Japan rearmed: the politics of military power

In Japan rearmed, Sheila Smith traces the ‘trajectory of Japan's increasing embrace of the military’, with chapters on the Cold War period and on Japan's deployment of its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) abroad (p. 17). Subsequent chapters focus on mobilizing the SDF, revisiting constitutional debates and relying on borrowed (United States') power, culminating in a concluding chapter. Unlike much media and even scholarly claims that Japan is ‘finally shedding pacifism’, Smith argues that ‘the most consequential debates about the constitution's influence over how to arm Japan and how to use force to defend it took place decades ago’ (p. 8). While there is a general consensus that Japan's defence has experienced notable change since the 1990s, the significance and trajectory of that change has been the subject of sharp disagreement. In the introduction, Smith argues that Japan has been increasingly comfortable with viewing ‘the military as an instrument of statecraft’ (p. 17). Yet, much of her book documents a contrast between Japan's increasingly muscular efforts to enhance the defence of Japanese territory and meaningful change in Japan's unwillingness to use force beyond its territory.

Smith traces the late prime minister Shinzo Abe's successful 2014 constitutional reinterpretation to allow for the exercise of the right of collective self-defence to defend countries considered critically important to Japan. A year later, a broad package of security legislation was enacted, authorizing the use of force abroad. And yet, as the author notes, ‘despite Abe's efforts … the political sensitivity over the use of force by the SDF—when and if it can use its weapons beyond Japanese territory—remains’ and ‘Japan's military continues to be organized for self-defense’ (p. 236). The shaping of the SDF is a crucial indicator of what missions Japan intends to, and is prepared to, undertake, and the country's lack of significant offensive capabilities is telling.

Smith identifies two causes for the recent changes in Japan's defence policy. The first is the perception of a worsening threat environment in north-east Asia. She identifies North Korea as one reason, but concludes that the new status quo of continual confrontation with China over the Senkaku Islands has had a transformative impact on Japanese threat perceptions. According to Smith, ‘Tokyo saw Beijing's challenge to its administrative control over the Senkaku Islands as a grave risk to Japan's security … For the first time in the postwar era, Japan could be the object of aggression … Defense of the Senkakus became equated with the defense of Japan’ (pp. 215–16). The second cause relates to the growing concerns about the reliability of the US defence commitment to Japan. She also identifies Donald Trump's questioning of the alliance as a major source of Japan's concerns. In the words of defence minister Inada Tomomi, Trump's call for Japan to greatly expand the amount of money it spends prompted Japanese defence leaders ‘to think more seriously about what Japan could do on its own to defend itself’ (p. 233). According to Smith, Japanese leaders argued that ‘the SDF rather than U.S. forces would be more appropriate recipients of Japanese taxpayer money’ (p. 233).

While Smith has written an excellent account of Japan's rearmament, there are a few misleading claims. When referring to a 2004 incident when a Chinese submarine navigated, submerged, through the Miyako Strait, the author claims that ‘while Japan's straits are classified as open waters for passage, submarines must surface under international law’ (p. 113). However, the Miyako Strait is not a Japanese strait. At 250 kilometres wide, the middle of the Miyako Strait sits outside Japan's territorial waters and constitutes international waters, as far as navigation is concerned under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Then, Smith characterizes the massive mobilization of the SDF, in response to the great east Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami, as a ‘turning point in the Japanese public's views of their military’ (p. 225). While the SDF did get a significant boost in public support, it had benefited from strong support ratings for decades and had been engaged in large-scale and popular disaster relief operations since 1959. Finally, Smith claims that Japanese leaders ‘are far more willing to use’ the SDF ‘as a means of Japan's contribution to global security challenges than in the past’ (p. 225). Yet, this ignores Japan's complete withdrawal from boots-on-the-ground unit level participation in overseas peacekeeping missions under Abe.

These issues aside, Smith has produced an outstanding book on how Japan's debate over rearmament has changed over the past seven decades. It should be required reading for experts and students alike.