UK-Japan defense cooperation : Britain pivots and Japan branches out

For more about the East-West Center, see http://www.eastwestcenter.org/Philip Shetler-Jones, Security Consultant based in Brussels, explains that “the old Cold War allies of the United States are adapting to a more multipolar world order. Japan’s decision to branch out and trade arms beyond its alliance partner is one aspect of this, as is the UK’s apparent determination to show that it too can be an actor in the emerging Asian balance of power.

Japan’s new security imperative : the function of globalization

Japan has steadily extended its military reach from a domestic zone of defence against territorial invasion in the late 1950s, through a regional security policy in the late 1970s, to what has now become a globally scaled military role. This reexpansion is perceived by some as evidence of revived militaristic ambitions and by others as subservience to the U.S. global strategy. However, taking the cue from Japan’s 2004 National Defence Programme Guideline (New Taik!), this paper assesses the role globalization has played in this territorial expansion. The impact of globalization is evident in the double expansion of Japan’s national security conception in geographical terms and SDF roles in global security. These “expansions” are studied through two key elements of globalization—the deterritorialization of complex relations of interdependence between states (security globality) and the inter-penetrating nature of these relations blur the boundary between foreign and domestic spaces (intermestic space)