Is Japan's Aging Peace Aging Gracefully?

Abstract

W ith Japan’s Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century, Tom Phuong Le has written what is arguably the most comprehensive and compelling scholarly book-length study to address the question “can Japan become a major military power?” Moreover, the book answers with a resounding “no.” Le devotes two chapters to explaining the demographic and technical-infrastructural constraints on Japan’s industry and economy that he identifies as major barriers to Japan’s reemergence as a major military power. Nonetheless, at the heart of Le’s argument are claims that antimilitarism, peace culture, and normative restraints prevent Japan from reemerging as a major military power, which is what one would expect from an unabashedly constructivist work. Two years after its publication, the material constraints identified in Le’s book, especially demographic, but also technological and economic, have changed little or become even more binding. But what about the ideational constraints on the country’s reemergence as a military power, specifically antimilitarism, peace culture, and political and normative restraints? While they still exist, it is easy to argue that since 2021, and especially 2022, these ideational constraints have become far less limiting. Many observers argue that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China’s large-scale military exercises around Taiwan following the visit of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to that island in August 2022, have redrawn the baseline for how the Japanese public views issues of war and peace, creating a far more permissive environment for Japan to “finally cast off pacifism” (something that pundits have been telling us at regular intervals over the past thirty years has just been achieved) and reemerge as a great military power. Certainly, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, opinion polls in Japan showed a jump in support for increasing military spending. A plurality or small majority of those polled also supported Japan’s acquisition of counterstrike capabilities, which would allow the country to attack military bases in foreign countries. Following this shift, the Kishida administration announced a dramatic increase in Japan’s defense spending (although less than the doubling that had originally been discussed) as well as plans to