This year’s US-Philippines Balikatan Exercise provides plenty of evidence Japan is outdistancing the ghosts of World War II and subsequent decades of faux pacifism.

Japan is deploying a large, multi-service force to participate in Balikatan. And it is not hiding behind an “HA/DR” (humanitarian assistance / disaster relief) fig-leaf, nor just sending observers or a small unit that hovers on the edges of the training activities.

Rather, the Japanese are going to train for combat.

The Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF) is sending 1,400 personnel and essentially deploying an amphibious task force (two amphibious ships and a destroyer) along with a large detachment of ground troops and their hardware.  This isn’t all that different from a US Marine / US Navy amphibious group.

It’s taking anti-ship missiles and air and missile defense systems along.  And it will be firing the Type 88 surface-to-ship missile as part of a sink exercise against an old ship.

The Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) is also sending transport and amphibian aircraft.  The ASDF has often seemed reluctant to do combined’ exercises with the Japanese navy and army (but not with foreign air forces) – preferring to fly at 30,000 feet looking for a dogfight.

The Japan Ministry of Defense’s announcement about Balikatan is refreshingly matter-of-fact while listing the combat exercises JSDF will join:

• “amphibious 0perations”
• “counter-landing live-fire”
• “maritime strike”
• “integrated air and missile defense”
• “joint medical operations”

These are training and skills needed in a fight over Taiwan – or over Japan’s southern islands (the Nansei Shoto, or Ryukyus), which China is now boldly declaring belong to China.

And this training is being done in the area where a fight is likely to happen – rather than JSDF going all the way to Australia or to Southern California to train (in hopes China doesn’t get angry.)

And the psychological and political aspects of all this are as important as the operational benefits that come from all three JSDF services training together and with foreign militaries. This training builds confidence within Japan’s defense forces while shaping how Japan’s political class and public view the JSDF – not least as a competent warfighting force, rather than as the people who help out after typhoons and tsunamis.

And Japan’s partners and adversaries see the JSDF as a more capable force – and Japan as a nation that has some teeth to go with its formidable soft power.  These perceptions matter.

Significantly, the Japanese public is not complaining about the JSDF and Balikatan and almost nobody in the Philippines (where the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy behaved brutally during the war) is, either. China moans, of course, but the rest of Asia doesn’t seem to mind.

Singapore’s Prime Minister even noted recently that Southeast Asian nations welcome Japan playing a more active regional security role.

The Japan Self-Defense Force today is unrecognizable from fifteen years ago, as anyone who was around then will know.

JSDF (and Japan) still have more to do before they are ready to fight a war – assuming a country is ever fully ready. And JSDF is about half the size it needs to be to handle required missions.

But it’s like climbing a ladder. Start climbing and gradually you find yourself at a level that looked unreachable from the bottom. 

Finally, for all the good news about Japan and the Philippines, one fears Japan regards lavishing attention on the Philippines as its contribution to defending Taiwan.

Tokyo has in recent years provided coastal and air defense radars, patrol vessels and aircraft and retired Coast Guard cutters. It’s talking about selling old MSDF destroyers to the Philippine Navy. It has also been helping with dual-use infrastructure (ports, airfields, bridges) for a long while.

This is all important, but at some point Japan will need to bite the bullet and do more for Taiwan’s defense than providing real estate (bases) and guard services and expecting the Americans to take care of things.

Today’s JSDF is capable of doing so.  The Americans ought to make a specific request sooner rather than later.

Colonel Grant Newsham (US Marines – Ret.) is the author of When China Attacks: A Warning to America.