Creating Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945-2015 is a timely
contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first
comprehensive account of Japan's post-1945 army, including a
comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of
roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional
identities. The organizational history is embedded within a
thorough examination of Japan's own defense policy, as well as of
America's policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and
challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War
Renunciation clause of Japan's postwar Peace Constitution, Article
9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war.
Thus Japan's army is not called an army, but the Ground
Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an
army and soldiers in the formation of Japan's national identity
after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of
constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power
of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army
on GSDF members who seek to serve because "there are people we want
to protect." The study is rounded by an examination of the place of
soldiers in Japan's popular culture, focused on movies, manga and
anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination
that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with
a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF
members themselves have started to appear in the last few years.
The book's author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than
twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a
broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is
extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and
will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies,
alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as
well as to students of military history, international security,
international relations, and cultural identity.
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