Japan's Defence Policy Research Articles

The new role of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) under proactive contribution to peace strategy

As per the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no nation can maintain security and peace on its own. Therefore, Tokyo, through the Japanese Ministry of Defense, contributes to the United Nations' efforts to maintain and restore international peace and security. Article 9 of the pacifist constitution, in force since 1947, binds Japan's defense policy. But global dangers, especially the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese threats to Taiwan, and the madness of the North Korean dictator, forced Japan to develop the proficiency of the Self-Defense Forces under the title of “proactive contribution to peace.” In this study, we will review the development of this concept through the process of building Japanese military capabilities. This will enable us to respond to societal changes from the Korean War to the present. As part of Japan's efforts to contribute to international peace and security operations have developed its military capabilities. This includes the enactment of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) Law, the establishment of the National Security Strategy, and the purchase of advanced weapons and equipment. The Nation’s commitment to international peace and security is also evident in its participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations and other regional activities.

Analysis of Japan's Defense Cost Sharing and Policy Implications

Analysis of Japan's Defense Cost Sharing and Policy Implications

Renaissance?

Renaissance? James E. Auer (bio) "In the area of military security, 'Japan is back.'" So begins Japan's Security Renaissance, Andrew L. Oros's impressively detailed and nuanced account of Japan's post–Cold War security. It is a welcome, scholarly work. I have admired the author's academic achievements for well over a decade and do not disagree with many, if any, of the facts he lays out. His presentation is so detailed that a number of the findings were beyond my knowledge, and I learned a lot by reading this book. I am a former U.S. naval officer who sailed with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) from 1963 to 1978 and who analyzed Japan's status as a U.S. military ally from 1979 to 1988 from an American perspective in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. From 1988 to 2014, I was a researcher and instructor of U.S.-Japan relations at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, but I still consider myself more a sailor than a scholar. Since I am also a staunch supporter of the U.S.-Japan alliance, I was very pleased to find my view of the increasing sophistication in Japan's defense policy during the second Abe administration reinforced in the book. While I very much hope Professor Oros is correct that this past decade constitutes a renaissance, I am not yet ready to so characterize the evolution of Japanese defense policy and capability overseen, if not engineered, by Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi, Yoshihiko Noda, and Shinzo Abe. Even though it might be true that Japan is (a little more) "back" as a military power, I am reluctant to say that the developments of the past decade, or at least the past four years of the Abe administration, are as or more significant than key events of the previous six decades. I could not agree more with Professor Oros's statement that what he labels Japan's security renaissance is not about Japan becoming more "normal" (p. 10). I also agree that what Japan has done over the last 50 years is "normal for Japan" (p. 10), although I would insert "only" prior to "for." Quality academic scholarship may well trump my biased analysis as an American who believes strongly in the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance to both countries. But looking back over the last 65-plus years, I see Japan's national security policy and defense capabilities as considerably improving in fits (hindered or overseen by, among others, the Asahi Shimbun and Prime [End Page 185] Ministers Takeo Miki, Toshiki Kaifu, Yukio Hatoyama, and Naoto Kan) and starts (thanks to Diet member Hitoshi Ashida, who later became prime minister, and by Prime Ministers Nobusuke Kishi, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Junichiro Koizumi, Yoshihiko Noda, and Shinzo Abe). The quality of the three Japan Self-Defense Forces, especially the JMSDF with which I am most familiar, is slowly but steadily improving, despite restrictions on defense spending. Although Chinese provocations have emboldened Prime Minister Abe to increase defense spending slightly in the last four years, the Japanese defense operations and defense budget increases of the 1980s were in my mind the most significant to date. As far as national security policy itself is concerned, the impressive developments of the last four years under Abe have strong precedents going back as far as the adoption of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution. Professor Oros might not agree, but I believe that Article 9 is not abnormally restrictive, even though a significant number of Japanese believe that it is. Perhaps few of them realize that General Douglas MacArthur's 1946 directive to his government section that Japan would have no armed forces for any purpose "including self-defense," which he claimed was suggested to him by then Prime Minster Kijuro Shidehara, was modified by Hitoshi Ashida in the House of Representatives before the constitution was adopted to include a loophole for self-defense. MacArthur's legal adviser told him that if the revised wording were allowed to stand, Japan would be able to legally justify armed forces for self-defense. MacArthur not only allowed the revised...

The Northeast Asian Regional Security Complex: Japan-Russia Defense Relations

This paper addresses Japan-Russia defense relations in the context of Japan's defense policy shift regarding the reinterpretation of the Japanese constitution's Article 9, Russia's recalibration of its military forces in the Asia-Pacific, and the rise of Chinese military power in Northeast Asia. It argues that as Northeast Asia comprises a regional security complex, the security relationship between Japan and Russia, is not solely contingent upon Moscow and Tokyo's handling of bilateral affairs. Rather, external factors that involve both Japan and Russia separately also affect this bilateral security relationship. Despite the Japanese and Russian governments' efforts toward improving bilateral defense relations in light of the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories dispute, Moscow and Tokyo's respective defense policies in response to the rise of China's military prowess in Northeast Asia also affect Japan-Russia defense relations. Specifically, Japan and Russia's buildup of their navies in order to counter the rise of China's maritime prowess may also cause military tensions between Moscow and Tokyo.

The Development of Japanese Security Policy: A Long-Term Defensive Strategy

In a speech delivered at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., in February 2013, Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe confidently declared that is back.1 This was in reference to Abe's goal of reviving Japan's moribund economy and restoring the country's place in the international community as a responsible contributor to global affairs. The reactions to Japan's return have been both positive and negative. While Abe's push to implement a robust economic policy termed has been relatively positively received, even though doubts about its success have increasingly dominated the debates in Japan and beyond, Abe's actions in the political and security domains have attracted considerable negative attention.2 This essay focuses on this latter area and attempts to unpack the implications of the expansion of Japan's security policy for the Asia-Pacific. This issue is important because Abe's victory in the December 2014 elections will certainly result in the continued growth of Japanese security policy despite the uncertain growth of the country's economy under the Abenomics program.Since starting his second tenure as prime minister in December 2012, Abe and his team have taken significant steps to expand Japanese security policy. For the first time, a National Security Strategy document was published, and it was introduced together with an updated National Defense Program Guidelines that outlined five- and ten-year targets for Japan's defense policy.3 The strategy in these documents called for the following: augmenting Japanese naval capability through the expansion of the submarine fleet and destroyer-class ships, including additional Aegis destroyers; strengthening Japanese air patrol and surveillance capabilities through the acquisition of additional early warning aircraft and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles; strengthening aerial refueling and transport aircraft; boosting the country's air force capabilities with the F-35A Joint Strike Fighters; and finally creating an amphibious island defense force. To complement Japan's force modernization, Japan and the United States decided to revise the Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation for the first time since 1997. When passed in 2015, the defense guidelines will strengthen bilateral defense cooperation in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) for maritime security around Japan; cyberdefense; missile defense; and United Nations peacekeeping. In addition, the revised guidelines call for an expansion of joint military drills and the sharing of military installations in Japan.4 As revealed in the documents, these measures will be supported by an increase in the Japanese defense budget, reversing an eleven-year trend of decline.Trends in Japanese domestic politics further complicated events in the security domain. Most provocatively, Abe and his cabinet moved to eliminate constraints that prevented Japan from pursuing an activist security policy, including through the decision to reinterpret the Japanese constitution to permit collective self-defense roles for the Japanese military and the lifting of restrictions on arms exports. The Abe government also displayed worrying tendencies related to the unresolved historical legacy of Japan's imperial past. Following attempts by the government to revise the Murayama and Kono statements, many concluded that Abe was questioning Japan's practice of using sex slaves (so-called comfort women) during World War II and perhaps even reversing Japan's apology for its behavior in the events leading up to the war. The level of suspicion toward Japan reached its peak in December 2013 when Abe became the first prime minister in seven years to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, despite the lack of domestic pressure for such a visit.The developments in Japan described above were received negatively by Beijing and Seoul. Both capitals have expressed anger, labelled Abe's actions as dangerous, and even likened Japan to the villain Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. …

The UK, Europe and Japan

Japan's foreign and defence policy is changing in response to new developments in the regional security environment and in the wider international arena. As Tokyo looks to strengthen its relationship with Western partners and especially NATO, the EU and their member states, the UK appears a natural choice both in itself and as a link to Europe. Michito Tsuruoka analyses the many strategic considerations driving Japan's efforts to build stronger partnerships in the defence and security field and explores what the UK can do to strengthen its engagement in Asia.

Okita versus Kubo: duelling architects of Japan's security and defence policies

In recent years, there has been an increasingly vigorous debate by a wide range of participants over the past, present and future of Japanese security and the national defence policy. Ever since the end of the Cold War, international relations theorists have cast their gaze to Japan, and have been given to re-examining ‘comprehensive security’ with a particular eye for the meaning of ‘security’. The 1990s were a particularly interesting time for this scholarly revisionism, while events of September 2001 have cast an entirely different spectre on the nature and expectations of Japanese security, both domestically and internationally. This article is particularly concerned with the developments in the 1990s as scholars sought to reassert the ‘defence’ component of the comprehensive security policy hitherto pursued by Japan. This re-examination has elevated former Japanese Defence Agency (JDA) bureaucrat Kubo Takuya as the key architect in crafting Japan's security policy. Tsuyoshi Kawasaki's contributions to the debate are especially interesting on this point. He rightly challenges the short-comings of the so-called ‘domestic-constructivists’, especially Berger and Katzenstein. However, in attempting to demolish their cases for ‘selective biases’ he then proceeds to selectively argue a similarly biased case in asserting the superiority of yet another derivation of the realist cause – ‘postclassical realism’. His key premises are based on his interpretations of the architect of Japan's National Defence Program Outline, Kubo, and in doing so ‘proves’ the military aspect of Japan's security policy and its ‘inherent superiority’ as an explanatory framework. Equally, one can mount a case for the ‘comprehensive security’ proponents by citing the work and presence of the late Okita Saburo in his contributions to understanding post-war security policy. This article will demonstrate a similar argument to that of Kawasaki's based on an analogous analytical framework which grounds Japanese security consciousness in a deeper historical context. It is part of a larger project which seeks to give empirical substance to constructivist interpretations of Japanese security.

A segurança do Japão e os Estados Unidos da América

Since the end of World War II the issues regarding Japan’s security and defense have been discussed as a natural continuation of the American Foreign Policy. Although Japan is said to decide its own foreign policy by itself after getting back its sovereignty in the 50’s，Washington has always been deciding along with Japan and justifying its acts on the conflicting international system. At the end of World War II the Cold War was the main reason for the USA to take part almost by itself in the protection of the Japanese archipelago* Nowadays，Japan is still constitutionally prohibited from maintaining conventional armed forces having to delegate this mission to the USA, which has military bases on Okinawa Island- The negative impacts of this policy are already felt by Japan especially under the constant threats from North Korea and the military and economic growth of China. After the attacks of September 11th 2001，new government leaders have been trying to make Japan less dependent on the USA. Washington will not abandon its regional policy，as shown by Prime Minister Hatoyama’s fall. For some authors，Japan must have independent deterrence ways to guarantee its security and integrity in a still hostile environment shaped by the disasters of Japan's imperialist era. This article intends to analyze the evolution of Japan's defense policy since the occupation of the Allied Powers.

The Modern Japan's Total War Plan and theImperial Defense Policy

The Modern Japan's Total War Plan and theImperial Defense Policy

Japan's Changing Defense Policy: Military Deployment in the Persian Gulf

Since the early 1990s Japan's defense policy has been under incremental significant change, revealed mainly in the legislative field. This paper explores the extent to which Japan's defense policy is changing in military terms. Analysis of Japan's latest security posture in Iraq (2003–2006) brings to light changes in Japan's overall defense policy in terms of defense priorities and implementation.

Stories of our boys, but for whom? The Japanese media's coverage of the SDF in Iraq

The dispatch of the Japanese Self Defence Forces (SDF) to Iraq following the US invasion was a watershed in the transformation of Japan's defence and security policy, from its traditional pacifist policy toward deeper involvement in international security issues. The Japanese media covered the situation in Iraq mainly in the context of Japan's policy regarding the SDF. An analysis of editorials in major Japanese newspapers shows that media concern regarding the SDF reached a peak during the proceedings on legislation to allow the dispatch of the SDF, but decreased dramatically following the dispatch. The presence of the SDF in Iraq became an issue that was too close to home. As a result, criticism became impossible, and the debate on the SDF became limited to the issue of morality and the loyalty of the Japanese people to the government. The analysis also shows that the original motivation for the dispatch of the SDF was not perceived as a domestic factor but as a reflection of Japan's relationship with the United States. Thus, the Japanese media failed to grasp the situation surrounding the SDF within the overall context of domestic political developments in Iraq.

US Defence Transformation and Japan's Defence Policy

(2006). US Defence Transformation and Japan's Defence Policy. The RUSI Journal: Vol. 151, No. 4, pp. 62-67.

Japan's Defence Policy

Japan's Defence Policy

Le Japon, sa politique de défense et l'avenir de son alliance avec les États-Unis

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War have forced Japan to question its defence policy. In the past this policy has been firmly based on a purely defensive posture which relied totally on Japan's alliance with the United States. Because the Cold War dragged on in East Asia for much longer than in Europe, Japan could carry on the same defence policy as before. Japanese defence planners found it convenient to emphasize the « Soviet threat » as a way to maintain annual increases in the military budget, and refusing to normalize their relations with the Soviets, until the question of the Northern Territories had been settled. They can no longer ignore the various signs of détente in East Asia. Yet they have had limited effects on Japan's defence policy. The Americans have called on Japan to play a role more commensurate with its economic power but want to avoid any hint of an autonomous Japanese defence policy. They pressured Japan into playing a more active part in the Gulf crisis and the ensuing war, but the government failed to muster sufficient support, at home and amongst the other countries of East Asia, for any role for its military outside Japan, even in a non combat capacity. So Japan has sought other regional and global security policies to compensate for this handicap and has met with mixed success. The recent failure to pass legislation allowing its Self-defence Forces to participate in UN peacekeeping operations has seriously jeopardized Japan 's search for a more active role in regional affairs. But will the Japanese continue for much longer to play a second role in the United States' System of bilateral alliances in the Asia-Pacific region which that country can afford less and less ? This is the real dilemma of Japanese defence policy : it can neither remain as it is nor can it easily change direction.

The SDF's Recent Legal Equipment and Prospects for Japan's Defence Policy

The SDF's Recent Legal Equipment and Prospects for Japan's Defence Policy

Tokyo´s Dynamic Diplomacy: Japan and the Subcontinent´s Nuclear Tests

Among Japan's recent international initiatives, its responses to India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests have been largely overlooked. Major Japanese diplomatic initiatives in the wake of these tests included promoting nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and taking a leadership role in resolving the India-Pakistan dispute. Japan's energetic responses were driven by domestic considerations of public opinion, coalition politics, and bureaucratic interests. Externally, Japan was motivated by a desire to highlight its contributions to international peace and security, solidify its claims to a permanent United Nations Security Council seat, and exhibit its commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, as well as by the relative paucity of concrete interest in India and Pakistan. However, Japan achieved few of its objectives. A repeat of such episodes may well influence Japan's future efforts to be more active in international affairs. Introduction. Japan's foreign and defence policies are beginning to exhibit signs of rising activism. An unprecedented parliamentary debate on Japan's constitution, an announcement by the foreign ministry that it is considering participation in multilateral anti-piracy patrols in the Strait of Malacca, the dispatch of delegations around the world to promote the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's recent suggestion that Japan's soldiers might be able to carry weapons on peace-keeping operation (PKO) missions are just some examples of the trend towards a more engaged international posture by Japan. Japan's neighbours and others have been watching Tokyo's emerging normalization closely, seeking clues to Japan's future international behaviour and ambitions. One little noticed example of Japan's recent initiatives in international affairs was its responses to India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests conducted in May 1998. Japan's energetic responses to the nuclear blasts provide fresh insights into its broader international behaviour and ambitions. Although the subcontinent itself is marginal to Japan's economic, political, and security concerns, the nuclear tests raised fundamental questions about Japan's foreign policy, including the balance between economic and political diplomacy, the application of its official development assistance (ODA) charter, the role of public opinion, as well as domestic and bureaucratic politics in making foreign policy, Japan's relations with the great powers of the Permanent Five (P-5) and Group of Eight (G-8), the relative importance of specific security factors in shaping foreign policy, and Japan's relations with the United States. What emerges from a consideration of this episode in Japan's contemporary foreign relations is quite telling. Motivated mainly by the desire to demonstrate responsible political rather than economic leadership, burnish its claims to a permanent United Nations Security Council seat, and exert initiative on nuclear matters, Japan launched strong but largely overlooked efforts to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation as well as to help resolve the India-Pakistan dispute. Not only did Tokyo fail on these scores, but the international community and the major powers were indifferent, Delhi and Islamabad uncompromising, and the Japanese public unmoved. Tokyo's dynamic diplomacy fell flat. Whether a repeat of similar episodes and outcomes in other contexts will push Japan towards a sullen isolationism, assertive unilateralism, or what the Japanese commentator Yoichi Funabashi, writing in Foreign Affairs, called a reluctant realism, [1] remains to be seen. Political Animals South Asians are political animals, while Japan is an economic animal, the late Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Al Bhutto supposedly once said. The world is accustomed to Japan's economic diplomacy. It is hence surprising that political initiatives in the wake of India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests have eclipsed Japan's economic actions. …

“The Japanese Way in Warfare”: Japan's Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract Japan's foreign and defense policy is now at a crossroads. The end of the Cold War opens the door for a possible policy renaissance in Japan. By “renaissance,” it is meant that instead of merely responding passively to the changes in the international environment, Japan might positively shape the international environment. This marks a departure from the Japanese stance since the Second World War and should be appreciated as such. At the same time, however, it is also fair to say that Japan is still muddling through, failing to define clear national objectives and a grand strategy needed to achieve them. This article is designed to provide a useful framework upon which Japan's future foreign and defense policy could be based. To this end, the experience of Britain will be examined. Though historical, the British model in fact provides many relevant lessons for Japan, and the author will draw on his discussion of these lessons in order to envision a grand strategy suitable for Japan's survival and prosperity in the security environment of East Asia in the twenty-first century. In so doing, problems on the Korean peninsula and the China-Taiwan issue will be examined as case studies and developed as fully as possible. It should be noted that this article aims to provide a framework through which Japan's foreign and defense policy could be developed in the future. As such, its focus will be conceptual rather than factual, and historical rather than current events-driven.

Japan's security policy toward the 21st century

The mutual cooporation between Japan and the UK was reaffirmed by the recent meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto and British Prime Minister Blair through the Action Agenda adopted in 1996 and agreed on the ‘Japan‐UK Common Vision for the 21st Century’. In this article Mr Masahiro Akiyama outlines Japanese security policy in the Pacific. He assesses the Asia‐Pacific regional situation, referring to its recent economic and financial crisis, the role of China, Russia, the UK and the US in the region and discusses Japan's defence policy, which endeavours to foster a more stable security environment in the Asia‐Pacific. He confirms Japan's commitment to contribute to regional stability through adherence to the Three Non‐Nuclear Principles of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons’, as well as the three principles which prohibit Japan's arms exports. He believes this is a fundamental basis for future regional security, together with the Japan‐US security arrangements.

Japan's defence problematique

Abstract This article attempts to construct an overview of Japan's defence problematique in the post‐cold war era. Its approach is to survey the historical legacies that have shaped Japan's defence policies and perceptions, and to assess how these fit, or do not fit, with the new security environment within which Japan now finds itself. The purpose is to argue that a policy of non‐offensive defence (NOD) could solve many of the difficult defence questions that Japan now faces. As a consequence, the discussion will concentrate mainly on military and political issues, mostly leaving aside questions of economic, societal and environmental security on the grounds that these issues interact less strongly with NOD. Section 1 considers the geopolitics of Japan's security that arise from its being an island country. Section 2 analyses some crucial historical considerations, particularly Japan's status as a great power, and the particular circumstances of its historical relationship with its neighbours. Section 3 ...

A Political Overview of Southeast Asia

In 1992 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of its creation; a landmark decision was made to move towards closer economic integration by way of an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA); and a summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was held in Southeast Asia for the first time in the thirty-year history of that organization. These were events of considerable symbolic importance for the region, highlighting the polit ical and economic progress that has been made by the ASEAN countries over the last quarter of a century. Two other events of more immediate significance for the Southeast Asian international system also occurred. One was the withdrawal of the last U.S. forces from Subie Bay naval base in the Philippines, bringing to an end the era in which U.S. military forces were based in Southeast Asia. The other was the despatch of a small contingent of Japanese troops to Cambodia in September as part of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force (UNPKF), the first Japanese military forces to set foot in Southeast Asia since 1945, an event of potentially far-reaching importance for Japan's future defence and foreign policies towards the region. Various other developments of great importance for the people of Southeast Asia also occurred throughout 1992. Economic growth continued at a brisk pace (although a little less rapidly than in 1990-91) almost everywhere in the region except the Philip pines, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, at a time when the rest of the world was sliding deeper into recession. Even Vietnam reported better results, although from very low income levels. Not only were Southeast Asian growth rates high by less developed country (LDC) standards ? and also in comparison with those of the industrial countries ? but the region's share of world trade and investment continued to increase steadily, a remarkable achievement at a time of such adverse interna tional economic conditions. Fears that the planned (but partially delayed) unification of European Community markets and currency systems in 1992, coupled with the successful creation of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), might foreshadow a division of world markets into huge protectionist trading blocs became more intense than previously. They were aggravated by uncertainty about a suc cessful conclusion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations, which were still hanging in the balance until year end, despite last-minute progress on agriculture. The ASEAN decision to press ahead as quickly as possible towards AFTA owed a great deal to the sense of urgency to