By The Diplomat | Created at 2025-03-12 15:44:41 | Updated at 2025-03-12 20:06:57
5 hours ago
As the world faces the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II, Japan now has a new joint operations commander who has the authority to unify the three branches of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) from peacetime to times of emergency – especially with a Taiwan contingency in mind.
At a Cabinet meeting on March 11, the Japanese government appointed Lieutenant General Nagumo Kenichiro, vice chief of staff at the Joint Staff of the JSDF, as the first head of the Joint Operations Command.
This new joint operations command is set to be launched on March 24 at the Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Tokyo with a staff of about 240 personnel, a spokesperson at Japan’s Joint Staff told The Diplomat on March 12.
The appointment came after the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program, both approved by the National Security Council and the Cabinet in December 2022, called for reinforcing effectiveness of the joint operational posture of the three JSDF services.
“A Permanent Joint Headquarters will be established in order to build a system capable of seamlessly conducting cross-domain operations at all stages from peacetime to contingency, with the aim of strengthening the effectiveness of joint operations among each SDF service,” the Defense Buildup Program stated.
“In this regard, in light of the rapidly increasing severity of the security environment surrounding Japan, MOD/SDF will make every effort to pursue the establishment of a Permanent Joint Headquarters as soon as possible,” it added.
Nagumo, 59, is from Yonezawa City of Yamagata Prefecture in northern Japan’s Tohoku region. He graduated from the National Defense Academy and joined the Air Self-Defense Force in 1989.
He has served as director general of the Defense Planning and Policy Department at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force’s Air Staff Office and commander of the Western Air Defense Force, among other positions.
Most recently, he has served as vice chief of the Joint Staff Office since March 2023. The post is Japan’s No. 2 uniformed officer, second only to the JSDF’s chief of staff – currently Yoshida Yoshihide, 62.
During the roughly one-month period when Yoshida was hospitalized from late February 2024, due to fatigue from responding to the Noto Peninsula earthquake and other events, Nagumo acted in Yoshida’s place.
Nagumo had been widely seen as a leading candidate for the new Joint Operations commander.
According to major Japanese newspapers columns that track the prime minister’s activities, Nagumo, as vice chief of staff of the Joint Staff, has frequently visited the Prime Minister’s Office and delivered reports directly to both previous Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and current Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru. For this reason, Nagumo is considered highly trusted by Ishiba and other senior members of the administration.
The government also decided to appoint Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) Vice Admiral Tawara Tateki, JMSDF Sasebo District commandant, 58, as deputy commander of the new Joint Operations Command, the spokesperson said.
As The Diplomat previously reported, there is a bitter lesson behind this reorganization of the command structures of the JSDF. In the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan triple disaster (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident), it became evident that General Oriki Ryoichi, then the JSDF chief of staff of the Joint Staff, was overloaded with an enormous amount of work. He was forced to command the entire JSDF in the disaster relief mission, in addition to being responsible for providing explanations to the prime minister and the defense minister, and for coordinating with the U.S. military.
Since then, there have been strong opinions among national lawmakers and defense officials that the head of the Joint Staff should distribute some of those roles to others.
The new headquarters will also play a coordinating role in close cooperation with the U.S. military. Japan’s existing system lacked the ability to coordinate with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). This is because the counterpart of Japan’s chief of the Joint Staff is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. military, meaning Japan lacks a natural point person for engaging with INDOPACOM.
Meanwhile, in July 2024, the U.S. government announced that it would reconstitute U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ) as a Joint Force Headquarters, reporting to the commander of INDOPACOM in Hawai‘i, in order to parallel Tokyo’s new force structure.
The current USFJ commander, a three-star general based in Yokota in western Tokyo, has no commanding authority and has to take orders from INDOPACOM, which is about 6,500 km away.
Japan has requested that the four-star rank, not a three-star general, head the Joint Force Headquarters of the U.S., just as it is in South Korea.
Asked whether the U.S. military had ruled out that possibility at a press conference held in July 2024, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, “No, we haven’t ruled that out.”
Regarding command and control coordination between Japan and the United States, the U.S. military has far more information and equipment than the JSDF, so the biggest issue of concern in Tokyo is ensuring the independence of Japan’s operational command. The Japanese government has emphasized that the JSDF will not come under the command of USFJ.
