The Next Generation of Japan's National Security

Abstract

The Next Generation of Japan's National Security Marina Fujita Dickson (bio) and Yoichi Funabashi (bio) Japan's security policy has undergone several drastic changes in past decade: the establishment of the National Security Council in 2013; the easing of defense equipment exports in 2014; and, most recently, the publication of the new National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program white papers in late 2022, combined with the increase of the defense budget to 2% of GDP and plans to establish new measures like a counterstrike capability. While many analysts have highlighted these developments as significant shifts in Japan's strategic priorities, a single major factor looms in the background that continues to hinder developments—Japan's aging population. Japan's attempt to become a "normal nation"—a country with an effective security policy that can accept the use of force as a potential policy tool—is constrained today by a declining birth rate, an aging population that both stresses the government's budget and limits the recruitment pool for the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), and the slow pace of technology adoption in the JSDF. Tom Phuong Le's book Japan's Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century addresses these major challenges and uniquely explores the intersection between Japanese defense policy and the country's demographic crisis, detailing exactly why and how these issues are causational. First, fewer children mean fewer potential military recruits. Second, an older, aging population requires a larger budget for institutions like the pension system, leaving less money for defense matters, such as recruiting and retaining troops. Le carefully describes both the uniqueness and individuality of the problem; while most developed economies today are experiencing declining birth rates, Japan's crisis has arguably attracted the most attention as a social phenomenon over the last two decades. In exploring how the abovementioned demographic shift affects Japan's defense, Le compares Japan with its neighbors South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Singapore, which all have some form of mandatory conscription. Yet, each of these countries faces the same issue of an aging population—and [End Page 169] some of these countries (such as Taiwan and South Korea) are experiencing this problem to an even more acute degree than Japan. Having tapped into the full extent of their recruitment pool, these four countries could be looking at a potentially more dire situation in their future. Indeed, Japan is not the only country, but rather just the first, to face the challenge of an aging population. Le argues that the way in which Japan manages this crisis domestically will thus be a lesson for its neighbors. Throughout the text, the author also underscores the various constraints on Japanese militarism beyond demographics, including issues resulting from an underdeveloped military industrial complex, arms export principles, public opinion, the constitution, the international stigma of militarism, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and Japan's three nonnuclear principles, among others. While the government can alleviate some of these issues through policy reform, many are norms that cannot be overcome without "significant social engineering" (p. 11), which is beyond the capability of the government. While Le's discussion of Japan's intertwined demographic and defense challenges—and the immense hurdles Japan faces to overcome them—is crucial, Le's most important contribution to the existing literature is perhaps his examination of "militarism" itself as a concept. Some scholars have predicted that Japan will "return to normal security behavior" (p. 34), but what do they mean by that precisely? Because there is a lack of specificity in this idea of a return to normal, it is unclear what path of militarization Japan would take and what it would mean for the country's future. It is clear, however, that Japan's "return to normal" in military terms will not be a return to the 1930s. To understand this point, one must look beyond conventional metrics of militarization such as the "increased activity" of the armed forces or changes in the defense budget to other indicators such as civil-military dynamics, the prevalence of military symbols in public view, and education on Japanese history and war, to name a few. In...