While the US-Japan alliance has strengthened since the end of the Cold War, Japan has, almost unnoticed, been building security ties with other partners, in the process reducing the centrality of the US in Japan's security. This book explains why this is happening. Japan pursued security isolationism during the Cold War, but the US was the exception. Japan hosted US bases and held joint military exercises even while shunning contacts with other militaries. Japan also made an exception to its weapons export ban to allow exports to the US. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, Japan's security has undergone a quiet transformation, moving away from a singular focus on the US as its sole security partner. Tokyo has begun diversifying its security ties. This book traces and explains this diversification. The country has initiated security dialogues with Asian neighbors, assumed a leadership role in promoting regional multilateral security cooperation, and begun building bilateral security ties with a range of partners, from Australia and India to the European Union. Japan has even lifted its ban on weapons exports and co-development with non-US partners. This edited volume explores this trend of decreasing US centrality alongside the continued, and perhaps even growing, security (inter) dependence with the US. New Directions in Japan's Security is an essential resource for scholars focused on Japan's national security. It will also interest on a wider basis those wishing to understand why Japan is developing non-American directions in its security strategy.

While the US-Japan alliance has strengthened since the end of the Cold War, Japan has, almost unnoticed, been building security ties with other partners, in the process reducing the centrality of the US in Japan's security. This book explains why this is happening. Japan pursued security isolationism during the Cold War, but the US was the exception. Japan hosted US bases and held joint military exercises even while shunning contacts with other militaries. Japan also made an exception to its weapons export ban to allow exports to the US. Yet, since the end of the Cold War, Japan's security has undergone a quiet transformation, moving away from a singular focus on the US as its sole security partner. Tokyo has begun diversifying its security ties. This book traces and explains this diversification. The country has initiated security dialogues with Asian neighbors, assumed a leadership role in promoting regional multilateral security cooperation, and begun building bilateral security ties with a range of partners, from Australia and India to the European Union. Japan has even lifted its ban on weapons exports and co-development with non-US partners. This edited volume explores this trend of decreasing US centrality alongside the continued, and perhaps even growing, security (inter) dependence with the US. New Directions in Japan's Security is an essential resource for scholars focused on Japan's national security. It will also interest on a wider basis those wishing to understand why Japan is developing non-American directions in its security strategy.

Both the European Union and Japan have been major beneficiaries and supporters of the liberal international order, first led by the United States since the end of World War II. During this period, they have emerged as global powers, however, the very order that nurtured their rise is now facing twin threats. First, through authoritarian China's promotion of alternative models of global governance, and second from a crisis of liberalism, manifested in the policies of President Donald Trump and Brexit. This book explores these challenges faced by both the EU and Japan, providing a multidisciplinary approach to studying the relationship between the two. It analyses their cooperation in terms of security, defence and trade and examines how their shared normative values are ultimately implemented. Having recently concluded an Economic Partnership Agreement and with a Strategic Partnership Agreement in the pipeline, this book asks whether they can convert their latent and modest cooperation into an alternative form of leadership and an antidote to the illiberal tide sweeping the developed world? As the first book to shed light on the new Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Japan, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, as well as European Union politics and international political economy more generally.

Both the European Union and Japan have been major beneficiaries and supporters of the liberal international order, first led by the United States since the end of World War II. During this period, they have emerged as global powers, however, the very order that nurtured their rise is now facing twin threats. First, through authoritarian China's promotion of alternative models of global governance, and second from a crisis of liberalism, manifested in the policies of President Donald Trump and Brexit. This book explores these challenges faced by both the EU and Japan, providing a multidisciplinary approach to studying the relationship between the two. It analyses their cooperation in terms of security, defence and trade and examines how their shared normative values are ultimately implemented. Having recently concluded an Economic Partnership Agreement and with a Strategic Partnership Agreement in the pipeline, this book asks whether they can convert their latent and modest cooperation into an alternative form of leadership and an antidote to the illiberal tide sweeping the developed world? As the first book to shed light on the new Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Japan, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, as well as European Union politics and international political economy more generally.

This book identifies second stage challenges and opportunities for expanding renewable energy into a mainstay of electricity generation that can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power, comparing Japan with several countries in East Asia and Northern Europe. Environmentally sustainable renewable energy technologies have now overtaken fossil fuel and nuclear technologies in terms of total global investment, and the costs of these technologies and related ones (e.g. storage batteries) are rapidly falling. Yet renewable energy use varies greatly from country to country. Major second stage obstacles to replacing fossil and nuclear-fueled electricity generation include the lack of electricity grid capacity and storage assets. Opportunities and solutions include expanding grids regionally and internationally, building flexible smart grids that offer better demand management, and policies that promote the expansion of storage assets, especially grid batteries and hydrogen. In addition, two key factors - electricity market restructuring through unbundling transmission from electricity generating companies; and electricity market liberalization, especially for retail customers - allow consumers to choose power companies based not only on price, but also on method of generation, especially fossil or nuclear generation versus renewable energy.

This book asks why, in the wake of the Cold War, Japan suddenly reversed years of steadfast opposition to security cooperation with its neighbors. Long isolated and opposed to multilateral agreements, Japan proposed East Asia's first multilateral security forum in the early 1990s, emerging as a regional leader. Overcoming Isolationism explores what led to this surprising about-face and offers a corrective to the misperception that Japan's security strategy is reactive to US pressure and unresponsive to its neighbors. Paul Midford draws on newly released official documents and extensive interviews to reveal a quarter century of Japanese leadership in promoting regional security cooperation. He demonstrates that Japan has a much more nuanced relationship with its neighbors and has played a more significant leadership role in shaping East Asian security than has previously been recognized.

This book identifies second stage challenges and opportunities for expanding renewable energy into a mainstay of electricity generation that can replace fossil fuels and nuclear power, comparing Japan with several countries in East Asia and Northern Europe. Environmentally sustainable renewable energy technologies have now overtaken fossil fuel and nuclear technologies in terms of total global investment, and the costs of these technologies and related ones (e.g. storage batteries) are rapidly falling. Yet renewable energy use varies greatly from country to country. Major second stage obstacles to replacing fossil and nuclear-fueled electricity generation include the lack of electricity grid capacity and storage assets. Opportunities and solutions include expanding grids regionally and internationally, building flexible smart grids that offer better demand management, and policies that promote the expansion of storage assets, especially grid batteries and hydrogen. In addition, two key factors - electricity market restructuring through unbundling transmission from electricity generating companies; and electricity market liberalization, especially for retail customers - allow consumers to choose power companies based not only on price, but also on method of generation, especially fossil or nuclear generation versus renewable energy.

Based on extensive Japanese-language materials, this book is the first to examine the development of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force. It addresses: how the GSDF was able to emerge as the post-war successor of the Imperial Japanese Army despite Japan's anti-militarist constitution; how the GSDF, despite the public skepticism and even hostility that greeted its creation, built domestic and international legitimacy; and how the GSDF has responded to changes in international and domestic environments. This path-breaking study of the world's third-largest-economic power's ground army is timely for two reasons. First, the resurgence of tensions in Northeast Asia over territorial disputes, and the emphasis recent Japanese governments have placed on using the GSDF for defending Japan's outlying islands is driving media coverage and specialist interest in the GSDF. Second, the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami has focused global attention on the GSDF as Japan's lead disaster relief organization. This highly informative and thoroughly researched book provides insight for policy makers and academics interested in Japanese foreign and defense policies.

These essays by no means cover all areas of interest in long-term care programs, but they offer new insights (and intriguing questions for future research) about how differently policies in this important area can be carried out in different countries.

Based on extensive Japanese-language materials, this book is the first to examine the development of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force. It addresses: how the GSDF was able to emerge as the post-war successor of the Imperial Japanese Army despite Japan's anti-militarist constitution; how the GSDF, despite the public skepticism and even hostility that greeted its creation, built domestic and international legitimacy; and how the GSDF has responded to changes in international and domestic environments. This path-breaking study of the world's third-largest-economic power's ground army is timely for two reasons. First, the resurgence of tensions in Northeast Asia over territorial disputes, and the emphasis recent Japanese governments have placed on using the GSDF for defending Japan's outlying islands is driving media coverage and specialist interest in the GSDF. Second, the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami has focused global attention on the GSDF as Japan's lead disaster relief organization. This highly informative and thoroughly researched book provides insight for policy makers and academics interested in Japanese foreign and defense policies.

In this book, Paul Midford engages claims that since 9/11 Japanese public opinion has turned sharply away from pacifism and toward supporting normalization of Japan's military power, in which Japanese troops would fight alongside their American counterparts in various conflicts worldwide.
Midford argues that Japanese public opinion has never embraced pacifism. It has, instead, contained significant elements of realism, in that it has acknowledged the utility of military power for defending national territory and independence, but has seen offensive military power as ineffective for promoting other goals--such as suppressing terrorist networks and WMD proliferation, or promoting democracy overseas.
Over several decades, these realist attitudes have become more evident as the Japanese state has gradually convinced its public that Tokyo and its military can be trusted with territorial defense, and even with noncombat humanitarian and reconstruction missions overseas. On this basis, says Midford, we should re-conceptualize Japanese public opinion as attitudinal defensive realism.

In this book, Paul Midford engages claims that since 9/11 Japanese public opinion has turned sharply away from pacifism and toward supporting normalization of Japan's military power, in which Japanese troops would fight alongside their American counterparts in various conflicts worldwide.
Midford argues that Japanese public opinion has never embraced pacifism. It has, instead, contained significant elements of realism, in that it has acknowledged the utility of military power for defending national territory and independence, but has seen offensive military power as ineffective for promoting other goals--such as suppressing terrorist networks and WMD proliferation, or promoting democracy overseas.
Over several decades, these realist attitudes have become more evident as the Japanese state has gradually convinced its public that Tokyo and its military can be trusted with territorial defense, and even with noncombat humanitarian and reconstruction missions overseas. On this basis, says Midford, we should re-conceptualize Japanese public opinion as attitudinal defensive realism.

After decades of solely relying on the United States for its national security needs, over the last decade, Japan has begun to actively develop and deepen its security ties with a growing number of countries and actors in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, a development that has further intensified under the Shinzo Abe administration. This is the first book that provides a comprehensive analysis of the motives and objectives from both the Japanese and the partner-countries' perspectives, and asks what this might mean for the security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region, and what lessons can be learned for security cooperation more broadly. This book is for those interested in Japan's security policy beyond the US-Japan security alliance, and non-US centred bilateral and multilateral security cooperation. It is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate level courses on regional security cooperation and strategic partnerships, and Japanese foreign and security policy. -- .

After decades of solely relying on the United States for its national security needs, over the last decade, Japan has begun to actively develop and deepen its security ties with a growing number of countries and actors in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe, a development that has further intensified under the Shinzo Abe administration. This is the first book that provides a comprehensive analysis of the motives and objectives from both the Japanese and the partner-countries' perspectives, and asks what this might mean for the security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region, and what lessons can be learned for security cooperation more broadly. This book is for those interested in Japan's security policy beyond the US-Japan security alliance, and non-US centred bilateral and multilateral security cooperation. It is an ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate level courses on regional security cooperation and strategic partnerships, and Japanese foreign and security policy. -- .