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Pop group tries to fill Japan's barracks

"We think it is more representative of regular people."

Takuichiro Tada, recruitment official

"Go! Go! Peace!" is the new call to arms in Japan, where a hot candy-coated pop group is trying to win recruits for a beleaguered military straining under expanded overseas missions and a severe manpower shortage.

Japan's tumbling birth rate and budget cuts have long undercut recruitment. But the pinch is especially painful now as Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF) are at their most active since World War II, with stepped up peacekeeping commitments in Afghanistan and plans to send troops to Iraq.

Past recruitment drives haven't managed to fill Japan's barracks, despite a decreasing overall number of troops.

Now the Defense Agency is banking on the new campaign poster -- 130,000 of which were rolled out last week -- to help reverse the trend.

Featuring a midriff-baring 15-member line up of the all-girl pop group Morning Musume, it beseeches Japan's best and brightest with the slogan, "Go! Go! Peace!" written in English.

Previous campaigns also used pop stars, but this time the smiling teenage and 20-something idols are wearing pastel-colored polka-dotted sun dresses, not olive-drab military fatigues.

This is meant to make the military less off-putting and more hip, said Takuichiro Tada, a recruitment official with the Defense Agency.

Also signaling a turnaround in recruitment strategy, the poster also does not directly call for recruits. Its message is more subtle: "Doing your best feels good."

"We think it is more representative of regular people," Tada said.

Winning increased interest and respect from Japan's younger generation is crucial for its military. Last year, the Self-Defense Forces budgeted for 258,000 uniformed troops, but were only able to enlist 240,000. The land forces fared the worst, with only 89 percent of their boots filled, according to the military's figures.

In the long run, Tada said, Japan's plummeting birth rate is expected to shrink the pool of eligible recruits even further.

In June, Japan announced that its already dwindling birth rate fell to 1.32 children per woman last year, the lowest since the end of World War II.

The problem is a growing concern for Japan, which has pledged in recent years to take a higher profile in international peacekeeping missions.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has sent troops, ships and planes to aid the US-led war in Afghanistan -- a mission that has tied up thousands of Japanese soldiers since.

How to juggle the increased missions with the military's tighter personnel constraints was cited in last week's annual Defense Agency policy paper as one of its biggest challenges.

"On the one hand, the areas of activity for Self-Defense Forces are increasing. But on the other, the set number of troops is decreasing," the paper said, adding it was crucial to re-evaluate how the military can "smoothly manage" the influx of duties.

Tada said budget cuts as part of a post-Cold War reshuffle would trim the size of military making it a "more compact and efficient force." But he conceded that the long-term reality meant even those spaces would be hard to fill.

Defense analysts say recruitment could be undercut even further by the recent trend of active overseas peacekeeping missions in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Moreover, young Japanese tend to join the military for experience in technical fields -- not grunt work in war-ravaged countries.

"Most SDF members are not the best types for peacekeeping work," a former defense agency analyst said. "Many may resign."
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