I continue to watch the news coming out of Japan, especially that about the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi neuclear plant.

I’m astounded at the lack of assistance the nuclear plant authorities are getting. They have now been struggling with (and losing) the battle to stabilise their reactors after the tsunami took out their backup cooling system on Friday.

I have to wonder (a) why they didn’t shout for outside back-up much earlier on Friday, (b) where the Japanese military are and (c) what priority is being given to getting grid power restored to the Fukushima plant. Why have the Japanese government not flooded the power plant with regiments of Engineers and Logistics experts. And why haven’t they deployed every available military pumping unit and bowser to the site, to help shift water (if only seawater).

Before anyone says it, I know they’ll need bowsers to deliver water to refugees, but I would have thought the nuclear plant needs to take priority, and their water companies should have bowsers too. Moreover the military will have bowsers which may be usable (for seawater) but not for drinking water. And pumping units are, I would have thought, not going to achieve a lot at present in the disaster area (there’s much else to do without worrying about pumping water away) and in any event, again, I would think the nuclear plant should take priority. Clearly too they would need a secure supply of fuel and other supplies – but that’s what logistics is all about.

Yes, I know the military won’t be skilled at managing and operating a nuclear plant. No-one would expect them to be. But their equipment, logistics skills and manpower should be invaluable. We proved in this country how valuable military logistics skills are during the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001, where the military were eventually called in and sorted out the problem very quickly. Good senior officers cut through obstructions and get things done quickly and efficiently; they’re trained to do just this; trained in logistics; and trained to deal with horrors like this in warfare.

Should we be exposing soldiers to such an undoubtedly dangerous environment? It’s a tricky ethical problem. But at times of national emergency such as this I would tend to the view that this is part of the military’s role; and indeed the military would expect such a role. After all we expect soldiers to go into battle, kill people, possibly get killed themselves and be exposed to depleted Uranium shells and worse. And they will have NBC suits; although they are by no means a comfortable environment to work in they’re available.

Would any of this have averted where we are now? We can never know. But it seems to me that it probably should have been given a shot. Maybe it has been and we just haven’t been told. We just don’t know.

All we can do is watch, hope and pray.