The JMSDF Refueling Mission Debate

I am not going to claim to understand the politics surrounding the refueling mission to Japan. Needless to say, some there think it is important, and there seems to be a number of politicians in Japan that have decided fighting terrorism is a bad idea. There has been a fact finding mission the last few days regarding some of the details of the refueling mission. At question is the purpose of the refueling mission, the cost of the refueling mission, and if it violated the pacifist constitution.

Via the AP: U.S. vessels get 80% of fuel from Japan ships in Indian Ocean

The United States has been by far the largest beneficiary of Japan's contentious refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, receiving nearly 80 percent of the fuel supplied between December 2001 and August this year, a Japanese government document showed Thursday.

The document was submitted to a meeting of executive members of the House of Representatives Budget Committee at the request of the opposition camp. Whether to continue the mission after the current law authorizing it expires on Nov. 1 has become a major focus of debate in parliament.

According to the document's breakdown of fuel and water supplied during the period by country and year and the cost, 385,000 kiloliters of the 484,000 kl fuel provided to 11 countries was for U.S. vessels.

France was the second biggest recipient, receiving 26,000 kl, or about 5 percent of the total, and Pakistan the third, getting 19,000 kl, or some 4 percent.

The United States was given about 74 percent of all the fuel during the two years to March 2003.

In terms of cost, about 16.2 billion yen, or 74 percent of the overall cost of 22 billion yen, was for the supply to the United States.

As for the supply of water, which began in November 2004, all the roughly 6,530 tons were provided to Pakistan at a cost of 6.96 million yen, according to the document.

This article is a gem. There are only two ways to find something wrong with what we learn from this article. First, someone would have to consider providing any logistics mission to fight terrorism bad in any form, or second, someone would have to be extraordinarily ignorant. For amusements sake, you can visit here to read the story and see the extraordinary ignorance I refer to.

Lets examine the numbers

According to the article the mission to date has cost 22 billion yen between December 2001 and August 2007. The total fuel distributed is 484,000 kl fuel, 80% of it to the US. Sounds like a lot huh. Breaking out my calculator, 22 billion yen converts into roughly $188.3 million US, while 484,000 kls of fuel converts to roughly 3.044 million barrels of oil (US). I understand there is a difference between the fuel being distributed to Navy ships and oil delivered to refineries via tankers in Japan, but barrels of oil is my chosen measurement of volume for this example.

That breaks down to around 2.7 million dollars a month, and roughly 44 thousand barrels a month, or an average of roughly 1,467 barrels a day.

According to the Energy Information Administration, August 2007 International Petroleum Monthly report of September 2007, in May 2007 Japan imported a total 3.587 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf, the least amount on average of any month of the previous year (or 4.584 million total barrels worldwide).

In other words, Japan has contributed an average of less than 1,500 barrels of fuel total a day since December 2001, which at 80% is 1,200 barrels of fuel a day to the US Navy. At the same time, Japan has imported at the very minimum an average of 4,584,000 barrels of oil a day from June 06 to May 07.

The US Navy is deployed from the Persian Gulf to the shores of Japan. The US Navy is engaged in protection of the critical energy resources of Japans maritime trade, which includes around 85% of their total oil supply on that route alone, virtually the entire way from Persian Gulf terminal to Japanese port.

In this effort, in protection and in support of preventing a terrorist attack, the left in Japan is up in arms because the JMSDF is contributing what averages to be around $2.7 million a month to the US to this effort. Does anyone else on the entire planet believe this is a bad deal for Japan? Japan has the worlds third largest economy. If the US Navy didn't perform this role, does anyone honestly believe Japan wouldn't be spending substantially more money per month performing that role themselves?

The man on the street in Japan doesn't care though, all that gets attention is whether or not the constitution was violated. To support this claim, those who want to stop fighting terrorism in Japan are looking for any ammo it can find. Today's attempt:

There are no instructions forbidding U.S. warships from taking part in Iraq missions after taking on fuel from Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels supporting antiterrorism campaigns in and around Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Asked in a news briefing about the existence of such instructions, Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes, the U.S. Central Command's deputy director for operations, said: "None that I am aware of. . . . Clearly I am not aware of those instructions."

...

A Japanese peace group said last month that the logbook of the U.S. oiler Pecos and other materials suggested the MSDF ship Tokiwa illegally provided logistic support for the war in Iraq by indirectly supplying oil to the carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which took part in the war.

Under the war-renouncing Constitution, Japan's special law only allows the MSDF to provide fuel for foreign vessels taking part in the antiterrorism operations.

The refueling mission in question involved the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) taking 18,704 barrels (2,986,800 liters) of fuel from the MSDF fuel-supply vessel JDS Tokiwa (AOE 423) on the morning of Feb. 25, 2003, in the Gulf of Oman off Iran. After completing the fuel transfer that morning, the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) refueled the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) strike group, which took the fuel and moved into the Persian Gulf the very next day. In February of 2003, the Kitty Hawk strike group consisted of USS Chancellorsville (CG 62), USS Cowpens (CG 63), USS John S. McCain (DDG 56), USS Cushing (DD 985), USS O'Brien (DD-975), USS Vandegrift (FFG 48), and USS Gary (FFG 51).

The claim is the fuel transfered on Feb. 25th, 2003 was in violation of the constitution because it was used to support war. My response would be, huh? The problem with that theory is the war started on March 20th, 2003, and uhm, that isn't enough fuel to last more than a week for the Kitty Hawk alone, much less the whole group, and even more unlikely considering the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) was directly supporting that many ships in a single strike group. In order for the US to have used the Japanese fuel for the Iraq war, the USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) would have had to not performed a single refueling again to the entire group until after March 20th, 2003.

Based on the evidence, it is virtually impossible that Japan is spending too much money, unless $2.7 million US is too much to safeguard 85% of the total energy imports to the worlds 3rd largest economy. It is also difficult to say Japan is somehow contributing too much fuel, because 484,000 kl fuel over a 69 month period is not very much at all for warships. The 80% number is easily explained, the US is the primary presence in the region, with most other countries operating closer to the coast of Africa. The French figure also makes sense, because France has operated the second most number of warships in Operation Enduring Freedom since it began, an average of roughly 1 to every 20 US Navy ships in the region over that time, about the same ratio of the fuel transfer.

The only specific accusation of constitutional violation involves the USS Kitty Hawk strike group, which at the time the supposed violation occurred was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Southern Watch, as it was a full 3 weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom started. It should be a simple bit of math to determine how long the fuel would last on the Kitty Hawk alone, the JMSDF has undoubtedly refueled the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) many times since she is based out of Japan, and the JMSDF probably knows to the kl the fuel consumption of the CV.

This debate is clearly only political and only based on the ideology that Japan should not support any efforts to anyone fighting terrorism. When you look at how relatively small the JMSDF contribution is in relation to the daily support of security by the US Navy to the nation of Japan, the Japanese people deserve all consequence that may ever occur to Japan in the future if the decision is to support the opposition party on this subject, good or bad. While there is no stated direct relationship, it seems to me that the investment of only $2.7 million US dollars a month in support of the same US Navy ships protecting 85% of all Persian Gulf oil imports to Japan might be the smartest government investment in planet Earth history.

Allow me to be blunt a second: If China was exposed to the same opportunity, full guarantees of protection by the US Navy of energy resources from the Persian Gulf to China for the price of $2.7 million US per month, how many seconds do you think it would take them to agree to that arrangement?

I think any number greater than 5 is the wrong answer.

Note: I understand USNS Pecos (T-AO 197) was USS Pecos at the time.