It is a great honor for me to speak to everyone as the keynote speaker at this symposium today. Let me begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to those who have come from overseas, for the outpouring of support that Japan received from countries across the world in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake. The theme of this symposium is “the military’s role in disaster relief operations.” I would like to speak about the role that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) played as responders to the Great East Japan Earthquake, based on my perspective as the Chief of Joint Staff of the SDF which took part in the operations.
<p>Yuki Tatsumi addresses several important aspects of the JSDF's role in organizing relief efforts one week after 3/11. First, the level of mobilization of Japanese forces was the largest since World War II: 100,000 JSDF personnel were immediately mobilized, including 10,000 reserves. Secondly, the response operation was considered to be the most complex undertaken by the JSDF at the time, involving peer assets mobilized by U.S. forces, including the USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Battle Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, and air assets. Also, the JSDF was planning to take a lead role dealing with the crippling of the reactors in Fukushima by helping with cooling treatments, radiation detection and decontamination efforts among the residents in the surrounding area. Finally, the Tatsumi notes that the role playing by the JSDF was demonstrating a degree of legitimacy and support of the JSDF among the Japanese public which was in stark contrast to the anti-military sentiment experienced during the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995.</p>