Japan and Cyberspace Exist in an Existential Clash

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

The Constitutional article, most likely drafted and proposed by the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, Japan, Gen Douglas MacArthur and his staff, was meant as a check on Japanese militarism and to ban adventurism. The first sentence of the article bans ‘war’ as a right. But there is no international right to war – only self-defense. The second sentence is certainly harder to reconcile with a state’s right to defend itself. That is why Japan maintains ‘self-defense’ forces and not an army or navy. But such word play is sophistry. Japan either has the right to defend itself or it doesn’t (it doesn’t matter what the armed forces are called).

1. Cyber effects are immediate: once a button is pushed in, say Beijing, the effect occurs instantaneously in Tokyo. There is no international waters or airspace in which Japan can intercept malicious code, bound to commit cyberspace attack inside Japan.
2. Defenses must be pre-planned; there is no time in cyberspace to develop consensus or conduct judicial review and then order defenses to protect against an attack.
3. Preemption involves, inescapably, the violation of the sovereignty of the malicious cyber state about to attack. No state can avoid violating the sovereignty of another state in cyberspace if a state conducts cyberspace attack preemption (a state can’t defeat an incoming cyberspace attack at its ‘shores’).
4. Preemption is legal under international law under certain circumstances – a recognized form of self-defense.
5. Cyberspace favors the offense.

1. Prohibits itself from conducting espionage (cyberspace intelligence collection) and cyberspace preemption.
2. Limits itself to passive cyber defense currently.
3. Lacks a unified federal cybersecurity structure and authority with no clear roles and responsibilities (yet) to defend against various forms of cyberspace attack.
4. Operates without a security clearance system equal to Western standards, excluding itself from full membership in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, preventing Japan from joining the ‘Five Eyes’ community, which would allow it to receive from allies the highly classified malicious code the Peoples Republic of China uses to penetrate Japanese networks.
5. Maintains no means to discern foreign information operations conducted inside Japan, let alone reveal them publicly or contest them; Japan conducts no counter information operations.

Japan’s Cyber Reforms Necessary to Defend Its Sovereignty

• Japan needs to afford itself signals intelligence and human intelligence authorities, which are passive elements of self-defense. Historically, intelligence collection has afforded stability and security to a state – alerting would-be victims of impending aggression. For Japan to eschew SIGINT and HUMINT is a strange formula:  Japan has acquired TLAM cruise missiles (how are they targeted?) but has denied itself intelligence capabilities to alert itself of foreign (including cyberspace) threats. This is intellectually inconsistent.
• Japan needs to develop offensive cyberspace capabilities and conduct defensive (cyberspace attack) operations to effect its self-defense. Japan must develop a level of deterrence in cyberspace; this inevitably involves the violation of adversary sovereignty.
• Japanese cyber defensive and offensive forces must sit together (literally) to share information and coordinate immediate defenses and responses. They cannot be separated physically or legally.
• Japan needs to develop clear roles and responsibilities among its cyber agencies; it must adopt strong cyber hygiene standards for both government and private industry.
• The National Police Force needs authorities to conduct cyberspace undercover operations, including abroad.
• Japan would likely benefit from the Prime Minister appointing a Cyber Shogunate to effect these strong standards.

• Japan needs to develop an Artificial Intelligence sharing agreement with the United States to add to the collective liberal democratic competition in AI with the PRC.
• Japan ought to develop a Silicon Valley – a magnet for technology development and venture capital and invite tech companies from the Five Eye states to assist in its development.
• Japan needs to build a cyber workforce. It needs so many cyber forces it may want to consider hiring Five Eye citizens, cleared for such work, to assist in its classified preparations. Japan should create cyberspace reservists from its former self-defense forces as well as allow public-private exchanges (1–2-year tours) to advance public-private cyber expertise and raise standards overall.