Date of Award

1-1-2009

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Josef Korbel School of International Studies

First Advisor

Paul R. Viotti, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Anthony Hayter

Third Advisor

Thomas Drohan

Keywords

Defense, Guidelines, Japan, Preventive, Security, Strategy

Abstract

The Japanese government is now reviewing the National Defense Program Guidelines in and after FY 2005 (NDPG 04), and this review will be completed by the end of this year. Even though NDPG 04 provides Japan's security and defense policy vision to FY 2014, the government nevertheless has decided to change it completely. The purpose of this thesis is to know the reason why the Japanese government has decided to change NDPG 04 completely, the likely contents of NDPG 09, and NDPG 09's effect on the US-Japan alliance.

The globalizing international society and threats have been increasingly diversified and multi-polarized since the end of the Cold War, and Japan cannot deal with them alone. The fiscal crisis and scandals within the ministry of defense (MOD) and the Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF) have led to a renewed discussion of the security of Japan and the US-Japan security arrangement, particularly given the present five-year review of NDPG 04 now underway. The Japanese political environment on national security changed dramatically during the Koizumi administration (2001-06), which allowed for calm discussion of Japan's security policy not just among Japan's leaders, but also among the general population.

More recently, governmental policymakers have recognized that it is impossible for Japan to deal with these international and domestic security issues under NDPG 04 and with the present security and defense system. Therefore they have decided to strengthen Japan's security system in the forthcoming NDPG 09 while still remaining compliant with Article 9 of the Japan's Constitution. Whichever party or party coalition wins the next general election later this year, the new leadership likely will see Japan's cooperation not only with the United States, but also with other countries both bilaterally and multilaterally in international organizations as essential to preventing diversified threats from reaching Japan. In this regard, a Sun Tzu style preventive strategy appears to be the best way to secure Japan and contribute to global security.

This thesis represents the views of its author, not those of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force to which its author belongs, or any other agency of the Japanese government.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Tadashi Watanabe

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

197 p.

Discipline

Political Science, International law, Asian history

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