RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan — More than three weeks after a 43-foot-high tsunami wave flattened this town, basic supplies now arrive under the canvas cover of fuming military trucks, property of the 9th Division of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Forces.
The military vehicles bring fuel from the western side of Japan. They import water in 5,000-liter drums. Soldiers hauled in a camo-colored industrial-size rice cooker. At one evacuation center, they erected a set of tent-covered baths, where survivors could wash away days of built-up dirt. It became the only working shower in town, and for evacuee Ryoko Ohtsubo, who is still missing seven relatives, it lent a daily reprieve that she called “dramatically” life-changing — one indulgence in a place where there had been none.
A pair of natural disasters and an ensuing nuclear crisis turned Japan into a country of unfulfillable needs, but the incidents also created an opportunity for this pacifist nation to rely on its military at a level unseen since World War II.
With local governments fractured and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. ill-equipped for a large-scale disaster, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces have emerged as the backbone of this country’s crisis management. And they have drawn praise from defense experts for their competence as they deliver aid, search for bodies in rubble and perform among the most dangerous tasks at the radiation-leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
The SDF’s precision in this crisis has eroded some of the deep domestic cynicism about the role of — and even the need for — a military that fights only when under attack. Japan is one of the world’s most antimilitarist countries, a legacy of its post-war sensibilities.
Although the SDF performance in crisis management will not transform Japan’s pacifist constitution, it could lead to broader public support for defense spending — particularly as the country faces growing threats from China and North Korea. It could also boost pro-military feelings among younger generations, who have been fed three weeks of media images featuring helmeted men in green.
One widely circulated photo showed a semicircle of SDF troops, on a search mission, praying for a just-recovered victim while standing in frigid, knee-high water. On March 16, low-flying SDF Chinook helicopters dumped saltwater on the overheated reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Later, a half-dozen SDF soldiers in firetrucks equipped with high-pressure hoses sprayed water over the reactors in an effort to cool the overheated spent fuel pools, an unconventional attempt to bring the nuclear emergency under control.
Japan has dispatched 107,000 of its 230,000 troops for disaster relief, and for the first time has established a joint command that coordinates the movements of its ground forces, marines and air force. Its deep involvement — and its coordination with roughly 20,000 U.S. service members — stands in contrast to the 1995 Kobe earthquake, when local government leaders, as well as socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, were reluctant to summon the SDF for support.
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