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Archive 1

Needs update

"...announced in December 2010, will direct..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.23.102.126 (talk) 07:04, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Expenditures

Is the money that is spent for foreign forces in Japan included in the stated expenditures of USD $42.6 billion/year? –Hokanomono 16:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Renamed to "Japan Self-Defense Forces"

The official English translation as given on the Japan Defense Agency website. Please note that most Japanese adhere to the American English convention (refer American and British English differences). --Travisyoung 15:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Reorganization

I've broken the intro down into sections to make it easier to read and moved some of the images around a bit. I'll get around to writing seperate articles for each branch Real Soon Now. I've temporarily used an image for the Japanese flag in the table. Does anyone know if the Japanese Defense Agency or the JSDF have a logo? A quick search of the JDA website doesn't seem to show any. --Loren 21:22, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Operating Budget?

There is a discrepancy between the operating budget shown in the Article 9 section and the budget shown on the right panel. Anyone know which one is correct? I just checked the World Factbook and it states $45.841 billion (2004). I'm going to go ahead and change the figure currently posted in the Article 9 section from 42.6 billion to 45.8 billion. If anyone has any reservations or explanations for the discrepancy, please feel free to change it back and explain why. Thanks. Irfanh 16:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

IIRC the JSDF budget is limited to 1% of Japan's total GDP. Since Japan has a pretty large GDP, this still translates to quite a lot of cash.-Loren 19:41, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Was the nation's disarmament really following the wishes of most citizens as the article says? I'm very *unfamiliar* with Japanese society and history, but it seems unusual the majority of the people wanted something but the government ignored it. Even with unpopular decisions there is usually a sizable group pushing it. Liastnir 22:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

It would be tough to get reliable statistical data on that question, as Japan was under Allied occupation at that time (util 1952) and they wouldn't have sponsored any research that might indicate the population was against their policies.
But I don't think it is unrealistic to assume that the population had enough after 9 years of war and so much destruction and loss of life. Mkill 23:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Women in the JSDF?

Hey there. I was led to believe that women can serve in the JSDF, so shouldn't the table at the top of the page have figures on the numbers of women available for military service? As the population declines their role in society is becoming more and more important. Or are there no figures on women able to fight in the JSDF because they haven't been compilated? John Smith's 01:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe the main reason we only have figures for males of military age is due to the fact that in most countries only males are subject to compulsary service in the event of a draft (the details of which in Japan I am not sure of). Additionally, most of the statistics from the military articles are from figures compiled in the CIA World Factbook which only includes males reaching military age. You're more then welcome to add info on women in the SDF if you can find it, though I had quite a bit of difficulty just trying to find its current size (current data is from the early 1990s). -Loren 03:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Equipment section

I'm removing the Equipment section of the main JSDF article as it simply provides a very general listing of weapons types, and is rendered redundant by the more detailed overviews provided in the articles corresponding to each individual service branch. Perhaps in the future the main article could have an Equipment section devoted to information such as arms suppliers, domestic arms industry..etc. -Loren 20:28, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Large portions of this article are plagiarized from Globalsecurity.org, country-data.com, and possibly other websites. This is a real mess. See [1], [2] and [3] for these sources. I am considering reverting to a version from October 2005, before all of this plagiarism. Rhobite 21:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Check Library of Congress - Country Studies - Japan. It's public domain. All pages you found "stole" from there, too. There is no mess and no need to revert. --Mkill 21:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, there is no need to remove the text from the article but it should still be cited properly. Each copied paragraph should have a footnote, or there should at least be a large boilerplate note on the article that the bulk of the text is copied from the LOC's study. Rhobite 21:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
As you might have noticed, I already replaced the boilerplate that somebody deleted. Thank you for helping, citizen. Well, actually the citations were in all the time, you would have just needed to click them. Well, I don't care. --Mkill 21:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
There is no citation in the entire "Missions and Deployments" section, which seems to be copied verbatim from the LOC report. Rhobite 23:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
The original boilerplate was accidentally deleted by me when I was adding the footnotes, which is in no way the fault of Mkill. If you're going to blame somone for it you might as well blame me. Or better yet we can all get off our moral high horses, quit passing the blame around, and actually work to fix the problems in this and other articles. -Loren 00:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Rhobite 01:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Project assessments

This article is clearly long enough and detailed enough to warrant B-ranking. It even has a good number of in-line citations. The intro needs some expansion though, I think. The unique identity of the SDF as a result of Article 9 needs to be touched on in the intro. It's a very important point to distinguish it from the military of any other country in the world. LordAmeth 09:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

The official change of the Defense Agency into the Defense Ministry has undoubtedly had a profound effect on Article 9, but the exact information is currently unspecificed outside of the Japanese media sources. Please make a note of this before commenting on the "unique identity" of the SDF in the article as things seem to be changing very quickly. In addition to this, will the entry for Japanese Defense Agency be retitled to Japanese Ministry of Defense? Choeki 15:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

'Uniforms, Ranks and Insignia' section

This section was a bit outdated as it described the appearance of the original uniforms which were phased out before 1970. There have been at least three revisions to the appearance of the dress as well as the field uniforms for all three branches. Actually, the information in detail about just the current uniforms alone probably ought to be made into a seperate entry. I will work on this later as I have a great deal of official publications as well as Japanese language references that would be excellent (if difficult to cite) in the production of such an entry. -Choeki 00:19, 02 November 2006 (UTC)

Japan goes nuclear

It's no secret to me that Japan has a lot invested in nuclear weapons but it seems that due to the American bias of English language articles, it has not been mentioned: "Despite the nation's status as a major world power, Japan eschewed responsibility for regional defense. Having renounced war, the possession of war potential, the right of belligerency, and the possession of nuclear weaponry,..." [4] They have renounced their nuclear weaponry. Other than speculation, we cannot prove it. -Unsigned

Nonsense. Any moves the Japanese had "so secretly" made towards developing nuclear weapons would be quickly discovered by both Western and Russian intelligence services. That said, they have NO desire to acquire such weapons, as anyone slightly familiar with Japanese society would know. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:46, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I think its important to remind everyone that Japan "now has 9 tons of plutonium stockpiled at several locations in Japan and another 35 tons stored in France and the U.K. The material is enough to create 5,000 nuclear bombs. The country also has 1.2 tons of enriched uranium."[5] according to a statement by a Japanese government official. Although these facts do not necessarily equate to a bomb, the fact they can develop such weapons in ~6 months surely testifies to the fact that do not "have NO desire to acquire such weapons" as you say..--Кирова (talk) 01:50, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Military secrets law

The article states that there is no military secrets law, but recent developments seem to point to an SDF Law that meets the the same or similar purposes according to this article: "Colonel targeted on suspicion of defense info leak" Should the article be changed to reflect this? There doesn't seem to be an entry in the (English) Wikipedia on whatever the SDF Law is regarding operational secrets. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Choeki (talkcontribs) 06:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

Japanese military rank chart

Here, from the the US Forces Japan website. 172.189.213.185 (talk) 18:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

JDS Hyūga

Does the launch of the helicopter-carrying JDS Hyūga (as described at Hyūga class helicopter destroyer) merit mention in this article, perhaps in the Japan_Self-Defense_Forces#Recent_reforms_and_developments section? The vessel is seen as controversial because it is so close to being a small aircraft carrier semi-explicitly prohibited by Article 9, and could in the minds of many be converted to support the launch and landing even of fixed-wing aircraft. As seen at the Hyūga class helicopter destroyer page (and its associated talk page) this issue is somewhat controversial.... (sdsds - talk) 21:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Fictional JSDF members?

I'm not sure how frequently this comes up in Japanese media, but I am wondering if there is an article or maybe a position for a brief mention on this one, to describe characters who are members of this force in manga, anime, or other fiction? What inspires me to ask about this is a favourite character of mine, Kusanagi Shiyu, who is an inspirational example of a strong Japanese militaryman. I am not sure but I think there are also some members in the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai anime, though I may be confusing it with special police forces there. Tyciol (talk) 06:31, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The last time a section on fictional portrayals of the JSDF was included, it began to rapidly accumulate nearly every mention of the JSDF or JSDF-like forces in popular culture, no matter how minor, leading to its eventual removal. The closest the current article comes to discussing the JSDF in popular culture is the section on "Role in national life". Sourced information on how pop culture portrayals of the JSDF would certainly fit in this section, though again, great care should be taken such that it doesn't turn into another trivia section. See Wikipedia:Handling trivia for more details. - Loren (talk) 21:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Assessment of Strength

I think it would be nice for this article to have an assessment of the strength of the JSDF. Although the military is downplayed in Japan, the defense budget is the 7th largest in the world, and the JSDF is one of the most technically advanced militaries in the world. The JSDF possesses leading-edge fighter planes of joint US-Japan design, advanced non-nuclear submarines, AEGIS warships, and a world-class main battle tank. The JSDF is purposely designed without the ability to project force (aircraft carriers, etc), but from a defensive perspective, it is a world-class military power. And converting it to force-projection might not be that difficult, should Japan decide to do so. --Westwind273 (talk) 22:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The Global Fire Power Index has Japan right behind Germany and South Korea at No.9 which honestly seems a tad suspicious, the fact that Russia is so close to the top is even more egregious not to mention India. I can believe South Korea considering her military is both large and extremely advanced though its designed more for regional power projection, but I will not believe Germany considering her military is so aged and weakened as of now. In the Asia-Pacific section Japan is listed as the fifth most power nation there, somehow Russia is No.1 there and India is ahead of Japan. Japan is usually said to be more powerful then either of those two by virtue of her advanced technology and training. This Wikipedia article here is likely a better indication of Japan's power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_Index_of_National_Capability — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.127.26 (talk) 15:37, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Term of Service

Is it that officers can resign their commissions, hence their term of service (beyond a certain minimum) is indefinite? Non-officers - enlisted - seem to have definite terms of service. The article states that

candidate enlist students in technical schools are enrolled for an indefinite period. The National Defense Academy and enlisted technical schools usually require an enrollment of four years, and the National Defense Medical College require six years.

This is kind of misty - indefinite - and awkward English, also. - 67.224.51.189 (talk) 17:08, 14 September 2010 (UTC) ,

In the recruitment section, it's clear that references to US ranks is over-used. For instance, according to Military ranks and insignia of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, the lower rank isn't referred to as "E-1"; probably "Self-defense official cadet" would be more accurate.
Kortoso (talk) 11:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Aerial Refueling

The article says that the JSDF has no aerial refueling capabilities (though it notes this is as of 2004), on April 20th, 2010 the first of four C-130H's modified for refueling was delivered to Japan http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1171 A quick search on the web shows several references that four in total have been delivered and that the Japanese Air SDF have been training with them. I'm not involved in creating/editing Wikipedia pages and I don't want to mess the article up, so I'm not going to make any changes, but I thought I'd bring this to everyone's attention on the talk page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.239.13 (talk) 02:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

National Defense Program Guideline

http://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/d_policy/national.html

This goes in this article? Hcobb (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is surprisingly and chronically lacking in citations. It is amazing that an article about the 7th most well funded military organization in the world, and a controversial one at that, is so poorly sourced and has been for such a long time. Yes, I carpet bombed individual uncited assertions with numerous {{Citation needed}} tags but the article's {{ref improve}} tag that has been in place for nearly two years has been ignored. Readers needed to reminded that much of this article may be original research. My next edit will downgrade the article to "start class" to reflect the poor sourcing over such a long period of time. Veriss (talk) 04:36, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Reassesed for WikiProject Japan per WP:Japan assessment guidelines

The edit to downgrade the JSDF article to "start class" under WikiProject Japan ignored the guidelines of that project which can be found at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Assessment. Note of the six criteria, "lacking citations" is only one, as noted above in "| b1 ". Other criteria include: coverage & accuracy, structure, grammar & style, supporting materials, and accessibility. Are there fundamental issues with the criteria other than B1? I noted the lack of supporting materials.

Note the WikiProject Japan assessment guidelines are similar to those of WPMILHIST, which shows this article as "C" class.
The "carpet bombing" of "Citation needed" tags could also have been more suitably achieved by placing "Refimprove" at the top of the article, rather than disrupting the flow of text with redundant "citation needed" tags.
Cheers, Prburley (talk) 13:04, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Budget chart

That chart is unsourced and unexplained. Is it the top ten spenders? Can't believe it is. As it is, it's worse than useless, because it's potentially misleading. --Dweller (talk) 22:31, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible Launch of an Aircraft Carrier

The section dealing with defense policy mentions that aircraft carriers are interpreted as offensive weapons. However, experts have assessed that the new 22DDH class Helicopter carriers would be capable of supporting fixed wing aircraft. This ship is larger still than the previously discussed Hyūga class. Analysis of the ship and the similarities with European aircraft carriers should merit consideration. Controversy regarding this addition to the JSDF should be included in the defense policy section as a possible breach. 64.134.189.105 (talk) 21:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Russia?

"New military guidelines, announced in December 2010, will direct the Jieitai away from its Cold War focus on the Soviet Union to a focus on China, especially regarding the dispute over the Senkaku Islands."

I'd just like to propose that "(and later Russia)" be added to this sentence after "the Soviet Union". Nuke (talk) 04:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

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Lack of operational military organisational structure diagram

Lack of operational military organisational structure (assuming that there's any point to such diagrams). Eg: UK's is at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_Army_2020.png) and Israel's is at (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Structure_idf.png). I reckon that this page should have one to summarise the information. I would be willing to 'computerise' an uploaded but drawn & photographed or scanned structure diagram (though it certainly wouldn't reach the quality of one produced by military personnel). ASavantDude (talk) 21:39, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

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Japan and Korea togheter? Please correct this information

In fact Korea is togheter with China in the Islands issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBr0s (talkcontribs) 23:15, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Source? Garuda28 (talk) 03:19, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Use of the word Armed Forces

The word "Armed Forces" for JSDF is incorrect as Constitution of Japan cannot allow it (Article 9). Difference between Japan's "Self-Defense Forces" and normal Armed Forces of other countries is: (1) Japan cannot attack first (or any offensive force) (2) Japan cannot have offensive weapons : bombers, aircraft carriers, and long-range ballistic missiles [6] (3) Japan cannot attack if no countries attack it or its allies first

I think technically it cannot be called "Japan armed forces". Foreign media sometimes call it as such - but not in Japan as it is controversial. My idea is to show that it is technically incorrect to call it as "armed forces", and the user can see the reason why in summary. XeloriaGrand (talk) 19:23, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

So this falls under a few different pieces of Wikipedia policy. With regard to the constitution, the interpretation of article 9 that there cannot be an armed force is based upon your interpretation of a primary source, which is not permitted under WP:ANALYSIS. Conversely there are numerous reliable English language secondary sources that directly refer to the JSDF as Japan's armed forces, and a number that refer to it as the Japanese Armed Forces. So we do not have sources that make it apparent that it is technically incorrect for it to be considered an armed force, as there are numerous sources that consider it to be one.
Summarized, we cannot interpret primary sources, and must leave that to reliable secondary sources - which consider the JSDF to be an armed forces (and the other service arms to be an army, navy, and air force). To do otherwise is WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH. Garuda28 (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

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"Manpower"

The JSDF is a purely professional organization. Persons cannot be drafted or conscripted into the JSDF under any circumstances, and for that reason, listing population statistics and a "military age" is clearly inappropriate and misleading. Therefore I propose having only the "active personnel" and "reserve personnel" in the infobox section in question. If disagreeing, explain yourself. 91.157.10.191 (talk) 09:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

While that is so, military age has zero relation to the draft. And the other statistics are still a useful form of information for being able to ascertain potential manpower. This is irrespective of if a draft if permitted or not. It is not misleading in the slightest. There is a separate section in the info box that deals with conscription. Furthermore, on the info box page there is no indication that these contested fields are used for conscription-militaries only.Garuda28 (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
With all due respect, this article is about the strictly all-volunteer organization JSDF, not Japan's "theoretical military potential" under a different kind of constitution and laws. Citizens are not "potential manpower" in Japan in the same way as in most other countries. It's true that many militaries' wikipedia pages include such information in the infobox, but there is a critical difference in that in most countries entire age groups are theoretically liable for wartime service through drafts and the like whereas that simply isn't the case in this country. "Military age" in most cases implies the age at which citizens are liable for such service.
I again propose removing the largely irrelevant population statistics from the infobox and leaving the actual numbers of active and reserve personnel serving in this strictly all-volunteer organization. 91.157.10.191 (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
The data has zero bearing and relation on just pure conscription, and it is for that reason that all military articles include them. Conscription is a totally seprate issue, and is a totally separate section of the infobox. Generally more information is better, not less. Garuda28 (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Japanese citizens are not by default "manpower" of the JSDF or "available for military service" in the same way as in most countries. The japanese language article infobox lists no population statistics. Why do you think the statistics should be in the infobox? 91.157.10.191 (talk) 23:06, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
It is a statistic that is commonly used with all militaries - conscription or not. It is also used by third party sources like GlobalFirepower. Simply put, there is no reason to remove a commonly used military statistic. Garuda28 (talk) 23:19, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
There are all kinds of problems with these statistics; for one, it's not even legally possible to be a formal member of the JSDF until 18 years of age, yet the infobox lists total population "age 16-49" as "available for military service" in a country where drafts and conscription don't exist even theoretically. I oppose including this kind of misleading "information", and will at least clarify that the numbers indicate those theoretically eligible to volunteer, not numbers available for drafting or conscription. "GlobalFirepower" is just a website. 91.157.10.191 (talk) 23:52, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
You want to make a change, include a source. We don’t make up numbers without providing sources. My understanding is that this data came from the Military Ballence citation. If you wish to update it, the provide a source to do so. Garuda28 (talk) 02:22, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

"Military strength index"

If this article really should include references to subjective evaluations like the "military strength index" of the Credit Suisse report, let's at least name the source to make clear that such a "ranking" is not to be taken as seriously as objective statistics like military spending. It should also be made clear that the "ranking" is based purely on conventional capabilities; nuclear weapons are part of countries' "military strength" too. If disagreeing, explain yourself. 91.157.10.191 (talk) 10:28, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I do not contest this addition. It actually makes quite a bit of sense. Garuda28 (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Unarmed combat system

I got my doubts about this

JSDF soldiers were trained in the military self-defense art of Toshu kakutō (徒手格闘), developed in 1952 by Major Chiba Sansu from a synthesis of jujutsu, karate, aiki-jujutsu, boxing and wrestling. The techniques of toshu kakutō are simplified and direct to allow for their application whilst in combat dress and carrying a field kit. The art has an emphasis on the rapid transmission of maximum force in strikes, eschewing the fully rotated punches and instep kicks of most karate forms in favour of vertical thrusts and straight heel kicks.

Cited work being Donn F. Draeger (1998). Bujutsu e budo moderno. Edizioni Mediterranee. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-88-272-1246-2. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016. Retrieved 18 October 2015.

However, JSDF wasn't even active during 1952. Legislation enabling the Japanese military was the 1954 Self-Defense Forces Act (Act No. 165 of 1954). Also lot of Japanese articles on the topic (that is the unarmed combatives) seem to point that the R&D on JSDF's melee system began in 1955 and was finalized in 1959. It was mostly Imperial Army's Bayonets and Knife fighting mixed with Nippon Kempo and Tomiki-Ryu Aikido. Also the system is reffered to as Jieitaikakutōjutsu, with Toshu kakuto being just the hand-to-hand curriculum, which as stated prior, was based off Nippon Kempo and Kenji Tomiki's Aikido. --TrickShotFinn (talk) 17:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It would seem that citation number 5, ""Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 August 2008. Retrieved 11 August 2008." links to a pdf on Israeli military manufacturing and procurement. Surely this should not be quoted as proof that Japan uses Swedish equipment, as in the article? (Summary section -> industry -> foreign suppliers -> Sweden) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.34.200.117 (talk) 14:02, 13 November 2020 (UTC)