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"Rich Nation, Strong Army" - National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Paperback, New edition) Loot Price: R959
Discovery Miles 9 590
"Rich Nation, Strong Army" - National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Paperback, New edition): Richard...

"Rich Nation, Strong Army" - National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan (Paperback, New edition)

Richard J. Samuels

Series: Cornell Studies in Political Economy

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A scholar's original and illuminating interpretation of what makes Japan a power to be reckoned with in the global village's marketplace. Moving confidently back and forth through history, Samuels (Political Science/MIT) offers a wealth of perspectives on the geopolitical and socioeconomic implications of the phrase that is the title of his absorbing text. As a rallying cry, the phrase dates back to the 19th-century Meiji Restoration when reformers resolved to overcome the stagnation caused by the Tokugawa shogunate's isolationism. While freed from the shackles of a feudal past, the author shows, Japan remained insecure about its post-1868 future in a world presumed to be hostile. Militarist regimes engineered a catch-up mobilization of resources that led to Japan's calamitous defeat in WW II. After that, Samuels observes, the nation's leaders simply shifted course. Protected under the security blanket afforded by America's Cold War with the Soviet Union, Samuels reports, Japan devised a three-part policy that made technology an indigenous part of the national culture and dispersed it throughout the domestic economy while nurturing the local enterprises that could employ it to advantage (it also became an indispensable element of national security). At the same time, he points out, the country's multinationals geared themselves to accommodate defense as well as commercial work, thereby gaining considerable protection against cyclical swings in procurement. Although aggressive efforts to counteract the lingering effects of late development strike some critics as retrograde mercantilism, the author argues persuasively that Japan's continuing drive for unassailable autonomy (in aircraft, communications, and other strategic industries) is firmly rooted in ancient ideologies and institutions designed to serve the public interest. A genuinely fresh framework in which to evaluate the challenges a Pacific Rim colossus poses for the West. Photos and helpful tabular material throughout. (Kirkus Reviews)
Since World War II, Japan has become not only a model producer of high-tech consumer goods, but also-despite minimal spending on defense-a leader in innovative technology with both military and civilian uses. In the United States, nearly one in every three scientists and engineers was engaged in defense-related research and development at the end of the Cold War, but the relative strength of the American economy has declined in recent years. What is the relationship between what has happened in the two countries? And where did Japan's technological excellence come from? In an economic history that will arouse controversy on both sides of the Pacific, Richard J. Samuels finds a key to Japan's success in an ideology of technological development that advances national interests. From 1868 until 1945, the Japanese economy was fired by the development of technology to enhance national security; the rallying cry "Rich Nation, Strong Army" accompanied the expanded military spending and aggressive foreign policy that led to the disasters of the War in the Pacific. Postwar economic planners reversed the assumptions that had driven Japan's industrialization, Samuels shows, promoting instead the development of commercial technology and infrastructure. By valuing process improvements as much as product innovation, the modern Japanese system has built up the national capacity to innovate while ensuring that technological advances have been diffused broadly through industries such as aerospace that have both civilian and military applications. Struggling with the uncertainties of a post-Cold War economy, the United States has important lessons to learn from the way Japan has subordinated defense production yet emerged as one of the most technologically sophisticated nations in the world. The Japanese, like the Venetians and the Dutch before them, show us that butter is just as likely as guns to make a nation strong, but that nations cannot hope to be strong without an ideology of technological development that nourishes the entire national economy.

General

Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of origin: United States
Series: Cornell Studies in Political Economy
Release date: May 1996
First published: May 1996
Authors: Richard J. Samuels
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 27mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - Trade / Trade
Pages: 480
Edition: New edition
ISBN-13: 978-0-8014-9994-4
Categories: Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Defence strategy, planning & research > General
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LSN: 0-8014-9994-1
Barcode: 9780801499944

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