Monumenta Nipponica

Under the political leadership of Abe Shinzō, Japan has stepped up its security engagement through a new security regime, new doctrines, a new foreign-policy activism, and an expansion and deepening of the country's strategic horizons, perfectly encapsulated in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision. In her welcome new study, Sheila A. Smith traces the process behind Japan's security coming-of-age from the postwar years to the present day; while providing a panoramic perspective on the evolution and politics of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), she argues that contemporary Japan has embraced the military as a tool of statecraft. Her book is organized into five brisk, well-written chapters that provide excellent reading material for university students and policy makers unaware of postwar Japan's military trajectory who are interested in understanding the contemporary history, as well as the external and internal drivers, of Japan's security policy.

The first chapter highlights the calculations behind postwar and Cold War Japan's minimalistic defense posture, one that is better described as a defensive realist stance preoccupied with ameliorating the regional security dilemma while channeling resources and manpower into economic reconstruction. This position was the natural outgrowth of a potent mix of factors—a well-rooted antimilitarist ethos that germinated in the rubble of defeat and early demilitarization efforts by US Occupation authorities; a wide consensus amid the political and bureaucratic class in favor of economic development; and diffuse fears of becoming ensnared into US military operations in the near abroad. The huge casualties among US and allied forces in Korea and, especially, Vietnam were powerful reminders to Japanese policy makers of the merits of sticking to an "exclusive self-defense" security orientation, so much so that the JSDF abided by this military posture from the moment of its formal establishment in 1954 to the early post–Cold War years.

The chapter's account of Japan's security regime in the early postwar and Cold War periods is particularly informative, thanks in part to Smith's earlier research on the topic for her unpublished doctoral dissertation. Smith details how the military was not merely subordinated to civilian power, or "control of the suits." In fact, the Defense Agency was under the guidance of the prime minister and staffed by officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Ministry of Finance (MOF), and Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), a telling hint of Japan's locus of power. Smith's discussion privileges the role of Defense Agency personalities—including Nakasone Yasuhiro, Sakata Michiya, and Kubo Takuya—in steering change but would have benefited from consideration of the bureaucratic politics among the Defense Agency and the aforementioned ministries, especially MOF and MOFA. [End Page 182]

In the second chapter Smith explores the JSDF's steady enlargement of its remit in the post–Cold War years. She underlines the significance of the Gulf War of 1990–1991 as a traumatic shock to Japanese policy makers, who discovered that Japan's financial contribution to the multinational coalition, however generous, was not enough to keep US counterparts from lamenting its inability to contribute troops or hardware. These events had an immediate impact: Japan sent minesweeping operations to the Persian Gulf following the cessation of hostilities, and MOFA would later persuade Diet members from the Liberal Democratic Party to allow the JSDF to be dispatched overseas through the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (PKO). The landmark 1992 PKO legislation sanctioned those missions under strict conditions. Japan's subsequent overseas engagement in the first decade of the twentyfirst century, from refueling operations in support of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to reconstruction and support activities in Samawah (Iraq) and antipiracy operations off the Gulf of Aden, are all nicely contextualized in Smith's account. Smith stresses the ad hoc nature of the legislation that allowed for these missions, which included sunset clauses and strict guidelines on matters such as the use of weapons...