Japan's SDF to begin training for overseas operations under controversial new security laws

Japan's Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on Wednesday said the nation's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) will begin training for new operations under recently changed security laws which have relaxed the forces' operational scope and use of weapons.

Since controversial security legislation was enacted in March this year, expanding the role of the SDF despite the inherent contradictions to Japan's own pacifist Constitution, the defense ministry has been updating its code of operational conduct for its forces, governing geographical location and use of lethal force.

The defense ministry indicated that its Ground Self-Defense Force troops will start to train for multiple potential maneuvers overseas. The training programs, which will also include joint exercises with the United States, will begin on Thursday, Inada said, referring specifically to a GSDF unit.

Inada, who has been in her post for less than a month, is known as a key ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and shares his hawkish views on security. She is also known for her contentious views of Japan's wartime past.

On Tuesday, she visited a U.S. naval base in the city of Yokosuka, in Kanagawa Prefecture, where she boarded the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, having earlier inspected the helicopter-carrier Izumo, the largest destroyer in the MSDF's fleet, yet widely believed to be an aircraft carrier.

Japan's security shift, in contravention of its own pacifist constitution, a key clause of which reads that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained," has put the island nation under the international spotlight as the changes to the law were made by way of an Abe-led unilateral cabinet decision and forced through parliament into law based on his party's ruling majority and against the public will.

Under the new legislation, Japan is now, in a limited manner, permitted to exercise the right to collective self-defense or can come to the aid of the United States and other friendly nations under armed attack, even if Japan itself is not attacked. However, the ambiguous wording of the law, has led to increased suspicion and vexation at Abe's loosely-veiled plans to remilitarize the country.

Constitutional scholars, lawyers and military analysts, have been quick to point out that Abe unilaterally bolstering the operation scope of the SDF has thwarted the legal constitutional amendment procedures necessary, and contravenes Japan's postwar pledge for its people to forever renounce war. Endit