Japan S Security Renaissance

For decades after World War II, Japan chose to focus on soft power and economic diplomacy alongside a close alliance with the United States, eschewing a potential leadership role in regional and global security. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the rise of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's military capabilities have resurged. In this analysis of Japan's changing military policy, Andrew L. Oros shows how a gradual awakening to new security challenges has culminated in the multifaceted "security renaissance" of the past decade. Despite openness to new approaches, however, three historical legacies—contested memories of the Pacific War and Imperial Japan, postwar anti-militarist convictions, and an unequal relationship with the United States—play an outsized role. In Japan's Security Renaissance Oros argues that Japan's future security policies will continue to be shaped by these legacies, which Japanese leaders have struggled to address. He argues that claims of rising nationalism in Japan are overstated, but there has been a discernable shift favoring the conservative Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party. Bringing together Japanese domestic politics with the broader geopolitical landscape of East Asia and the world, Japan's Security Renaissance provides guidance on this century's emerging international dynamics.

While the US-Japan alliance has strengthened since the end of the Cold War, Japan has, almost unnoticed, been building security ties with other partners, in the process reducing the centrality of the US in Japan’s security. This book explains why this is happening. Japan pursued security isolationism during the Cold War, but the US was the exception. Japan hosted US bases and held joint military exercises even while shunning contacts with other militaries. Japan also made an exception to its weapons export ban to allow exports to the US. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s security has undergone a quiet transformation, moving away from a singular focus on the US as its sole security partner. Tokyo has begun diversifying its security ties. This book traces and explains this diversification. The country has initiated security dialogues with Asian neighbors, assumed a leadership role in promoting regional multilateral security cooperation, and begun building bilateral security ties with a range of partners, from Australia and India to the European Union. Japan has even lifted its ban on weapons exports and co-development with non-US partners. This edited volume explores this trend of decreasing US centrality alongside the continued, and perhaps even growing, security (inter) dependence with the US. New Directions in Japan’s Security is an essential resource for scholars focused on Japan’s national security. It will also interest on a wider basis those wishing to understand why Japan is developing non-American directions in its security strategy.

Japan has been expanding its military roles in the post-Cold War period. This book analyses the shift in Japan’s security policy by examining the collective ideas of political parties and the effect of an international norm. Starting with the analysis of the collective ideas held by political parties, this book delves into factors overlooked in existing literature, including the effects of domestic and international norms, as well as how an international norm is localised when a conflicting domestic norm already exists. The argument held throughout is that these factors play a primary role in framing Japan's security policy. Overall, three security areas are studied: Japan’s arms trade ban policy, Japan’s participation in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, and Japan’s enlarged military roles in international security. Close examination demonstrates that the weakening presence of the left since the mid-1990s and the localisation of an international norm encouraged Japan to broaden its military role. Providing a comprehensive picture of Japan’s evolving security policy, this book asserts that shifts have occurred in ways that do not violate the pacifist domestic norm. Japan's Evolving Security Policy will appeal to students and scholars of International Relations, Asian Politics, Asian Security Studies and Japanese Studies.

Since the end of World War II, Japan has not sought to remilitarize, and its postwar constitution commits to renouncing aggressive warfare. Yet many inside and outside Japan have asked whether the country should or will return to commanding armed forces amid an increasingly challenging regional and global context and as domestic politics have shifted in favor of demonstrations of national strength. Tom Phuong Le offers a novel explanation of Japan’s reluctance to remilitarize that foregrounds the relationship between demographics and security. Japan’s Aging Peace demonstrates how changing perceptions of security across generations have culminated in a culture of antimilitarism that constrains the government’s efforts to pursue a more martial foreign policy. Le challenges a simple opposition between militarism and pacifism, arguing that Japanese security discourse should be understood in terms of “multiple militarisms,” which can legitimate choices such as the mobilization of the Japan Self-Defense Forces for peacekeeping operations and humanitarian relief missions. Le highlights how factors that are not typically linked to security policy, such as aging and declining populations and gender inequality, have played crucial roles. He contends that the case of Japan challenges the presumption in international relations scholarship that states must pursue the use of force or be punished, showing how widespread normative beliefs have restrained Japanese policy makers. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, military personnel, atomic bomb survivors, museum coordinators, grassroots activists, and other stakeholders, as well as analysis of peace museums and social movements, Japan’s Aging Peace provides new insights for scholars of Asian politics, international relations, and Japanese foreign policy.

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan's security environment has changed significantly. While, on the global level, the United States is still Japan's most important security partner, the nature of the partnership has changed as a result of shifting demands from the United States, new international challenges such as the North Korean nuclear programme and the rapid rise of China. At the same time, Japan has been confronted with new, ‘non-traditional’ security threats such as international terrorism, the spread of infectious diseases, and global environmental problems. On the domestic level, demographic change, labour migration, economic decline, workplace insecurity, and a weakening impact of policy initiatives challenge the sustainability of the lifestyle of many Japanese and have led to a heightened sense of insecurity among the Japanese public. This book focuses on the domestic discourse on insecurity in Japan and goes beyond military security. The chapters cover issues such as Japan’s growing perception of regional and global insecurity; the changing role of military forces; the perceived risk of Chinese foreign investment; societal, cultural and labour insecurity and how it is affected by demographic changes and migration; as well as food insecurity and its challenges to health and public policy. Each chapter asks how the Japanese public perceives these insecurities; how these perceptions influence the public discourse, the main stakeholders of this discourse, and how this affects state-society relations and government policies. Governing Insecurity in Japan provides new insights into Japanese and international discourses on security and insecurity, and the ways in which security is conceptualized in Japan. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars working on Japanese politics, security studies and international relations.

No nation was more deeply affected by America’s rise to power than Japan. The price paid to end the most intrusive reconstruction of a nation in modern history was a cold war alliance with the U.S. that ensured American dominance in the region. Kenneth Pyle offers a thoughtful history of this relationship at a time when the alliance is changing.

In 1960, when Japan revised the postwar treaty that allows a U.S. military presence in Japan, the popular backlash changed the evolution of Japan’s politics and culture, and its global role. Nick Kapur’s analysis helps resolve Japan’s essential paradox as being innovative yet regressive, flexible yet resistant, imaginative yet wedded to tradition.

This book examines Japanese post-Cold War security policy, analyzing how Japan reacted to the end of the Cold War, the results of the transformation in the post-Cold War security environment, and exactly how Japanese security has changed from its Cold War design.