Rival Principals and Shrewd Agents::Military Assistance and the Diffusion of Warfare

Military assistance is a perennial feature of international relations. Such programmes typically aim to improve the effectiveness of local partners, exporting the donor's way of war through the provision of training and equipment. By remaking indigenous armies in their own image, donors likewise hope to mitigate the profound agency costs associated with the transfer of military capability. But, while technical and organisational transformations can provide notable battlefield advantages, the philosophies underlying such innovations are not so easily propagated. Instead, new tactics, structures, and technologies typically intersect with pre-existing local schemata of war, producing novel if sometimes dysfunctional hybrid praxes. According to principal-agent theory, the application of greater conditionality in the provision of military assistance should improve the fidelity of military diffusion, aligning agents' divergent interests with their principals' goals. In practice, however, principal-agent exchanges rarely exist in isolation. Examining the modernisation of nineteenth-century Japan as a case study in military diffusion, this article argues that competition between rival patrons allows recipient states to play would-be principals off against each other, bypassing conditionality by replicating a marketplace for military assistance. In so doing, however, agents trade functionality for sovereignty in their military diffusion.</p

Rival Principals and Shrewd Agents::Military Assistance and the Diffusion of Warfare

Military assistance is a perennial feature of international relations. Such programmes typically aim to improve the effectiveness of local partners, exporting the donor's way of war through the provision of training and equipment. By remaking indigenous armies in their own image, donors likewise hope to mitigate the profound agency costs associated with the transfer of military capability. But, while technical and organisational transformations can provide notable battlefield advantages, the philosophies underlying such innovations are not so easily propagated. Instead, new tactics, structures, and technologies typically intersect with pre-existing local schemata of war, producing novel if sometimes dysfunctional hybrid praxes. According to principal-agent theory, the application of greater conditionality in the provision of military assistance should improve the fidelity of military diffusion, aligning agents' divergent interests with their principals' goals. In practice, however, principal-agent exchanges rarely exist in isolation. Examining the modernisation of nineteenth-century Japan as a case study in military diffusion, this article argues that competition between rival patrons allows recipient states to play would-be principals off against each other, bypassing conditionality by replicating a marketplace for military assistance. In so doing, however, agents trade functionality for sovereignty in their military diffusion.</p

The Legacy of a War: How the Legacy of the Russo-Japanese War Affected the US-Japan Relations

The Russo-Japanese War—fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan from 1904 until 1905—was undoubtedly among the most significant wars in world history. Not only did it define the future of imperialism adopted by the Russian Empire, but it also shaped the future of world politics. Some scholars even refer to the Russo-Japanese War as ‘World War Zero’ (Steinberg 2007), given its profound and long-lasting impacts. This paper will elucidate the Russo-Japanese War, elaborate on the events and battles that took place during the war chronologically, analyze the consequences of the Russo-Japanese War, and draw a conclusion elucidating how the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War affected US-Japan relations

The History of Hakka Diaspora in Indonesia: Migration Waves and Negotiations with National Identity

The Hakka Diaspora is one of the immigrant descendants who have lived in Indonesia for a very long time. Their existence has often experienced ups and downs. This study aims to analyze the waves of Hakka migration to Indonesia and how they negotiate with national identity. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach to analyze this phenomenon with data collected from interviews and literature studies. The research results showed that the wave of Hakka migration to Indonesia does not only come from mainland China but also from Taiwan. The Hakka migration waves from mainland China largely occurred during the Qing dynasty due to overcrowded populations, the difficulty of land ownership, and government discrimination problems. Meanwhile, the Hakka migration from Taiwan occurred after the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, which forced the Qing dynasty to surrender Formosa to Japan after the First Sino-Japanese war and mass company relocation in the 1980s due to rising production costs in Taiwan. Second, to negotiate their background with Indonesian identity, the Hakka have five philosophies of life called Hakkacita. This philosophy emphasizes conscience, good virtue, cohesiveness, devotion, and shared prosperity between Hakka descendants and other ethnic groups within the framework of Indonesian nationalism

Enclave empires: Britain, France and the treaty-port system in Japan, 1858-1868

This thesis will present a comparative and internationally contextualised history of Anglo-French relations in Japan between 1858 and 1868. It will introduce the concept of ‘enclave empires’ to describe the conduits for Western informal imperialism that were created in Japan by the imposition of the treaty-port system in 1858. It will aim to address longstanding gaps in the historiography by assessing that system as a multinational construct that depended upon the cooperation and collaboration of each treaty power operating within it. At the same time, it will show how the management of the Japanese treaty-port system was increasingly dominated by the British Empire and the French Second Empire, the two most powerful Western trading nations in Japan during the 1860s. It will examine how global contexts impacted upon British and French foreign policymaking during this period, and how this catalysed an increasingly bitter AngloFrench struggle for control over the ‘enclave empires’ in Japan. It will also seek to broaden the scope of the historiography beyond the sphere of diplomatic relations by considering the perspectives of prominent non-diplomatic British and French actors whenever relevant. Finally, it will address significant historiographical oversights in the use of relevant primary source material through the critical appraisal of contemporary private paper collections. By adopting this four-pronged methodological approach, this thesis will demonstrate that Anglo-French relations fundamentally defined the process of creating and developing informal ‘enclave empires’ in Japan in the decade between the conclusion of the ‘unequal treaties’ in 1858 and the Meiji Restoration in 1868