hankyoreh

The US Navy cruiser Cape St. George launches a Tomahawk cruise missile during the invasion of Iraq on March 23, 2003. (AP/Yonhap)

The tomahawk is the original all-purpose weapon. The indigenous peoples of the Americas originally used tomahawks as hatchets and hammers. They also served as slashing blades and were excellent at felling distant prey.

When the Europeans arrived in the New World, tomahawks were used as weapons to fight them, but they also functioned as peace pipes that could be filled with tobacco to be smoked as part of peaceful interactions. These multifunctional tools more than proved their worth long before the Swiss came up with their MacGyver knives.

When the US arms company General Dynamics developed a new missile in the 1970s, they named it the “Tomahawk” — perhaps because of its associations with a flung tomahawk spinning through the sky before accurately striking its target. The new missile was designed to fly low to the ground and strike its target with precision.

While the Tomahawk cruises like an aircraft, it has no need for a pilot. Instead, it adjusts its own course, comparing pre-programmed data about the Earth’s surface with what it actually sees as it flies overhead.

Once it reaches its final stage, it photographs its target for comparison and uses radar to precisely adjust its strike. To quote Muhammad Ali, it’s the missile that “floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee.”

Produced today by Raytheon, the Tomahawk cruise missile began proving its worth in the 1990s. It was first used in combat during the Gulf War in 1991. On Jan. 17 of that year, the first strike against Iraq was with a Tomahawk.

Early in the conflict, the Iraqi forces’ defensive capabilities were paralyzed by the destruction of their command and key facilities. As fighter aircraft were sent in and Army units followed, the Iraqi side quickly crumbled.

The 288 Tomahawk missiles used in the Gulf War were the spearhead of the US military’s preemptive strike and the biggest contributors to its victory.

In 1988, the Tomahawk was used in strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan. The US launched Tomahawks in an effort to take out Osama bin Laden after receiving intelligence that he was at an al-Qaida training base.

A pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was suspected of producing chemical weapons in cooperation with al-Qaida. The Bill Clinton administration at the time claimed that this was a preemptive strike to eliminate the threat of a terrorist attack on the US — but in reality, it was a preemptive attack.

Here as well, the Tomahawk missile proved itself with flying colors. While it would be used later on for strikes in the former Yugoslavia, Syria, and Libya, the all-time record for the use of Tomahawk missiles was set with the Iraq invasion in 2003 — where 802 of them were launched.

Once again, the Tomahawk was the spearhead for the attack. Early in the morning on March 19 of that year, 40 Tomahawks were fired to coincide with the dropping of “bunker buster” bombs by F-117 stealth fighters. The objective was to take out the Iraqi leadership with a surprise attack on a palace where then-leader Saddam Hussein was supposed to be hiding.

The bunker busters didn’t find their targets, but the Tomahawks were on the mark. Afterward, masses of US troops were sent in. In 2003, the Tomahawk proved itself all over again as a spearhead and contributor to victory.

The administration of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida now wants to buy as many as 500 Tomahawk missiles. Its aim is to acquire “counterstrike capabilities,” according to a recently published national security policy document.

Japan plans to spend 5 trillion yen over a five-year period from 2023 to 2027 to acquire “standoff defense capabilities” that would allow it to neutralize an enemy’s ability to strike against Japanese territory with missiles. This includes purchasing Tomahawks from the US to immediately place in combat position, with “counterstrike capabilities” to be introduced through 2026 with improvements to the range and performance of Japan’s self-produced Type 12 Surface-to-Ship Missile (SSM).

The administration of Kishida’s predecessor, the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, sought enemy base strike capabilities from the outset. The Kishida administration ended up tweaking the name after critics contended that it was really after “preemptive attack capabilities.”

At the same time, it has not stated clearly when or how it might carry out “counterstrikes.” According to an agreement with the Komeito coalition party, it would be launching strikes during the enemy attack initiation stage — but that only raises the question of how “initiation stage” would be defined.

Kishida has sidestepped the question, referring to it as one of the “subtleties of security guarantees.” But the Asahi Shimbun newspaper used the term “enemy base attack capabilities (counterstrike capabilities).” In content, at least, nothing was any different.

While the name might politely suggest that Japan would be striking back if attacked by an enemy, the real attitude is a more aggressive one that signals Tokyo’s willingness to carry out a preemptive attack. The fact that the first of the “counterstrike capabilities” Japan wants to introduce is the Tomahawk gives the game way in terms of the Japanese government’s intentions. It’s a case where actions must be considered ahead of words.

The US’ record with the Tomahawk offers incontrovertible evidence. In Iraq — both 1991 and 2003 — Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and more, Tomahawks have unfailingly been the spearhead for an invasion.

Obviously, the US government has claimed all these operations to be lawful “preemptive strikes.” Within the Japanese government, the “counterstrike capabilities” are being rationalized as defensive means of confounding an enemy’s invasion plans, rather than as means for carrying out a preemptive attack.

But the nature of the Tomahawk missile is that it has just one purpose: to be used in preemptive attacks. It’s the most discreet and accurate missile in history, but also the slowest — requiring almost a full hour to travel 1,000 kilometers. By way of comparison, a ballistic missile might take under 10 minutes.

For the weapons to prove effective, they have to be launched well before the enemy starts to move. If a Tomahawk is fired toward an enemy base at the stage of an imminent ballistic missile launch, the enemy might have already finished cleaning up by the time it reaches its target.

In this scenario, an enemy missile might have already exploded in Japan about 50 minutes earlier. For a Tomahawk to destroy enemy attack capabilities the way the Kishida administration intends, there is an earlier technical stage when the missile would have to be fired.

In the case of the improved Type 12 SSM that Japan intends to add to its arsenal after introducing the Tomahawk, both the performance and the drawbacks are about the same. If Japan were to launch a Tomahawk as part of a “counterstrike” long before China or North Korea began an attack, those countries would obviously determine that a preemptive attack had started — and rush to carry out their own counterattack.

A unilateral invasion like the one in the Iraq War would be impossible in Northeast Asia. The only possible outcome would be escalation.

In altering Japan’s security legislation, the Abe administration opened the door wide for it to become a country capable of waging war. Now the Kishida administration is dashing through that door to acquire preemptive attack capabilities.

This is the Japan that the Yoon Suk-yeol administration is champing at the bit to cooperate more with militarily. I hope for the readers’ sake that this is a peaceful 2023.

By Suh Jae-jung, professor of political science and international relations at the International Christian University in Tokyo

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]