Militarisation And Demilitarisation In Contemporary Japan

The intertwined issues of Japanese `identity' and `normality' are at the centre of the tension between internal and external pressures on Japanese defence and security policies. With chapters on peace thought, the militarisation and demilitarisation of language as well as the `hard' aspects of the Japanese military build up in the 1980s and the response to the Gulf War in the 1990s, this study challenges many of the preconceived notions on Japanese defence and security policies and the policy making process in Japan.

A considerable amount of writing has been published on Japan at war in WWII. Scholars have been revisiting the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5. This volume examines Japan’s twentieth-century approach to war and militarism in a wider perspective, bringing hitherto unexamined new themes and subject-matter under scrutiny up to the present day.

Contemporary world history has highlighted militarization in many ways, from the global Cold War and numerous regional conflicts to the general assumption that nationhood implies a significant and growing military. Yet the twentieth century also offers notable examples of large-scale demilitarization, both imposed and voluntary. Demilitarization in the Contemporary World fills a key gap in current historical understanding by examining demilitarization programs in Germany, Japan, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. In nine insightful chapters, this volume's contributors outline each nation's demilitarization choices and how they were made. They investigate factors such as military defeat, border security risks, economic pressures, and the development of strong peace cultures among citizenry. Also at center stage is the influence of the United States, which fills a paradoxical role as both an enabler of demilitarization and a leader in steadily accelerating militarization. Bookended by Peter N. Stearns' thought-provoking historical introduction and forward-looking conclusion, the chapters in this volume explore what true demilitarization means and how it impacts a society at all levels, military and civilian, political and private. The examples chosen reveal that successful demilitarization must go beyond mere troop demobilization or arms reduction to generate significant political and even psychological shifts in the culture at large. Exemplifying the political difficulties of demilitarization in both its failures and successes, Demilitarization in the Contemporary World provides a possible roadmap for future policies and practices.

Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security argues that Japanese public opinion matters and has acted to prevent overseas military deployments involving combat while increasingly supportive of a more normal military establishment capable of autonomously defending Japanese territory.

This study examines how Japanese policy toward Middle East security issues is shaped by the need to both maintain Japan’s security alliance with the US and its oil relationship with states in the Middle East. Yukiko Miyagi introduces the historic roots of Japan’s policy, and then focuses on the major contemporary cases – the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear crisis, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, to expose and explain how clashing interests and dilemmas were negotiated to arrive at policy outcomes. The author also sheds light on the utility of mainstream International Relations theories for understanding Japan’s behaviour. How do we understand the policy of a self-declared ‘anti-militarist’ state forced to operate in a realist world and for whom energy supplies are a matter of vital national security? This study shows how neither realism nor its rivals, such as constructivism, can wholly explain Japan’s behaviour and suggests a theoretical framework for doing so. Filling a major gap in our understanding of an increasingly important area of study Japan’s Middle East Security Policy is an essential read for those interested in Japan’s International Relations, Middle East politics, security studies and foreign policy.

This book, first published in 1980, presents a comprehensive and detailed look at the problem of international militarisation. It examines the key issues, the meaning of the problem, the international context and the spread of militarism to the Third World, its fast growth and dangerous implications – including to the development of often poorer countries.

Explores the conceptualisation of childhood in South Asia and comments on the shift from welfare to the protection of children's rights in the region.