Leadership in Bandwagon: A Historical Sketch of Japan's Security Policy

Abstract

This article has two purposes. The first is to provide a historical overview of Japan's security leadership, while at the same time it seeks to locate Japan's response to the September 11 terrorism in the context of a larger process of defining its security leadership. As opposed to the Japanese transforming leadership that sought to balance the power of the United Nations, and that eventually invited unproductive consequences in the pre-World War II period, its pursuit of security roles in the postwar period has been well built in the U.S. hegemony. I then argue that Japan's security policy has rested on its principle of bandwagoning with the U.S. government, in which the Japanese government has transformed its own security policy so that it could present itself as a major ally with the United States. The first section discusses the differences between “transforming” and “transactional” leaderships, and locates them in the context of how the Japanese government has addressed alliances. The second section depicts the structural constraints of the alliances in which allies have had the dilemma of being abandoned from or entrapped into the partner's security policy. It then documents the larger process of Japan redefining its security role in the Asia-Pacific region. In this context, the Japanese government's response to the September 11 terrorism is also addressed. Special attention is paid to how the government sought to maintain a balance between military contributions to U.S.-Japan security alliance and the restriction on the “threat and use of force” prescribed in the Constitution. The fourth section changes the focus, and examines Japan's recent transactional pro-activeness toward Asia and entry into regional politics. Japan's holding of the Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan will be also addressed, and this article argues the conference was the fruit of Japan's recent emphasis on human security. Finally, this article concludes that the combination of Japan's continued transforming security policy and its strenuous, transactional efforts to enter Asian regional politics will be the first step toward real “normalcy” of Japan.