Subject: ＥＥＥ会議（日本は先制攻撃能力があるか？）
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 08:08:40 +0900
From: "kkaneko" <kkaneko@eagle.ocn.ne.jp>

各位

北朝鮮は、もし米国が北に先制攻撃を行えば、その前に韓国や日本に（核）攻撃を加
えると言っています。　そうなると日本はどうするのか。そのような場合、（もし米
国が動かなければ）日本自ら北に先制攻撃を行うべきではないかという議論が出てお
ります。　先日国会の予算委員会で石破防衛庁長官が日本は先制攻撃の権利がある
（憲法で禁止されていない）との趣旨の発言を行いましたが、同長官は最近外国のメ
ディアに対しても同趣旨の発言を繰り返しています。これに関連して、日本は果たし
て北に先制攻撃を行う能力があるのかどうかが、目下外国の軍事専門家の間で盛んに
論じられています。ご参考までに、石破発言を報じたワシントンポスト紙の記事（２
月１４日付け）をご紹介します。記事の全文は次のサイトでどうぞ。
金子熊夫

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10698-

***************************************************************

Threat Erodes Japan's Pacifism

By Doug Struck TOKYO, Feb. 14 --

[extracts] Minister Shigeru Ishiba, director general of the
government's Defense Agency, .... broke new ground in the defense
debate by broaching the possibility in parliament of attacking North
Korea and mentioning it again this week in a media interview. "Our
nation will use military force as a self-defense measure if [North
Korea] starts to resort to arms against Japan," Ishiba told the
Reuters news agency. He said such a step would be
constitutionally acceptable self-defense, and not a preemptive strike

Others disagree: "Japan now doesn't have any [constitutional] right
to attack or preemptively attack North Korea," said Hideaki Kaneda,
a retired navy vice admiral and now a senior defense fellow at
Harvard University

And the attack conjured by Ishiba was a bit fanciful, according to
defense experts. "I agree with his remarks," said Gen Nakatani,
Ishiba's predecessor as Defense Agency head. "But our country
does not have the ability to attack" North Korea. North Korea's
missile sites are at the extreme range of Japan's F-15 fighter-
bombers without mid-air refueling, and Japan only this year
approved a budget for airborne refueling tankers,

......................Japan's version of Special Forces, a small and
secretive group within the navy, and a larger army airborne unit, are
undergoing stepped-up training..........Defense Agency is reported to
be preparing to dispatch two destroyers equipped with the Aegis
missile and tracking system, the Myoko and Kongo, closer to North
Korea to watch for a possible missile launch...........Japan's Aegis
ships could detect a North Korean launch, but with Japan only a 7-
to 10-minute flight by rocket from North Korea, there is little Japan
could do...........Japanese forces have been slowly transferred from
the northern island of Hokkaido, where they had long been poised to
counter a possible Russian threat, to western Japan close to the
Korean Peninsula...........And next month, Japan plans to embark
on its first military use of space with the launch of two spy satellites
designed to take radar and optical pictures of North Korea.........

Opposition member of parliament Shingo Nishimura, who argues
that Japan should have nuclear arms, said in an interview that he
used to be castigated for even mentioning the subject. Now, the
Japanese media is carrying on an active debate about whether a
nuclear-armed North Korea should prompt Japan to acquire similar
weapons.