Defence Japan's intelligence challenges

[thomas]

Japan's efforts to strengthen its military capabilities in response to tensions with China and North Korea are well-known. However, there needs to be more awareness about certain controversial initiatives led by some members of the LDP to enhance Japan's intelligence and counterespionage abilities. Reforms implemented in the 1990s and 2000s successfully focused on consolidating and coordinating military intelligence. In 1997, the Japanese government established the Defence Intelligence Headquarters, inspired by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. Its purpose was to integrate operations for signals and imagery intelligence against potential adversaries. These efforts expanded between the mid-2000s and mid-2010s due to increased tensions in East Asia and Japan's greater involvement in UN peacekeeping missions abroad.


Military.com on the challenges the Japanese intelligence community faces in light of Japan's wartime experiences and the controversy between doves and hawks within the ruling LDP.

Tokyo's dark record from World War Two was always a consideration. In the 1930s and '40s, Japan had famously infiltrated agents across Asia in advance of their conquering forces. During wartime, anti-spying paranoia against everything foreign at home, even against people who spoke a foreign language in the war's closing years, created an escalating climate of fear. It was a legacy that post-war Japanese voters were reluctant to see revised, fearing a return to militarism, neighbourhood informants, and other mass spying against the population. Under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan made significant progress in reforming foreign intelligence collection and slowly expanded HUMINT (human intelligence gathering) abroad. But domestic "counterintelligence," said Samuels, "was a sort of stepchild to many of these reforms." For this reason, since the 1950s, counterespionage investigations have been conducted not by a powerful agency, such as the FBI or Britain's MI-5, but by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Its Public Security Bureau (PSB) can be effective but lacks sufficient human resources, according to a former senior Japanese intelligence official interviewed in Tokyo by SpyTalk, asking for anonymity in exchange for talking freely about such sensitive matters.

Japan's Spy Buildup Faces Obstacles

Japan’s efforts to re-arm in response to escalating threats from China and North Korea are well-known.

www.military.com

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Here in the US , we have a large "spy" school in Florida pumping out Navy students non-stop for many years. Just wondering if the Japanese military has any similar schools ?