Japan's Remilitarisation

Is Japan on a path towards assuming a greater military role internationally, or has the recent military normalisation ground to a halt since the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi? In this book, Christopher W. Hughes assesses developments in defence expenditure, civil'¬ ;military relations, domestic and international military'¬ ;industrial complexes, Japan'¬"s procurement of regional and global power-projection capabilities, the expansion of US'¬ ;Japan cooperation, and attitudes towards nuclear weapons, constitutional revision and the use of military force. In all of these areas, dynamic and long-term changes outweigh Japan'¬"s short-term political logjam over security policy. Hughes argues that many post-war constraints on Japan'¬"s military role are still eroding, and that Tokyo is moving towards a more assertive military role and strengthened US'¬ ;Japan cooperation. Japan'¬"s remilitarisation will boost its international security role and the dominance of the US'¬ ;Japan alliance in regional and global security affairs, but will need to be carefully managed if it is not to become a source of destabilising tensions.

Christopher W. Hughes is Professor of International Politics and Japanese at the Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, UK. He was previously a Research Fellow at the University of Hiroshima, and Asahi Shimbun Visiting Professor of Mass Media and Politics in the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo. In 2009-10 he will be the Edwin O. Reischauer Visiting Professor of Japanese Studies at the Department of Government/Reischauer Institute, Harvard University. His publications include Japan's Re-emergence as a 'Normal' Military Power (Adelphi 368-9).