{"title":"Japan's Decaying Antimilitarism Ecosystem","authors":"C. Hughes","doi":"10.1353/asp.2023.0023","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"J apan’s postwar military posture has always demanded careful analysis, given its intricacies and implications for East Asian security. Right now, it warrants even greater attention with the government’s avowed intention in its 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS) to “fundamentally reinforce Japan’s defense capabilities.”1 Tom Phuong Le’s Japan’s Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century forms a key part of the debate on Japan’s military trajectory and should be read by all scholars and practitioners engaged in this topic. It contains much that is valuable, innovative, and provocative. At the same time, the volume presents overextended claims and argumentation that undermine its conclusions and impact. These issues were evident upon the volume’s release in mid-2021, and events thereafter—Japan’s further “major shift” or “major transformation” of its defense posture—have confirmed these flaws.2 The essential contention of Japan’s Aging Peace is that many scholars and practitioners, and particularly “realists,” have too readily accepted the factors contributing to Japanese “remilitarization” or “normalization” but have not focused enough on the continuing and dominant strength of internal obstacles—both material and ideational—in forming an “antimilitarism ecosystem” (p. 33) that prevents Japan from remilitarizing, or at least remilitarizing along a certain trajectory. If Japan is experiencing any change in its military posture, then it is toward types of “militarism” that leave the constraints of the past intact and contribute to nontraditional security objectives, such as UN peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.","PeriodicalId":53442,"journal":{"name":"Asia Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Asia Policy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/asp.2023.0023","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
J apan’s postwar military posture has always demanded careful analysis, given its intricacies and implications for East Asian security. Right now, it warrants even greater attention with the government’s avowed intention in its 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS) to “fundamentally reinforce Japan’s defense capabilities.”1 Tom Phuong Le’s Japan’s Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century forms a key part of the debate on Japan’s military trajectory and should be read by all scholars and practitioners engaged in this topic. It contains much that is valuable, innovative, and provocative. At the same time, the volume presents overextended claims and argumentation that undermine its conclusions and impact. These issues were evident upon the volume’s release in mid-2021, and events thereafter—Japan’s further “major shift” or “major transformation” of its defense posture—have confirmed these flaws.2 The essential contention of Japan’s Aging Peace is that many scholars and practitioners, and particularly “realists,” have too readily accepted the factors contributing to Japanese “remilitarization” or “normalization” but have not focused enough on the continuing and dominant strength of internal obstacles—both material and ideational—in forming an “antimilitarism ecosystem” (p. 33) that prevents Japan from remilitarizing, or at least remilitarizing along a certain trajectory. If Japan is experiencing any change in its military posture, then it is toward types of “militarism” that leave the constraints of the past intact and contribute to nontraditional security objectives, such as UN peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
贾潘战后的军事态势一直需要仔细分析,因为其复杂性和对东亚安全的影响。目前,政府在其2022年国家安全战略(NSS)和国防战略(NDS)中公开表示,要“从根本上加强日本的防御能力”,这一点值得更多关注。“1 Tom Phuong Le的《日本的老龄化和平:二十一世纪的和平主义和军国主义》是关于日本军事轨迹的辩论的关键部分,所有从事这一主题的学者和从业者都应该阅读。它包含了许多有价值、创新和挑衅性的东西。同时,该卷提出了过度扩张的主张和论证,破坏了其结论和影响。这些问题在该卷于2021年年中发行时就很明显了,此后发生的事件——日本国防态势的进一步“重大转变”或“重大转型”——也证实了这些缺陷,特别是“现实主义者”,过于容易接受促成日本“再军事化”或“正常化”的因素,但在形成阻止日本再军事化的“反军事生态系统”(第33页)时,没有足够关注内部障碍的持续和主导力量,包括物质和思想障碍,或者至少沿着某一轨迹重新军事化。如果说日本的军事态势发生了任何变化,那么它将走向一种“军国主义”,这种“军国主义“保留了过去的限制,有助于实现非传统的安全目标,如联合国维和行动、人道主义援助和救灾。
期刊介绍:
Asia Policy is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal presenting policy-relevant academic research on the Asia-Pacific that draws clear and concise conclusions useful to today’s policymakers.