The GSDF and Disaster Relief Dispatches

The damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, was the greatest Japan has seen since World War II. To respond to this unprecedented disaster, the Japan Self-Defense Force (SDF, or Jieitai) devoted 100,000 troops to participate in disaster relief operations. The Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF; or Rikujō Jieitai) was the lead service in these relief operations and contributed 70 % of the mobilized troops. Foreign media, heavily involved in the coverage and being given unprecedented access to SDF and bilateral operations,1 reported that “it was the first time Japanese citizens acknowledged the importance of the SDF as part of the democratic nation of postwar Japan.”2

Democracy · Emergency management · Political science · Politics · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Public Administration