Chapter Nine: Options for Japan’s foreign policy

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 In addition to several technological difficulties – e.g. miniaturization of warheads, development of long-range sea-borne missiles and the construction of deepdiving submarines – Japan’s extreme vulnerability, due to the small size of her territory and the concentration of population, makes it almost impossible for her to create a state of mutual deterrence. Targeting also poses serious difficulties. Strong domestic opposition and unfavourable international reaction to Japan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons seems almost certain, and in view of this it is better for Japan to remain a threshold power than actually to become a nuclear power. On Japanese capability for nuclear armament, see Strategic Survey 1972 (London: IISS, 1973), pp. 40–42. For a representative Japanese view, see Kiichi Saeki, ‘Japan’s Security in a Multipolar World’, in East Asia and the World System: The Regional Powers, Adelphi Paper No. 92 (London: IISS, 1972), pp. 23–28.

2 Asian Analysis, November 1972.

3 Le Monde, 10 July 1969.

4 At the 15th Congress of Soviet Trade Unions Brezhnev advocated a system of collective security based on such principles as the renunciation of the use of force between states, respect for sovereignty and the inviolability of frontiers, and extensive development of economic and other co-operation on the basis of complete equality and mutual advantage (Soviet News, 4 July 1972).

5 Asian Analysis, May 1972.

6 The Implications of Chinese Nuclear Force for US Strategic and Arms Control Policies (Washington: Brookings Institution, January 1973).

7 Morton Abramowitz, Moving the Glacier: The Two Koreas and the Powers, Adelphi Paper No. 80 (London: IISS, 1971), p. 24.