A number of turning points—indeed, watershed moments—can be identified in Japan’s security policy, presenting an evolutionary process that falls into decades: the 1950s and 60s as the post-World War II period when the San Francisco Peace Treaty was concluded and Japan’s exclusively defense-oriented posture was established within the Japan-US security framework; the 1970s and 80s, when the Nixon Doctrine prompted adjustment of the division of roles within that framework as well as expansion of Japan’s defense arrangements; the 1990s, when Japan focused on cooperation with the post-Cold War international community and stepped up its engagement in regional security; the 2000s, which brought involvement in the war on terror and other aspects of global security; and the period from the 2010s onward when Japan returned its gaze to regional security in response to China’s military rise.
The two dimensions shaping that historical evolution have been, first, how to procure power, and particularly military power (Japan’s defense capability, the military power of the United States as Japan’s ally, and cooperation with the international community) and, second, in what space to exercise that power (defense of Japanese territory, the area around Japan, the wider region, and the global domain). The above evolutionary process could consequently be regarded as Japan moving on from the early postwar years when it had extremely limited defense capabilities and depended primarily on the military power of the United States within the Japan-US security framework to gradually acquire its own capabilities and continue to expand the spatial dimension.
Throughout the entire postwar period, however, Japan has been unable to exchange its military role as a US ally for an autonomous security policy. The role that Japan can play in response to the military threats it faces, and the possible outbreak of conflict has been limited to some territorial defense grounded firmly in the assumption of the United States stepping in should the conflict escalate. Japan’s lack of autonomy also manifests in the way that it has proclaimed an exclusively defense-oriented policy while in practice avoiding developing the required defense capability - in other words, the quantitative capability to counter a threat, instead long maintaining a basic defense capability, comprising the minimum necessary defense capability so as not to form a power vacuum that becomes a source of instability in the surrounding region.
Modern Japanese security policy could be characterized as a departure from this underlying structure. Here I recap the role of Japan’s security policy from the perspective of deterrence and the expansion of escalation management capacity.
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