishi- built SH-60k ASW helicopters or nine AgustaWestland MCM-101 mine countermeasure helicopters, or a combination of both, military sources close to the project said.

The Izumo, so named after its predecessor -- a flagship involved in Japan's aggression war against China in the 1930s, which played an important maritime role for Japan in a number of key naval deployments, although was eventually destroyed by the U. S. in 1945 -- is the nation's largest warship to enter its fleet since WWII.

It boasts a crew of 470 sailors and has five landing spots for helicopters, but while Japan's Defense Ministry, including its Minister Gen Nakatani has denied that Izumo is in fact an aircraft carrier aimed at significantly bolstering Japan's offensive reach in military operations in overseas waters, as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plans to remilitarize Japan and see its forces play a wider role in international conflicts, defense experts have claimed otherwise.

"Firstly, even from layperson's eye it looks like an aircraft carrier, that's the first clue. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck," pacific affairs research analyst Laurent Sinclair told Xinhua.

"Secondly, aircraft carriers typically share common features, like a massive flight deck. In this regard, the Izumo is no different."

Sinclair, also a notable expert on the region's military buildup and technology, said that regardless of how the vessel is officially classified, its actual functionality may well be completely different.

"Yes it's officially classified as a helicopter carrier or transporter, but we know that it has the capability to launch and land the GSDF's Osprey transport aircraft, so someone please tell me, how is this not an aircraft carrier? It can carry, launch and land airplanes. Yes, the Osprey may be a hybrid plane of sorts, but it's not a helicopter as it flies like a fixed wing plane. The Izumo is an aircraft carrier, anyway you spin it," he said.

Sinclair went on to explain that of all of Abe's disingenuous moves, this, quite literally has been one of the biggest. Izumo was four years in construction and was first unveiled in the run- up to the 68th anniversary of Japan's surrender at the end of WWII.

As somber peace memorial services were being held in Hiroshima and across the nation, Sinclair said Abe had intentionally decided this would be a good day to show the nation's might, on a day usually reserved for reflecting on the horrors of war, Japan's defeat in the war, and its ongoing commitment to pacifism, by unabashedly unveiling its biggest warship since the very war that eventually left the nation crippled.

And while the government insisted the date of the unveiling coinciding with the bombing of Hiroshima was purely coincidental, Sinclair said that with the current government and, with Abe in particular, there are no such things as "coincidences."

"Against the current Constitution, albeit the one that Abe is rapidly trying to amend to allow his forces to be deployed across the world, he on March 20 during an Upper House Budget Committee session referred to the Self-Defense Forces as 'our military,' in stark contravention of the Constitution," Sinclair pointed out.

"And far from remedying the monumental error, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga simply, as he tends to do, defended the prime minister saying that if such an organization used to defend our country is called a military, then it's a military. This is further evidence of how little regard the current government has for its Constitution," said Sinclair.

But both political and military analysts close to the matter here have maintained that Japan continuing to bolster its military spending comes as little surprise considering the increasingly bellicose disposition Abe and his government have adopted since their rise to power in 2012, and the move runs contrary to hollow "calls" from him and his administration for better ties with neighbors in the region, who Japan remains at odds with, over its whitewashing and revisionist attitude towards its historical wartime atrocities, as well as issues pertaining to territory, despite very embryonic signs that ties could be warming.

As Abe sets about crafting an internationally watched statement to be given on the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, that leading political authorities now believe will be a detraction from previous administration's statements that have largely followed the Murayama Statement, which accepted Japan's wartime aggressive actions, the atrocities caused to Japan's neighbors, and apologized resolutely for these, while looking to a future of pacifism, analysts here are having a hard time believing any words from Abe that refer to peace, stability or pacifism.

The facts of the matter remain thus. The Abe's Cabinet in January approved the nation's largest-ever defense budget, marking the third successive year of increased spending and a new post WWII record, following more than a decade of spending cuts amid a stalled economy and as public debt has surged to the highest in the industrialized world.

The Cabinet endorsed a 42-billion-U.S. dollar budget for defense spending for fiscal 2015, with the amount marking a two percent rise from the previous fiscal year and the third annual increase under Abe's hawkish eye. After assuming office, the rightist leader drew a line under 11 consecutive years of defense spending cuts, despite the nation struggling with economic malaise, including decades of deflationary pressure and mounting public debt.

The government's defense budget has been earmarked for the purchasing of military hardware including P-1 surveillance aircraft -- widely regarded as a benign reconnaissance aircraft, but are in fact equipped with an array of weapon systems, including anti-ship missiles, air-to-surface missiles, torpedoes, mines, depth charges and bombs, with the aircraft also capable of deploying sonobuoys while conducting anti-submarine warfare missions.

The Defense Ministry has also reiterated that the purchasing of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jets will go ahead, with the aim of helping bolster Japan's Air Self-Defense Forces towards achieving "superior air-combat capability," with the fifth-generation jet replacing the aging mainstay F-15 fighters.

The ministry has hailed the stealth fighter, the Pentagon's most expensive albeit fault-plagued weapons system in history, for its ability to be configured for air-to-air engagements, as well as air-to-ground and air-to-sea engagements, and developments have been underway for the fighter to carry next-generation weaponry, including the possibility of a solid state laser and a High Speed Strike Weapon, which is a hypersonic missile.

Its spending has also been earmarked for the purchasing of Global Hawk drones.

Along with two Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and missile defense systems also being purchased, with the technology meaning that, with the exception of the U.S., Japan will be the only country possessing both low-level and upper-tier defenses capable of intercepting ballistic threats beyond Earth's atmosphere, it is becoming increasingly harder for Abe to claim that this spending is all for the purposes of peace, security and pacifism.

"These are not toys. Nor are they just weapons of war. This is a cutting edge menu of some of the most sophisticated weapons platforms available in the world today, and a country with no bone fide military, or pacifist leanings, would have absolutely no need for such technically advanced weapons systems," Sinclair said.

"Interestingly, one of the options for the F-35, along with a vertical take off option, is the option for a short-take-off-and- landing version, which is perfect for a short runway, such as the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Global Hawks, technically speaking, could also easily be launched from the Izumo. Despite what the government is saying to the contrary, when it comes to Abe, only the facts do the taking."

"Highest-ever military budget, plus, biggest vessel in Japan since WWII with a flight deck, plus allocations made for next generation planes that have the capability of taking off and landing on short strips of 'runway,' equals aircraft carrier. I fail to see what all the speculation is about? Do the math and see what happens over the next year or so. As I said, if it looks like a duck ... " Sinclair concluded. Endi