This is a annual event that the Japan Program hosts to invade thinkers who we often dont get to listen to here in washington. This year i am extremely honored to have these leaders. They have been my mentors. I respected them deeply. They have caught me so many things over the years that i have known them. Im very very happy they agreed to come to washington and talk to us this morning. You all have a bio in the program thats in your seats. I save you from a lengthy introduction. It is to demonstrate joint operations on selfDefense Forces and we will listen to what they have in mind about future defense posture. Before i start im a director of Japan Program here. This annual event could not have happened without a lot of the sponsors and supporters of the Japan Program. I would very much like to thank all of the Japan Program supporters at this occasion. You can see the list of supporters at the back of this pro su bro sure. Hopefully this will grow over the years. A couple of administrative announcements before we start the program. First of all you all picked some of you picked up the trancelation head siet. There are ones right outside of this room. Channel 2 is english and channel 10 is japanese. The speakers are going to speak in japanese so youll probably need most of you will probably need the head sets and get to channel number two. If you havent done so please do so at this time while im stretching my time making these announcements. Youll also notice that you see a note card and a pen or pencil in your seat to conduct the q and a session more efficiently. I usually do this only for this event. But as you listen to the speakers write down questions. Finally, the head sets, when you leave this room, please leave it in your seat. It is very important. These are expensive. Please help us. And this is how we are going to do, the first half an hour, 45 minutes i will pose them a couple of questions and ask their responses and after i go through those couple of questions we are opening up the floor to your questions and their feed backs. So with that i will go ahead and start with the first question. So since the Prime Minister came into the office he promoted the peace and security legislation. Under his watch japanese government had reinterpreted the constitutional interpretation of whether japan can or not. So from outside particularly here in washington it looks to us tliek are great changes that are happening on the legal foundations and policy orientations in a way of how japan engages in the area of International Security in particular. How does that look to you . Do you feel that japan should reorient in the way that it engages with the world in the realm of Security Policy . Ill start from you and i think ill go down the aisle. Before i answer this question there are two things i would like to say on behalf of myself and my colleagues. The first is that recently there have been two marine disasters near japan. They had accidents close to our country and as a result 17 sailors parished. As a representative of the selfDefense Forces i would like to express my condolences. Their wonderful contribution has helped to maintain peace in our region and helped to bolster our National Security. I would like to once again express my thanks to the United States for its work and also to express my condolences for these irreplaceable lives that were lost. Thats the first thing i wanted to say. The second is she has been supporting us for a number of years and selfDefense Forces as a whole. So its wonderful that we have the opportunity to spend time with you today. The three of us are graduates of National Defense and we have had long relationships with her and also Stimson Center has played a large contribution to allowing us to have direct talks and exchanges of views and i would like to express my thanks to her for everything she has done. As far as the question i was just asked i believe Prime Minister has changed our posture through his idea of a corrective contribution to peace and we those of us who have served in the selfDefense Forces feel that our constitution something that we need to protect and something we need to do. It is important for us to pursue corrective contribution and the fact that we have had new interpretation of our constitution allows us to change our stance. It has been changed in security legislation. Further, as far as what we can do, we have been able as a result of some of the changes brought about to support the United States so we are able to do things that we were not able to do because of the checks placed by the contribution. Further, japan with its article 9 of its constitution was not allowed to use force and some people misunderstand and think that we will be using force. That is not the case. The constitution has not changed. We will not use force outside of japan. Theres no change in our stance. So it may look as though there hasnt been much change in our constitution, in our room for operation, but some people may also think why is it that theres so much discussion in japan. What i can tell you is that our Public Sentiments are still not completely mature. We dont know how it is that we should act, how it is that we should be on the International Stage and what it is that we should do to maintain peace. Should we do something outside of japan to try to maintain global peace . And i think that the change will allow us now to play a larger role than we could up until now. Some of the public the media in japan wants to try to lead people in thinking that there will be a change in our constitution, that it will be a dangerous path from here on, but that is not the case. We have not had really an adult conversation in japan about this. I think we have had a couple of steps forward and so i think that thats one thing i would like to have you understand. As far as im concerned of the navy and up until now i have been in a position where i have had to keep from criticizing the United States but now that im app dem academic. As far as the question that she asked about Japans National security policies, whether it has changed or not i think that the Coalition Partners have it looks as though it has changed their stance, but if you look from a different angle what you can see is that things have not changed drastically. It is just that the government, there was not much progress in terms of our legislation and relating to National Security. And basically i think what has happened is there has been little bit of a changed. There are a number of Different Things that happened. One thing i can point to is the fact that the government released the captain of a chinese fishing vessel that caused an accident. The other thing is the east great japan earthquake. I dont think the government responded effectively. And so this basically set the stage for a change in government. How is it that japan will change its stance on Security Issues . One thing is if you look at the guideline its easy to understand. The guideline itself was published in 1978 for the first time and it set out to be a road map for cooperating under our alliance. In 1997 this was revised and then it was from 1993 to 1994 there was the first korean crisis. There was a discussion about what it is we should do to support the United States in the case of a crisis around us. So the guideline was revised with that in mind. And then in 2005 there was another revision of the guideline. In 2015 this was revised after the earthquake and title wave so there was an idea about not just crisis in our environment around us but also what we can do to respond to domestic issues. It should be involved in its National Security and what sort of policies should it pursue. One thing i think we need to do is continue to apply our policies this is whats happening in north korea rather its possible in the future that north korea might have missiles, might have Nuclear Weapons. That sort of thinking did not exist when it was revised. There is a question whether the most recent revision is in line with the times or not. So i think this is something we are going to need to think about. We need to have a 24 hour operation that will allow us to respond to any crises that might generate and we need to look at what we need to do in a three party type situation with south korea. What it is that we can do together with not only the u. S. And japan but also the u. S. , japan and korea. Another thing i should talk about is that theres a limit to what forces can do. And therefore japan reaches the United States and also south korea and those countries should Work Together to get that deployed force how we maintain. I think the corporation is really needed in that regard. It is important to be deployed. Thirdly, in order to reduce a u. S. Burden japanese engagement in the region we need to revise once again and the burden which is currently born by the United States in order to reduce that we should take more initiative in order to contribute to the peace and stability of the region. There is a good possibility. I think we should discuss u. S. Forces in order to have a better coordination between japan and the United States. I think it would be the new way for japan to engage in this region. Thank you for this opportunity. I was involved in the project to think about the u. S. Foreign policy and from different think tanks of the washington, d. C. I was invited to attend the symposium. I mostly turned down and i returned to japan and then i i could not turn down the request. Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity. Before answering her question very briefly i would like to ta United States and how the appliance between the two countries should work and the 1954, the sdf and Defense Agency was established. The Ground Defense force in 1950, the one year before the korean war, it was is it started as a reserve Police Officer and two years before the maritime started but the selfDefense Forces 73 years ago in 1954, the forces 63 years ago, no that was started and that after that there is a Good Development of the sdfs. But if i may summaryize briefly, during the cold war era and in 1989 there was collapse of berlin war, the cold war collapse, however even after that the sdfs together with the u. S. Forward Deployment Forces in order to keep their presence including logistical activities had been making great efforts particularly the maritime and air soelfDefense Forces and th Ground Forces in order to put emphasis on the Northern Area including hokkaido and also both maritime and the air, surveillance activities have creased, so together with the u. S. Members we had been fighting together. Thats what id like to emphasize at the beginning and after the terror and also for other the u. S. The american bases in japan we had been protecting those bases together and as was already explained by the two speakers. There have been signs of changes and as sdf have come to the point where we really need to adjust our roles and in 2015, the security legislation was formulated and during the peace time. I think we all incorporated into what we can do during the peace time in that legislation. Emergency or contingency in order tort sdf to play the role of there are more things to be done so we have come to the point where we really think about those points more seriously. Thank you. I think thats a great segue into the second question i have for all of you. We talked about the how japan had responded and adjusted to the changes in International Security environment and which resulted in the internal changes that you all laid out. So in that context just as was pointed out, if the selfDefense Forces is at the phase indeed to really, we think about how to posture themselves to respond to such changes, what kind of defense posture should the selfDefense Force look for, looking over next ten, 15, 20 years . I guess i will start again with you and go down, perhaps. Thank you very much. The ever changing security environment that was mentioned in order to share that concept together as of four years ago as the government there was a cabinet decision that was the National DefenseProgram Guideline that is a program for the next ten years and i would like to touch upon that. And when we think about the changing security environment, north korea, china and russia, those are very important factors to take into consideration, seven or eight years ago, we thought that north korea was the crisis there and the china the crisis in near future and russia was the crisis in distant future. That was our interpretation seven or eight years ago but over the last four to five years, i think there has been some change in the our perception and the north korea, this is exactly the immediate eminent threat and that china i think for the near future and russia, unless you watch closely, it will be very dangerous. I think those are the changes of perception about the crisis and four years ago under those circumstances in order to respond to the change of the crisis, they integrated defense posture. So in other words, at the southwestern islands which were the vacuum, that is from the south of to taiwan and the china called it the first island chain from okinawa to the southwestern islands and the taiwan and philippines and that is the first island change and 1,400 kilometer the distance in this region and there the grand selfDefense Forces the force were deployed in area coming to taiwan there were no other force. So there was vacuum of the forces in this region. And first that vacuum historically when we consider that china over the 50 to 100 years, china has been building up their strengths and you can see the south in the South China Sea. So without creating the force, we really have to build up our force structure so is that the concept from four to five years. The vacuum area of the southwestern islands we decided to build up and strengthen the power and there are three things. The first is we have a Standing Force here in this region and second stage is when there is any emergency or contingency here, new force will be injected and the force will be injected in order to eliminate the vacuum in this southwestern area in order to strengthen the deterrence so those are the two ways to increase a deterrence. In the third stage still some island is taken by the opponent. We have to retake it so the new force for that purpose is created. So those are three the phases in order to avoid and fill the gap of the vacuum of the southwestern islands in order to build up the defense but that program was started four years ago and we are in the fourth year so were in the midway but there is help with the u. S. Forces this program has been moving steadily. Both the United States and japan are attempting to maintain the status quo. The there are neighborhoods that are trying to change the status quo but in order to keep the status quo what is it that wee need to do, the maritime selfDefense Forces is thinking about what japan needs to be able to do in order to maintain it and as far as maritime selfdefense is concerned, what id like to say is that we want to have two kinds of deterrence one is deterrence by punishment and one is deterrence by denial and these two kinds of deterrents would allow us to maintain the status quo. India and the Pacific Ocean in order to maintain the status quo here we need to have sufficient forces. The third is to have a strong u. S. Japan alliance and we and the selfDefense Forces the maritime selfDefense Forces must do their part in order to maintain a Strong Alliance with the United States. As far as deterrence is concerned, people often think about Nuclear Weapons, but there are two kinds of Nuclear Weapons, one is tactical and one is strategic. We of course are dependent on the United States for Nuclear Deterrence and what it is that japan can do is to maintain deterrence with conventional weapons and so in order to do that, japan needs to strengthen its forces and also japan has needs to be able to maintain and strengthen its deterrence by denial. And as i said earlier about north korea and the change of situation there, what is it that we can do to respond to that . What we need to do is to strengthen our cooperation with the United States in our region. One other thing is the reactive versus proactive deterrence. Up until now the self