Published on December 2, 2019.
This article draws from Kaji Nobuyuki’s “Morning Three, Evening Four,” serialized in the monthly magazine WiLL, and compares household defense against crows tearing open garbage bags with Japan’s doctrine of exclusive defense.
By likening crows probing defensive nets to Chinese vessels appearing around the Senkaku Islands, it argues that because the attacker has the advantage, a country committed to exclusive defense must spend far more on defense and preparation.
It criticizes the lack of realistic debate in Japan over the budget and capabilities required to make exclusive defense viable under a constitution that prevents attacks on an aggressor’s homeland.

December 2, 2019
Japan calls it exclusive defense.
The Constitution makes it do so.
There is no story more bizarre than this.
As I have already written, a friend of mine, one of the foremost readers I know, who subscribes regularly to the same four monthly magazines as I do, said that Senior Kaji Nobuyuki and I are responding to each other.
The following is from an essay by Kaji Nobuyuki, serialized at the beginning of the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “Morning Three, Evening Four.”
This old man is a masterless ronin.
Naturally, I have no business cards.
Even so, since I sometimes meet new people, there are times when I think it would be convenient to have one.
In that respect, at home I am at ease.
Of course, I am a soldier under the command of my household commander.
But a soldier is at ease, at ease.
As long as he carries out the orders of the household commander, that is enough.
After that, he watches television in leisure.
Now, one day, a special order came down from the commander, my household commander.
“Resolve the crow problem.”
The crow problem is as follows.
Twice a week, household garbage is collected.
Of course, this is the work of Osaka City.
In practice, contractors collect it.
On the collection day, each household puts its household garbage out on the road in front of the house.
Ordinarily, that would be the end of it.
However, there are fellows who aim at the leftovers inside household garbage.
The first are stray cats, though nowadays they apparently call them community cats, and the second are crows.
These fellows are brazen, tearing open vinyl bags and rummaging for leftovers.
Of course, they scatter everything everywhere, making a mountain of garbage.
The Osaka City collection trucks do not gather up scattered leftovers and the like.
Therefore, the wrapped garbage bags are further wrapped in a large net.
The opening of that wrapping is tucked under the garbage bag, so it is basically safe.
The stray cats passed over it easily.
But crows are different.
They are persistent.
First they pull and pull at the outer covering net, working until their beaks can reach the wrapped garbage bag inside.
After that comes all manner of violence and outrage.
I had been ordered to defend against this crow army.
By the household commander.
As a soldier, I must receive the imperial command with reverence.
So I thought and thought.
I observed the various countermeasures of the neighbors.
I was also taught by them.
As a result, I bought at a 100-yen shop an iron net whose mesh was about three centimeters square, assembled it, tied it tightly, and completed a garbage case.
Of course, the top was a lid for taking garbage in and out, and there was no bottom.
The crows could not enter from anywhere.
The collection worker would open the lid and take out the garbage bag.
How about that, you crows.
“Crow, why do you cry?
The crows have lost…” I was triumphant.
However, several weeks later, part of the leftovers had been scattered.
The clear-headed crows had thrust their long beaks through the three-centimeter-square spaces, pecked repeatedly at the vinyl bag, and torn it open.
Then what should be done?
At present, this old man is thinking and thinking carefully about countermeasures against crows.
In other words, the question is how to defend.
Here it is: attack and defense.
The greatest enlarged version of this is that of the state.
And of Japan, in particular.
Japan calls it exclusive defense.
The Constitution makes it do so.
There is no story more bizarre than this.
Against crows rummaging for leftovers, this old man can only practice exclusive defense, so when I appear, the crows lightly hop to the other side of the road and walk about leisurely.
They strut about with that jet-black appearance.
Is this not exactly the situation of Japan, this old man, practicing exclusive defense, various forms of defense, against Chinese fleets, the crows, appearing around the Senkaku Islands, the food?
The problem is that the attacking side has the advantage.
If that is so, there is no choice but to further deepen the method of thoroughly carrying out “exclusive defense.”
That means that because defense costs more than attack, a budget far greater than the current defense budget is necessary.
Since Japan is committed to exclusive defense and is at a disadvantage because it cannot attack the homeland of an invading country, there is no path other than to prepare defenses capable of fully defending against the enemy’s attack.
For that purpose, expanding the budget is indispensable.
However, the budget of the Self-Defense Forces, which are the national military, is extremely small when viewed in light of Japan’s national strength.
It cannot possibly achieve the purpose called exclusive defense.
In Japan, since compulsory education, people have merely spoken ideologically of exclusive defense, but the budgetary appropriations that would make that exclusive defense possible have not been discussed.
If Japan is to be thoroughly committed to exclusive defense, then it should prepare a massive budget to make it possible, that is, to prepare to counter the enemy’s attack.
Have the left-wing people of the world thought that far?
The question is what should be done now.
The ancients said: vulgar Confucians do not understand what is appropriate to the times.
They like to regard the old, exclusive defense, as right and the present as wrong… yet they do not know what must be defended.
How can such people be worthy of being entrusted with responsibility?