Download This PaperWhere Power Projection Ends: Constraints on Japanese Militarization
48 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2011 Last revised: 10 Aug 2011
Date Written: 2011
Abstract
Recent scholarship analyzing Japanese defense policy has been sensationalistic. Challenging the constructivist argument that an antimilitarism norm has constrained Japanese militarization, realists have called attention to Japan’s technologically advanced military, procurement of sophisticated weaponry, increased public support for the Japan Self-Defense Force, and a strategy of buck-passing as evidence of “normalization,” “militarization,” and the emergence of a “great power.” However, is this really the case? Has Japan embarked on a new aggressive path, negating decades of pacifism? In this paper, I propose a cross-paradigmatic approach for analyzing Japan’s military strength by combining constructivist, liberal, and realist arguments. First, this paper provides a systematic comparison of militaries in East Asia to measure relative power. In context of a rapidly militarizing East Asia and the emergence of new threats, Japan’s military policy has been moderate modernization, not militarization. Second, this paper offers a typology of constraints on the Japanese military. Social, technical, normative, and political factors limit Japanese power projection capabilities in the present, and will become more debilitating in the future.
Keywords: Japan, Security, Militarism, Constructivism, Realism, Norms
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