Abstract
A man who has recently lost all the money he had earned, his job, house, children, and wife is probably not interested in buying insurance. If security is defined as “the absence of threats to acquired values,”1 most Japanese who had nothing to lose but their lives could not afford to think about Japan’s military security when the Pacific War ended, like the man just described. But, of course, this is not to say that the Japanese government did not have any security policy at all at that particular moment. It may sound paradoxical, but Japan’s surrender itself was a strategic choice to protect 72 million Japanese lives, the homeland, and the political regime, though one may wonder if Japan had any other choice but surrender.2
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Notes
Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), p. 150.
See, for example, Robert J. C. Butow, Japan’s Decision to Surrender (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1954).
Cathal J. Nolan, ed., The Longman Guide to World Affairs (London: Longman, 1995), p. 87.
Shigeru Yoshida, Kaiso junen [Reminiscences of Ten Years], vol. 2 (Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1957), p. 30.
John L. Gaddis, “The Strategy of Containment,” in Containment, eds. Thomas H. Etzold and John L. Gaddis (NY: Columbia University Press, 1978), p. 27.
The distinction between “spontaneous” and “imposed” norms are borrowed from Oran Young’s differentiation of regimes. See, Oran R. Young, International Cooperation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), chapter 4. See also, Thomas Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Culture and National Security, ed. Peter J. Katzenstein (NY: Columbia University Press, 1997), pp. 317–56.
According to recent studies, Ashida made an amendment without realizing that his amendment could make such interpretation possible. For example, see Koseki Shoichi, Shin kenpo no tanjo [The Birth of the New Constitution] (Tokyo: Chuo Koron Sha, 1985), especially chapter 9. See also, Theodore McNelly, Politics and Government in Japan, 2nd ed. (NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), pp. 241, 32–36.
Kyoiku-sha, ed., Boeicho [The Defense Agency] (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1979), pp. 93–94.
Tetsuya Kataoka, Waiting for a Pearl Harbor: Japan Debates Defense (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), p. 5.
Nishimura Kumao, Sanfuranshisuko Heiwa Joyaku [The San Francisco Peace Treaty] (Tokyo: Kajima Kenkyujo Shuppankai, 1971), pp. 19–52. See also, Martin E. Weinstein, Japan’s Postwar Defense Policy (NY: Columbia University Press, 1969). Ashida, who assumed power after Katayama in March 1948, however, lost in October after being involved in the so-called Showa Electric Industry Scandal. Then, Yoshida came back to power in October 1948, and he substantially succeeded to Ashida’s foreign policy initiatives toward the United States.
John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 106.
There Ikeda said: As such a treaty probably would require the maintenance of U.S. forces to secure the treaty terms and for other purposes, if the U.S. Government hesitates to stipulate certain terms, the Japanese Government will try to find way to offer them. (Quoted in Miyazawa Kiichi, Tokyo-Washinton no mitsudan [The Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington] (Tokyo: Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha, 1956), pp. 44–46.)
On bandwagoning, see, for example, Randall L. Scheweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit: Bringing the Revisionist State Back In,” International Security 19:1 (1994): 72–107.
Nishimura Kumao, Kaitex shinban, Anzenhosho joyaku-ron [Revised Edition, On the Security Treaty] (Tokyo: Jiji Press, 1967), p. 59.
Martin E. Weinstein, “Strategic Thought and the U.S.-Japan Alliance,” in Forecast for Japan: Security in the 1970s, ed. James William Morley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 35–84.
John K. Emmerson, “Japan, Eye on 1970,” Foreign Affairs 47:2 (January 1967): 348–62.
Wakaizumi Kei, Tasaku nakarishi o shinzemu to hossu [I Want to Believe We Had No Alternatives] (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1994), p. 447.
John C. Campbell, “Hikettei no Nihon no boei seisaku” [Non-Decision making in Japan’s Defense Policy], in Sekai seiji no naka no Nihon seiji [Japanese Politics in World Politics], eds. Tomita Nobuo and Sone Yasunori (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1983), pp. 71–100.
On the Miki administration’s defense policy, see Otake Hideo, Nihon no boei to kokunai seiji [Japan’s Defense Policy and Domestic Politics] (Tokyo: San-ichi Shobo, 1983). See also, John E. Endicott, “The Defense Policy of Japan,” in The Defence Policies of Nations, eds. Douglas J. Murray and Paul R. Viotti (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1982), pp. 446–67.
Samuel P. Huntington, “America’s Changing Strategic Interests,” Survival 33:1 (January–February 1991): 3–17, 8.
Japan Defense Agency, Defense of Japan (1999), pp. 135–142.
See Jitsuo Tsuchiyama, “The End of the Alliance?: Dilemmas in the U.S.-Japan Relations,” in United States-Japan Relations and International Institutions after the Cold War, eds. Peter Gourevitch et al. (San Diego: University of California, 1995), pp. 3–35.
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© 2000 Inoguchi Takashi and Purnendra Jain
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Jitsuo, T. (2000). Ironies in Japanese Defense and Disarmament Policy. In: Takashi, I., Jain, P. (eds) Japanese Foreign Policy Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62529-1_8
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