Chapter Seven: Japan’s security in a multipolar world

Abstract

Strategic links between Japan and Europe during the Cold War were limited. During this period the IISS helped bridge the gap between the two, exposing its membership base to the international affairs of Asia and Japan and providing Japanses scholars, strategists and diplomats with a platform from which to amplify their voices in the West. Analyses by these experts often appeared in IISS publications, but the Institute also gained key insights through its well-established conferences and lecture series. These initiatives illuminated Japanese strategic thinking and perspectives on contemporary critical issues in Japan’s and Asia’s foreign, security and defence policy.

This Adelphi book, through its collection of earlier analysis, helps the reader to understand the evolution of Japanese strategic thought from the 1960s until today, and shines a light on the continuities and changes in this thinking. New, original analysis of the material seeks to identify areas where such thinking was prescient and remains relevant to the contemporary strategic environment, and other areas where predictions failed or assumptions were proved wrong. These new essays were also informed by interviews of Japanese senior scholars and diplomats who spent time with the IISS. This book seeks to frame, educate and guide strategic thinking on the most pressing issues of today, both in and outside Japan and Asia, and will be of great interest to analysts, practitioners and students of international affairs.

Notes

1 ‘We must remember the only time in the history of the world that we have had any extended periods of peace is when there has been balance of power. It is when one nation becomes infinitely more powerful in relation to its potential competitor that the danger of war arises. So I believe in a world in which the United States is powerful. I think it will be a safer world and a better world if we have a strong, healthy United States, Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other, not playing one against the other, an even balance.’ Time, 3 January 1972.

2 See Adelphi Paper No. 91, p. 40.

3 US Foreign Policy for the 1970s: Building for Peace. A Report to the Congress (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1971).

4 See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Fragile Blossom: Crisis and Change in Japan (New York: Harper and Row, 1972).