#长文创作激励计划#
1. Japan's new military
Japan's Self-Defense Forces, just over thirty years ago, in 1991, made their first exploratory overseas dispatch in the post-war period, conducting non-combat minesweeping missions to the Persian Gulf in the form of a small Maritime Self-Defense Force after the 1990-1 Gulf War. Over the past three decades, Japan's global military engagement has expanded geographically from the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. In the revised 2018 National Defense Planning Guidelines, the JSDF's scope of action document lists Japan's military doctrine along with the necessary force structure - which has also been extended to the traditional land, sea and air domains, as well as to outer space, cyber and electromagnetic domains. The JSDF has functionally further expanded its scope of operations following the passage of a series of new "peace and security legislations" to engage UN peacekeeping operations, anti-piracy operations, maritime security, logistical support and potentially collective self-defence combat missions in 2015.
Japan's military partnerships and frameworks have also evolved to include not only the United States as its bilateral security treaty and alliance partner, but also multinational alliances, multilateral institutions, and new "quasi-allies" such as Australia's new partners, for example, which has taken action to become the nucleus of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Japan hosted the summit in May 2022) or the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, involving itself, the United States, India and Australia, as well as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept, which contains a focus on maritime military cooperation. In addition, Japan's rise and credibility as a global military power is supported by the growing capabilities of Japan's Self-Defense Forces. The MSDF, Air Self-Defense Force, and Ground Self-Defense Force have long had considerable capabilities for Japan's own direct territorial defense and to provide a defensive complement to the offensive capabilities of the United States stationed in Japan and its environs, a classic "shield" and "spear" division. Workforce. In recent years, though, the JSDF has sought to enhance its capabilities by investing in advanced military technology and hardware
to achieve joint operations with the United States and to obtain their own mobile and flexible forces capable of projection. Power supply. The JSDF inventory now includes amphibious rapid deployment brigades , amphibious ships, eight ballistic forces.
East Asian Politics and Society
Aegis destroyers with missile defense (BMD) capabilities, with plans to further increase BMD assets at sea, helicopter carriers, destroyers converted to "defensive" biplane aircraft carriers, the largest F-35 aircraft force outside the U.S. Air Force, in-flight refueling, unmanned and underwater water vehicles, joint direct attack munitions, air-launched standoff missiles, intelligence satellites, and possible procurement of cruise missiles and hypervelocity gliding projectiles. All these developments suggest that Japan can become a more reliable alliance partner, working more effectively with new partners and deploying force outside its own territory and possibly outside of its traditional defensive "shield" role to use its own counter-forces. In addition, Japan's increased military presence has been strengthened, and mobilization and the use of its military capabilities to achieve international security appear to be new strategic and political intentions. In 2020 and 2012, the Prime Minister created Japan's first National Security Strategy and the National Security Council put forward the concept of "Positive Contribution to Peace".
According to the NSS, Japan will: As a major player in world politics and economy, Japan will make a more active contribution to ensuring peace, stability and prosperity in the international community while realizing its own security and peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, as a "positive promotion of peace" based on the principle of international cooperation. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government's policy of maintaining a positive contribution to peace in 2020 and 2021 reaffirms its centrality in international forums such as the United Nations General Assembly and in the domestic environment to reassure the public about Japan's safe direction. Fumio Kishida, the new prime minister at the end of 2021, was an important advocate of the policy during his previous tenure as Japan's longest-serving foreign minister in postwar 2012 and 2017. Kishida's own concepts, the "Vision for Peace" and the "Realistic Diplomacy for the New Era" elaborated in 2022 essentially continue Abe's policy trajectory of security and defense (Kishida 2022). The declared intentions of the Japanese side are supported by the firm cancellation or de facto hollowing out of a number of constitutional constraints and anti-militaristic principles,
In the past, these principles were seen as both symbolic and a substantial limitation on their military ambitions and external commitments. Japan's procurement of long-range missiles, air refueling, and aircraft carriers challenged its public commitments throughout the post-war period. "Don't be a great military power." In recent years, the Japanese government has effectively reversed the 2008 ban on the peaceful use of space for military purposes, the 2014 principle of arms and military technology exports and institutions, rather than the transfer of defense equipment and technology, and the 2017 limit of 1% of GDP on defense spending. Most importantly, in 2014 Japan lifted the ban on the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, which had been in place since the early 50s of the 20th century (Hughes 2017). In turn, Japan's new capabilities and statements of intent have raised the expectations of its partners that Japan can play a key and more important role in cooperating to consolidate the existing regional and global security order.
Policymakers in Washington, D.C., have long viewed Japan's alignment with U.S. military strategy as the "cornerstone" of maintaining the security architecture throughout the region, and have repeatedly demanded that Japan make a more active military contribution to the alliance and support Japan's other U.S. alliance partners in the region. The R. Biden administration has moved to further strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. The March 2021 Security Advisory Committee statement, the April 2021 Joint Leaders' Statement, the January 2022 SCC Statement, and the May 2022 U.S.-Japan Summit reaffirmed the commitment that Japan and the United States will abide by the "rules-based international order" to deepen defense cooperation in all areas, further work with U.S. allies and partners, and prevent China from challenging the status quo in the region. At the same time, other regional and global partners – through forums such as the Quad, FOIP, ASEAN, recently signed bilateral strategic partnerships with the UK,
Dialogues in countries such as France, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have similarly built expectations that Japan can become a more active and mutually beneficial military partner. A truly more proactive Japan, with its highly specialized JSDF and full suite of technologically advanced military capabilities available to existing and new allies, partners, and frameworks, would powerfully strengthen the international security order, especially at a time when the international security order came under pressure during Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. On the contrary, Japan's move to intensify its military activities outside the traditional economy is clearly of significant interest not only to potential partners, but also to potential adversaries such as China and North Korea.
1.1 Japan's security trajectory
As Japan continues to change shape and expand its presence in terms of geographical scope, traditional and non-traditional domains, functions, partners and frameworks, capabilities, and stated intentions, the question of how to interpret the trajectory and meaning of these n's has been raised. Military ambitions. Not surprisingly, given the inherently controversial nature of Japan's military role in the postwar period, there was no consensus in both international and domestic policymaking and academic circles. The analysis of Japan's expanding and diversifying military commitments, which tends to see development as a continuation and gradual adjustment of the security policy model that still dominated after the war, is often seen as a quadruple classification derived from the interplay of the degree of Japan's willingness to use force consistent with that of the United States. Japan, for most people's analysis, considered largely insistent or tacit, with some modifications, was known as the "Yoshida Doctrine" of the postwar grand strategy devised by Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida (1946-7, 1948-5) and his successors. This line is characterized by a minimalist defensive posture, security dependence on the United States, and the prioritization of economic interests.
If Japan is expanding its military presence, then it remains within the scope of this strategy, still very cautious approach, and is a presence and role primarily to create new partners and frameworks to continue its traditional hedging strategy, avoiding the trapping of the alliance dilemma and abandoning the face of the US allies. This view that Japan continues to follow the Yoshida line has some overlap with the second, still influential analysis, which also tends to assert a fundamental continuity in security policy and stems from an emphasis on the apparently continuing influence of anti-militaristic sentiment at home. According to the annex, Japan's military activities remain severely restricted. A set of "pacifist" or "anti-militarist" norms and identities derived from Article 9 of the 1946 Constitution, or the so-called "peace clause". Some analysts tend to argue that these norms appear to be immutable
, and strongly bind Japan; Other analyses argue that norms and identities are more flexible and capable of making some national security tolerant of military force end up in the name of their contribution to international peace over time.
The third analysis, again, overlaps somewhat with the "pacifist" view
Tradition, and to a certain extent the desire to accept the claims of the Japanese leadership to contribute to international security, suggests that Japan has a relatively strong internationalist and multilateralist tendency in its strategic thinking. Thus, Japan, in reflection of its declared credentials as a liberal and democratic power, or "middle power", is now seeking to strengthen its role in international security and work with multiple partners and institutions, such as the United Nations, beyond the bilateralism of the US-Japan alliance, either to complement relations with the United States, to ease its behavior, or to build a bilateral alliance to deal with the dilemma of trapped and abandoned, or even to lay the groundwork for a new framework for regional and global security. Finally, the fourth analysis, which is cyclical but less common, considers Japan's expansion in the global military sphere to be a harbinger. Strengthen strategic and diplomatic autonomy or even complete strategic independence. 【To be continued】Please stay tuned for the next issue.