Possibly to the devastating dismay of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his rabble-rousing supporters, Japan has announced in no uncertain terms its support for the Australian stand of resorting, if there is no more other practicable options, to 'pre-emptive strike' against terrorist threats, in self-defence, emanating from Southeast Asia.

In a Dec 10 interview with The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Japan's counter-terrorism ambassador Hiroshi Shigeta said he was "comfortable" with the position publicly expressed by Australian Prime Minister, John Howard last week.

Shigeta was quoted as saying that after understanding "what Prime Minister Howard said and what has been explained in order to assure the Southeast Asian countries taken together, I consider Australia is in favour of respecting international law".

Shigeta was also quoted as saying that "some commotion on the side of the Southeast Asian countries" was caused by journalists who "quoted his (Howard's) statement out of context".

As matters of facts, Japan is geographically, historically, culturally and linguistically an Asian nation-state with Shinto-Buddhism, not Western Christianity, as the predominant religion. It is also an object of admiration and emulation of Mahathir who has been fond of visiting and delivering 'keynote' speeches since he came into power in July 1981.

Failed schemes

One of the cornerstones of Mahathir's foreign policy is the so-called 'Look East Policy' in which Japan features prominently as a recommended role model for Malaysians to acquire scientific knowledge, technological skills, industrial organisation and work ethics. Japan is also in the centre of his failed schemes of the exclusive East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG) and Asean+3 which were to explicitly counterbalance the more inclusive Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum initiated by Australia and backed by the United States.

To those who understand the contemporary dynamics of international relations, Japan's support for Australia is hardly surprising. As a highly industrialised nation-state in Asia, Japan shares the geopolitical interests and geo-strategic perception of threats of the United States, Australia and other Western countries in maintaining the security and safety of navigation in the sea lines of communication (SLOC) and "choke-points" in maritime Southeast Asia, against any hostile powers and/or disruptive forces, and/or anti-state elements.

These sea lines of communication include particularly the Straits of Malacca, South China Sea, Sunda Straits, Lombok Strait and Makassar Strait. It is often estimated that about 80% of Japan's oil import from the Middle East have to physically pass through the Straits of Malacca and its surrounding waters. These shared security concerns and commitments also guarantee a peaceful and secure environment for economic growth and the development of democracy and human rights within the framework of nation-states in the region.

Like Australia whose defence has been explicitly tied to the United States in the 1951 ANZUS security alliance treaty, post-war Japan is also always an essentially close and staunch US ally as defined bilaterally by, among others, the 1951 Japan-US Security Treaty and 1997 Review of the Guidelines for US-Japan Defence Cooperation.

Collectively, the US-Australia and US-Japan security alliances, together with the US-South Korea defence pact, form the major operational centers of the US-led Western system of alliances in the Asia-Pacific region anchored on the US Pacific Command, ever since the end of World War II in 1945.

Not new or original

In the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom last year in Afghanistan, Japan contributed logistical support in the Indian Ocean to the Allied Forces. Specifically, Japan (a) provided fleet refueling capacity, placing two refueling/replenishment ships and three support/protection destroyers in the area of responsibility, to the Allied forces , and (b) provided 6 C-130 aircraft to conduct sorties, and transport cargo and personnel in support of the US Pacific Command (PACOM). Australia participated more directly by sending, among others, the Australian Special Operation Forces (SOF) and Royal Australian Force (RAAF) into the battle grounds in Afghanistan

Besides the politico-military weights united behind the Howard's claim for the right of 'pre-emptive strike' as the last resort, there may also ethical, as well as functional, technical or operational reasons for the rethinking of the conducts of war in the fight against modern-day warlike terrorism.

Like it or not, Howard's claim for the right to 'pre-emptive' self-defence of last resort is not new or original. It had, for example, been officially claimed by the United States in the The National Security Strategy of the United States of America released in September this year. In fact, the doctrine of 'pre-emptive strike' as a form of national self-defence in extreme cases or situations can be traced back to ancient articulation of the moral philosophy as well as techniques of warfare, such as the concept of qi (unconventional) operations in Sun Tzu's Art of War .

Futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler , for example, had also argued in 1993 that in 'third-wave war-form', many conventional inter-state conducts of war have become obsolete. (see Alvin & Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War - Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century, New York, Little Brown, 1993)

Conducts of war

It may not be strictly compatible with the letters of the Charter of the United Nations but then, its proponents are not devoid of reasons when they argue that the war against modern groups of well-armed, well-financed and well-planned organised terrorists is qualitatively different from the conventional inter-state warfare. In the former cases, belligerent states, however hostile to each others, at least honour certain minimum conducts of war or jus in bello , such as the avoidance of children, elderly human beings and unarmed women as intentional and conscious targets of lethal forces, and the moral need to designate armed forces with uniforms and insignia to conduct wars. .

Although modern and organised terrorists could be used as deniable 'surrogate soldiers' by weak states against stronger states and their people in 'asymmetrical warfare', the intentional and conscious targeting of lethal forces against unarmed and innocent people by terrorists dishonourably defy the minimum conduct of war.

If terrorists, whatever the causes they claim as justification for the use of force, do not honour the minimum conduct of war, then the minimum conduct of war simply does not apply to them, their organisation or state-backers.

Moreover, given the borderless and amorphous nature of contemporary and warlike terrorism, techniques and ethics of conventional warfare simply cannot be applied to the defence against it because, unlike the movements of uniformed armed forces and their weaponry which can technically be reconnoitered and detected well in advance in battles, combats or attacks, warlike terrorists move and operate in normal crowds without uniforms or insignia, and without the decency to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.

Seen in these contexts, the meaning of the word 'strike' could mean not war of massive invasion or occupation conducted by armed forces in the conventional or inter-state sense. It could simply mean normal cross-border police actions, or special military operations using precision (or 'smart'), lethal or non-lethal, weapons.

No legitimate mandate

Of course, in cases where a state or its armed forces actually support and harbour terrorists like the Talibans did in Afghanistan, massive invasion and occupation using lethal weapons is the only option.

There is also another critical dimension where conventional inter-state warfare and warlike terrorist operations differ qualitatively, and which call for a technical rethinking of the 'war-form'.

In conventional inter-state warfare, the national processes of mobilizing armed forces and weaponry take weeks, months or years, and there is therefore time for diplomacy, arbitration and multilateral intervention. However, warlike terrorist operations is not only highly mobile and amorphous, the attackers themselves have no intention for any peaceful settlements. Terrorists also have no legitimate or moral mandate, or legal locus standi like belligerent states.

With these realities in mind, it is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that security operations to fight warlike terrorists have to be speedier and more unconventional, and not bogged down by letters of conventional law of wars written for, and governing, inter-state hostilities.

Of course, cross-border police actions or military special operations against terrorism can still be conducted through the framework of nation-states, and with the strict respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity, though voluntary bilateral or multilateral security cooperation at the functional, technical and operational levels, based on mutual trust and respect among neighbours, friends and allies.

Ultimately, the arguments are not about racial, religious, cultural, linguistic or regional identities and affiliations, but a balance between political values like human rights, democracy, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence on one hand, and the functional, technical and operational necessities involved in a new form of warfare on the other.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.