Japan's defense and security policy has remained an important area of research as it presents a somewhat paradoxical case. Japan is a wealthy industrialized nation, but still faces constitutional and institutional constraints on how it can pursue national security. Under the constitution's renowned Article 9, the state formally aims at an international peace, based on justice and order, and thus renounces its right to maintain armed forces with war potential. But almost throughout the post-war period, Japan has maintained de facto armed forces, referred to as the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF). Indeed, because Article 9 remains in place, Tokyo reinterpreted this constraint to pass legislation and implement defense policy decisions that authorize the SDF to play a much greater role abroad in international peacekeeping operations and reconstruction and rebuilding abroad after conflict or war.
It is thus not surprising that in light of such significant, contentious changes, numerous studies have examined Japan's shifting defense and security policy through a wide range of lenses – realism, liberalism, and constructivism, or some combination of them – to ascertain where Japan's national defense sits. Most claim to advance understanding of Japan's security policy and offer a new analytical label. Bhubhindar Singh's book does just that through the concept of Japan's security identity. It is a welcome addition to this literature.
Published in 2013, Singh's book presents an excellent overview of the existing literature and offers a solid critique as the basis for advancing his own framework for understanding Japan's security policy. He traces the changes in Japan's security policy through two distinct phases: cold war and post-cold war. He argues that while Japan largely maintained a strong ‘pacifist state’ identity through the cold war period, from the 1990s Japan's security policymaking elite recognized the pacifist approach based on this identity was no longer workable. In its reinterpretation of Article 9 and the nation's security needs, Japan as a powerful member of the international community needed to forge a responsible role in regional and international security affairs, requiring a new security identity for the nation and a new emphasis on the role of the military in its national security policy.
Singh casts this identity shift from a domestically focused ‘peace state’ in cold war to an ‘international state’ in post-cold war. His central argument is that even though Japan's ‘military’ activities have now expanded far beyond the original intention of the so-called peace constitution and into the international arena, these activities are essentially conducted as Japan's contribution to help maintain global peace and stability, consistent with Article 9 claiming Japan's aspiration to an international peace based on justice and order. These activities are thus in no way ‘synonymous with a return to Japan's militaristic past’ (p. 160).
Analyzing through this ‘security identity’ approach, Singh challenges the dominant realist interpretation of Japan's security policy. He acknowledges that realist studies do capture the trajectory of Japan's post-cold war security policy, but argues they cannot explain the thinking that has driven the transformation in the nation's security behavior post-cold war. For Singh, Japan has not pursued a purely power-based policy, as evident in (1) defense spending, with long-term stability and indeed reductions in the defense budget since 2000; (2) rejection of the nuclear option; and (3) limiting expansion in the security field to humanitarian and disaster relief and to non-combat military roles (pp. 2–3).
To illustrate his argument, Singh takes readers on a detailed journey through Japan's security policies from early post-war to early post-cold war. The narrative provides readers with a comprehensive overview of changes in policy and legislation concerning Japan's national defense over this period. Changes implemented in the latter period are narrated in particular detail to justify his claim of Japan's transformation into an international state.
The book ends in 2011 with Japan under the administration of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the hands of Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko. Singh regards DPJ policy as essentially a continuation of the Liberal Democratic Party's policy despite the DPJ's earlier status as opposition to the long-standing LDP. Like many observers, Singh did not anticipate the swift return of the LDP headed by Abe Shinzo at the end of 2012, and the unprecedented dimensions that Abe's administration have inserted into the nation's security and defense posture.
Singh's argument against realist explanations may need significant revision if it is updated to include the defense aspirations, policies, and pursuits of the second Abe administration from late 2012. Prime Minister Abe is now pressing for collective self-defense, further reinterpretation and amendment of the Constitution, including Article 9, a much greater role for the SDF, and an increased defense budget. These developments indicate Japan is once again on the verge of reinterpreting its constitution to legitimize greater power and involvement in military activities outside Japan for its defense forces.
A few issues around the book bother this reviewer. First, its title conveys a meaning slightly different from what the author apparently intended. Japan's security identity has not been transformed from a peace state to an international state. Rather, the story explains that Japan has expanded its pacifist approach to security from the domestic into the international arena. Japan maintains its peace state identity and has simply extended this identity to the international level through actions that Japan as a state considers promote peace internationally. Second, the readers’ journey through Japan's security policies from early post-war to early post-cold war is in many places repetitious. For example, too many times readers are reminded of the content of future or past Chapters 4–6 (pp. 8, 74, 75) and even some quotes are repeated such as Nakayama Taro's ‘peace has its price and we have to pay for it’ (pp. 84, 108). The acronym ODA is said to refer to Overseas Development Assistance (p. xiv and throughout text) but it is in fact Official Development Assistance. These errors are small but they misinform readers; in students’ essays, markers have a tough time convincing students that the book is wrong and the marker is right!
While this book is important in presenting Japan's security policy through a new lens, its capacity for an even more useful insight is restricted by the absence of new empirical material and case studies. Singh bases his analytical discussions essentially on extant materials, which he cleverly weaves into his conceptual framework. The value of the book thus lies in its reinterpretation of existing materials rather than uncovering new information and insight through new empirical materials.
Notwithstanding these minor quibbles, this is a solid piece of work that usefully presents a new perspective to clarify Japan's national security arrangements. I would definitely recommend this book to upper-level students and to anyone interested in understanding the seemingly paradoxical developments in Japan's security policy over the last six decades.
