Not quite the 'Great Britain of the Far East': Japan's security, the US-Japan alliance and the 'war on terror' in East Asia

Japan, in responding to US expectations for support in the 'war on terror', has displayed a degree of strategic convergence on global security objectives, thus prompting policy-makers and observers to dub it the 'Great Britain of the Far East'. This article argues, however, that Japan is far from assuming this role. For Japan, the 'war on terror' serves more as a political pretext for legitimating long-planned changes in military security policy that are often only marginally related to the US's anti-terrorism agenda. Instead, Japan has focused much more on using the terror threat rationale as a means to push forward its response to the regional and traditional security challenges of North Korea and China, even if at times it attempts to depict both as 'new security challenges' or as involving elements of counterterrorism. The final conclusion is that US military hegemony may be weakened by Japan's and the Asia-Pacific's potential divergence from the US global security agenda

Reflections on globalisation, security and 9/11

The study of globalisation carries important conceptual insights into the contemporary security agenda following the events of September 11th 2001 ('9/11'). This article argues that globalisation can be defined in a variety of ways, ranging from liberalisation to Westernisation, and can also be extended into concepts of supra-territorialisation. In combination, these definitions help to explain the generation of 9/11 style-conflict by providing the political-economic motivation for hyper-terrorism, by facilitating the political identities and activities of non-state actors; and by creating an environment for the global reach of terror movements. Additionally, the interconnection between globalisation and security can be seen in the response of the United States to 9/11 and its striving to project military power on a global scale with declining reference to time and geographical distance, and the varied ability of sovereign states to respond to the challenge of trans-sovereign security problems in the future

“Super-sizing” the DPRK threat : Japan’s evolving military posture and North Korea

Japan's reemergence as a "normal" military power has been accelerated by the "super-sizing" of North Korea: a product of the North's extant military threat, multiplied exponentially by its undermining of U.S.-Japan alliance solidarity, views of the North as a domestic "peril," and the North's utilization as a catch-all proxy for remilitarization

Japan-North Korea relations since the North-South Summit: stuck in an ever deepening and divisive rut

Japan-North Korea relations have slipped into an ever deepening and divisive rut since the North-South summit of 2000, with little prospect of significant improvement in the near term. Japan has both intentionally and unintentionally constructed around itself a framework of international and domestic policy constraints that impede its ability to engage North Korea both bilaterally and trilaterally via US-South Korea-Japan co-ordination efforts. In particular, as the US and South Korea contemplate renewed engagement efforts with the North, Japan’s ability to follow its trilateral partners is hamstrung by domestic pressure on the abductions issue. The consequence could be that Japan will find itself as the most reluctant and least able of the trilateral partners to engage the North. In turn, this could mean that it is unable to provide crucial background support for international engagement efforts, and even undermine overall US and South Korea strategy. Meanwhile, the incapacitation of Japan’s diplomatic policy has had the effect of strengthening Japanese military containment efforts towards the North

Japan's response to China's rise : regional engagement, global containment, dangers of collision

Japan and China's ability to manage their bilateral relationship is crucial for the stability of the East Asian region. It also has a global impact on the security and economic development of other regions. For just as China's rise has inevitably involved an expansion of its global reach, so Japan's responses to the challenges posed by China have increasingly taken a global form, seeking to incorporate new partners and frameworks outside East Asia. Japan's preferred response to China's regional and global rise in the post-Cold War period has remained one of default engagement. Japan is intent on promoting China's external engagement with the East Asia region and its internal domestic reform, through upgrading extant bilateral and Japan-China-US trilateral frameworks for dialogue and cooperation, and by emphasizing the importance of economic power to influence China. Japan is deliberately seeking to proliferate regional frameworks for cooperation in East Asia in order to dilute, constrain and ultimately engage China's rising power. However, Japan's engagement strategy also contains the potential to tilt towards default containment. Japan's domestic political basis for engagement is becoming increasingly precarious as China's rise stimulates Japanese revisionism and nationalism. Japan also appears increasingly to be looking to contain China on a global scale by forging new strategic links in Russia and Central Asia, with a `concert of democracies' involving India, Australia and the US, by competing for resources with China in Africa and the Middle East, and by attempting to articulate a values-based diplomacy to check the so-called `Beijing consensus'. Nevertheless, Japan's perceived inability to channel China's rise either through regional engagement or through global containment carries a further risk of pushing Japan to resort to the strengthening of its military power in an attempt to guarantee its essential national interests. It is in this instance that Japan and China run the danger of a military collision

The political economy of Japanese sanctions towards North Korea: domestic coalitions and international systemic pressures

Japan has often been dismissed by mainstream international relations and policy discourse as a bit-part actor in Korean Peninsula security affairs. If ascribed any role at all, it is seen as a secondary and submissive actor, generally bending to US strategy and international systemic pressures. This paper argues, however, that Japanese policy towards North Korea is now challenging these international systemic pressures, and threatening divergence with US policy. This is due to the fact that Japan's policy is increasingly driven by domestic political considerations that are rivalling or even superseding international influences in importance. In order to highlight these domestic dynamics, the paper utilizes domestic sanctions theory and a detailed empirical analysis of the Japanese policy-making process with regard to the imposition of sanctions on North Korea. It demonstrates that a "threshold coalition" has now emerged in Japan which is tipping government policy towards sanctions, irrespective of, or even in opposition to, international systemic pressures to desist from such actions. The paper highlights the changing disposition of a pluralistic range of domestic actors away from default engagement to default containment. The consequence of these aggregate domestic pressures is that the Japanese government is finding it progressively harder to converge with US and international strategy towards North Korea. Japan is thus set to augment its influence in Korean Peninsula security affairs by becoming a more obstructive partner in attempts to find an international resolution to the nuclear crisis

Japan's security policy, the US-Japan alliance, and the 'war on terror': incrementalism confirmed or radical leap?

Japan's response to the 'war on terror', in the form of the despatch of the JSDF to the Indian Ocean and Iraq, has given policy-makers and academic analysts grounds for believing that Japan is becoming a more assertive military power in support of its US ally. This article argues that JSDF despatch does not necessarily mark a divergence from Japan's previous security path over the short term. This is because its policy-makers have continued to hedge around commitments to the US through careful constitutional framing of JSDF missions and capabilities, allowing it opt-out clauses in future conflicts, and because it has also sought to pursue economic and alternative diplomatic policies in responding to terrorism and WMD proliferation in the Middle East. However, at the same this article argues that Japan has established important precedents for expanded JSDF missions in the 'war on terror', and that over the medium to longer terms these are likely to be applied to the bilateral context of the US-Japan security treaty in East Asia, and to push Japan towards becoming a more active military power through participation in US-led multinational 'coalitions of the willing' in East Asia and globally

Why Japan could revise its constitution and what it would mean for Japanese security policy

This article seeks to make sense of the policy debate on constitutional revision underway in Japan, to consider what international and domestic factors are driving the debate forward, to assess the range of proposals currently on the table, and to gauge the likelihood of actual constitutional change. Additionally, it considers how various forms of constitutional revision, if actually implemented, might affect Japan's military doctrines and capabilities; the extent of its alliance cooperation with the United States; its devotion of military capabilities to un operations; and the repercussions for Japan's regional relations in East Asia

Japan’s security policy and the war on terror : steady incrementalism or radical leap?

The study of globalisation carries important conceptual insights into the contemporary security agenda following the events of 9/11. This working paper argues that globalisation can be defined in a variety of ways, ranging from liberalisation to Westernisation, and can also be extended into concepts of supra-territorialisation. In combination, these definitions help to explain the generation of 9/11 style-conflict by providing the political-economic motivation for hyper-terrorism, by facilitating the political identities and activities of non-state actors; and by creating an environment for the global reach of terror movements. Additionally, the interconnection between globalisation and security can be seen in the response of the US to 9/11 and its striving to project military power on a global scale with declining reference to time and geographical distance, and the varied ability of sovereign states to respond to the challenge of trans-sovereign security problems in the future