Abstract
Power is a multifaceted concept. There are, for example, economic, political and military dimensions of power. Although each of these power attributes can exist in isolation, the reality is that they feed off each other. Historically there is correspondence between politico-economic power and military strength. Modern Japan, with its well-known ‘peace’ Constitution, appears the exception. It is the world’s second most powerful nation. Yet it forswears the possession of ‘offensive’ military capability, constrains itself to defence expenditure at around 1 per cent of national income, and effectively bans arms exports. For a powerful nation this is indeed unique.
I am indebted to Michael Chinworth and Col. Stewart Hendry for their comments on earlier drafts.
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Notes and References
I am indebted to Michael Chinworth and Col. Stewart Hendry for their comments on earlier drafts.
Stefan Wagstyl, ‘“Illiterate and Lazy” Jibe Stokes Tension with US’, The Financial Times, 22 January 1992.
S. Javed Maswood, Japanese Defence — The Search for Political Power, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Allen & Unwin, 1990) p. 79.
See Hideo Sato, ‘Japan’s Role in the Post-Cold War World’, Current History, vol. 90, no. 555, April 1991, p. 146. Original source: David P. Rapkin, ‘Japan and World Leadership?’, in D. P. Rapkin (ed.), World Leadership and Hegemony, International Political Economy Yearbook, vol. 5 (Boulder, Col. and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990) pp. 196–9.
James E. Auer, ‘Article Nine of Japan’s Constitution: From Renunciation of Armed Force “Forever” to the Third Largest Defence Budget in the World’, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 53, no. 2, Spring 1990, p. 172 fn.
S. Javed Maswood, Japanese Defence, p. 8. Original source: H. Otake, Nihon no Boei to Kokunai Seiji: Detente Gunkakue (Japanese Defence and Domestic Politics: from Detente to Militarization) (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1983) p. 39.
James E. Auer, ‘Article 9 ...’, p. 177.
Ibid, p. 177.
S. Javed Maswood, Japanese Defence, p. 61.
Ibid, p. 70.
See The Financial Times, 7 December 1988, and the Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 October 1988.
‘The Cautious Sharpening of the Samurai’s Sword’, The Economist, 16 August 1986.
Ian Rodger, ‘Japan’s Military Chips Under Fire’, The Financial Times, 29 January 1991.
G. Counsell, ‘Japan to Cut Dependency on Energy Imports’, The Independent, 25 April 1991.
James E. Auer, ‘Article 9 ...’, p. 178.
US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Arming Our Allies: Cooperation and Competition in Defense Technology (Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, May 1990) p. 108.
J. T. Bergner, The New Super Powers — Germany, Japan and the US and the New World Order (St. Martin’s Press, 1991) p. 174.
James E. Auer, ‘Japan’s Defense Policy’, Current History, vol. 87, no. 528, April 1988, p. 147.
Ibid, p. 148.
It is interesting to note that Japan’s territorial interest has since 1931 always lain further south than the offshore Honshu. Okinotorishima, a sprinkling of tiny rocks 1000 miles south of Tokyo, justifies Japan’s claim to 160 000 square miles of ocean. The importance attached to these islands was illustrated in 1988 when the Ministry of Construction spent around $200 mn encasing the rocks in concrete to stop them sinking beneath sea level. Robert Whymant, ‘Japan Crowns Isle’, Daily Telegraph, 28 May 1988.
Dr Young Koo Cha, ‘The Changing Security Climate in Northeast Asia’, International Defense Review, 6/1991, p. 616.
Defense of Japan 1990, Government White Paper, Defense Agency, 1990, p. 132.
‘A Hesitant Patroller of the Pacific’, The Economist, 27 July 1991, pp. 45–6.
Joseph Bermudez, ‘N. Korea On Way To “Decisive” Weapon’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 12 October 1991, p. 653.
C. Kim, ‘Korea-Japan Relations and Japan’s Security Role’, Korean and World Affairs, vol. 12, Spring 1988, pp. 105–6.
Complete withdrawal of US troops from Japan is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future. Budgetary reasons just as much as strategic interests account for this: Japan now meets almost 50 per cent of US costs through the ‘Host Nation Support Programme’; it would be more expensive to re-station US forces in the Continental USA.
J. T. Bergner, The New Super Powers, p. 111.
Chalmers Johnson, ‘The People Who Invented the Mechanical Nightingale’, DAEDALUS, vol. 119, no. 3, Summer 1990, p. 74.
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See Reinhard Drifte, Arms Production in Japan: The Military Applications of Civil Technology (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1986).
‘Moving Against the Flow: Japan’s Defence Build-Up’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 10 August 1991, p. 232.
B. Udis and K. Maskus, ‘Offsets As Industrial Policy: Lessons From Aerospace’, Defence Economics, vol. 2, no. 2, 1991, p. 160.
Note that in Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s Nagoya Works, F-15 production takes place alongside subcontract work for Boeing aircraft. The airframe of the Boeing 767, for example, is made with 15 per cent Japanese parts. Commercial Aerospace now accounts for around 30 per cent of Japan’s aviation industry’s activities. See ‘A Yen for Arms’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 February 1990, p. 59.
See US Department of Defense, Critical Technologies Plan, Committee on Armed Services, US Congress, 15 March 1990.
OTA, Arming Our Allies, p. 104.
‘Japanese Technology Survey’, The Economist, 2 December 1989, p. 4.
‘Japanese Defense Industrial Policy and US-Japan Security Relations’, US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Global Arms Trade (Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, June 1991) pp. 107–20.
Gregory P. Corning, ‘US—Japan Security Cooperation in the 1990s — The Promise of High-Tech Defense’, Asian Survey, vol. 29, no. 3, 1989, p. 278.
Ibid. p. 281.
Robert Thomson, ‘Japan’s Trade Surplus Up 50 per cent’, The Financial Times, 22 January 1992.
Although Japan is the world’s biggest importer of agricultural products, to GATT’s anguish, it still maintains a rice market heavily protected from overseas competition. See Kevin Rafferty and Larry Elliot, ‘Japan Fuels GATT Acrimony Over Rice’, The Guardian, 18 February 1992.
See, D. T. Yasutomo, The Manner of Giving: Strategic Aid and Japanese Foreign Policy (New York: Lexington, 1986).
Tsuneo Akaha, ‘Japan’s Security Policy After US Hegemony’, Millennium, vol. 18, 1989, p. 441.
Japan’s ODA, Overview (Japan Information Office, London, 1989).
Calculated from Japan’s ODA, Overview, ibid.
Stefan Wagstyl, ‘Japan Tops Foreign Assets League’, Financial Times, 27 May 1992.
J. T. Bergner, The New Super Powers, pp. 138–9.
Ron Matthews, ‘Singapore’s “Indigenous” Technological Development’, unpublished mimeo, National University of Singapore, 1990.
See B. Sanwerwei, ‘A CSCE for Asia’, International Defense Review, May 1991, p. 54.
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Matthews, R. (1993). Japan’s Security into the 1990s. In: Matthews, R., Matsuyama, K. (eds) Japan’s Military Renaissance?. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22777-8_1
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