From the CIAO Atlas Map of Asia 

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The International Consequences of Japan's Security Policy:Toward a New Security Dynamic

Anthony DiFilippo

Lincoln University
Department of Sociology

International Studies Association

March 1998

Introduction

From at least the seventh century until 1945, Japan relied on organized military activity as a means to support social and political interests. Characterizing parts of Japan's long militaristic past were periods of adventurism, causing a great deal of animosity between itself and many of its Asian neighbors, including China, Russia, and Korea (Dolan 1992: 422-427; Huo 1997: 154-156). In contrast, the post-1945 period for Japan has been a time in which it has constitutionally renounced war and aggressive militarism (Article 9) 1 , and has envisioned global peace and disarmament through the collective efforts of the United Nations; however, it has also been a time in which Japan has depended on the military power of the United States for security, including its vast nuclear arsenal.

Thus for more than five decades Japan's security policy has not genuinely corresponded with its pacifist sentiment which, as many Japanese have believed, is capable of spreading throughout the world. Japan is approaching the point where it must make an unambiguous decision on the direction of its security policy (DiFilippo 1998b forthcoming). Specifically, Japan must decide if it wants to maintain or end the existing security alliance with the United States. Accompanying the first policy option is the likelihood of gradual Japanese rearmament and perhaps a constitutional amendment at some point in the future to permit an increase in military activity. One position supporting the second policy option would require immediate Japanese rearmament and, more than likely, constitutional change.

After discussing the policy position that supports maintaining the present bilateral security arrangement and another that advocates ending or at least significantly changing it by making Japan largely responsible for its defense, this paper will introduce an alternative position. This third position is compatible with Japan's postwar national values and interests and its desire to internationalize its constitutionally contained beliefs concerning the renunciation of war. This position addresses the important matter of Japan working to rejuvenate the United Nations as it establishes an international security paradigm centered on the elimination of all nuclear weapons and complete global disarmament.

Contending positions on the security alliance

Preservationists.

By far, most analysts of the U.S.-Japan security relationship maintain that the Asia-Pacific area still faces major challenges and potentially serious dangers. This has led to the conclusion that the bilateral security alliance is still very much necessary in the post-Cold War period and that it should be strengthened as much as possible. The preservationist view is currently the official position of both the U.S. and Japanese governments (Department of Defense 1992; Department of Defense 1995; Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security Alliance for the 21st Century April 1996; Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation September 1997). This is also the predominant view of most policy analysts in the United States (Nye 1995a; Cronin and Vogel 1995; Mochizuki 1996; Mochizuki 1997), as well as in Japan (Okamoto 1995; Inoguchi 1996; Ikeda 1996; Japan Forum on International Relations 1995; Japan Forum on International Relations 1996; Liberal Democratic Party 1997). In Japan there is also a small group that, while it still supports the bilateral security treaty, has begun to give some thought to regional and multilateral security (Akaha 1997). Most supporters of the preservationist position acknowledge that the economic interests of the United States and Japan are part of the reason for the need to continue the bilateral security alliance (Nye 1995a: 93; Holmes and Moore 1996: 56-58).

Although the common major theme of this position is that there is a continuing security threat in the Asia-Pacific region, the identity of the major threat is not the same. For some in Japan, the "northern threat" argument retains its infamous legacy from the Cold War years, but with Russia and North Korea replacing the Soviet Union (Abe et al. 1994: 106-108). In the United States there is some uncertainty among analysts as to whether China or North Korea poses the biggest threat to U.S. and Japanese interests, and to the stability of the Asia-Pacific region. This problem is typically solved by assigning the "immediate threat" status to North Korea, and given the possibility of the unification of the two Koreas, China is then the region's potential source of instability in the years ahead. Because of China's growing economy and political endurance, its survival officially merits an engagement (Nye 1995b; Perry 1996) rather than a containment policy. 2

Thus supporters of this position subscribe to the rationale that security issues have largely remained the same in the Asia-Pacific region, despite the end of the Cold War. In fact, an official U.S. government argument emerged stating that if the U.S.-Japan security alliance "did not already exist, we would have to create it now" (Nye 1995b). The combination of the region's potential for rapid economic growth and instability amounts to the need for the United States and Japan to retain the security framework from the Cold War, and at the very least, present the appearance of a closer and stronger bilateral security alliance. Moreover, to ensure regional stability, the position of the U.S. government is that bilateral security alliances with other countries in the Asia-Pacific area - including South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Australia - are necessary, as is the continued presence of approximately 100,000 U.S. troops (Department of Defense 1995; Perry 1996). So even though the bilateral relationship in recent years has matured to the point where it is recognized that Japan should rightly assume a somewhat more autonomous international role when it comes to economic matters, the United States must still retain its dominance in the realm of global security (Daalder 1996: 19, 27-28).

Revisionists

3 The revisionist position on the Japan-U.S. security alliance that has recently attracted attention is much different from, and at odds with, that presented by the preservationists. Advocates of this position (Johnson and Keehn 1995: 103-114; Carpenter 1995) insist that the existing U.S.-Japan security relationship, which was originally established in the early 1950s, has served its purpose. For this reason, the revisionists argue for the abrogation of, or major changes in, the bilateral security alliance. Perhaps unwittingly, but nonetheless real, this exclusively western position picks up from where "end of history" thesis left off. According to Fukuyama (1995: 5), "trust" is a very important part of the reason for the heightened perception of culture at the present time; and the increased recognition of post-Cold War culture, which "extends into the realms of modern global economy and international order," helps explain why, compared to an earlier time, "people around the world are now even more conscious of the cultural differences that separate them." However, the revisionists maintain that currently distrust is the defining characteristic of the Japan-U.S. relationship. They suggest that because the worldwide demise of communism and the emergence of free markets in all corners of the globe have made the bilateral relationship safe, trust is critically needed to strengthen the bilateral relationship.

As long as the current bilateral security arrangement stays in place, serious trade disputes are likely to continue between the world's two largest capitalist economies, according to supporters of the revisionist position, since the existence of the security relationship means that the United States forfeits its bargaining power relating to gaining greater access to Japanese domestic markets. Conversely, just the threat of removing American forces from Japan would likely persuade the Japanese to grant the United States increased access to their domestic markets. This would occur, say the revisionists, even though the end of superpower differences that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War has eliminated the possibility of a serious exogenous threat to the bilateral relationship (Johnson and Keehn 1995: 105, 112 ; Carpenter 1995:19).

The revisionists stress that the growth of Japanese host-nation financial support, which helps to defray the cost of America's presence in Japan, does not come close to covering all of the United States' military expenditures there. Japan's "free ride" has saved it billions of defense dollars over the years. Moreover, the bilateral security arrangement has permitted Japan to postpone perennially a critical reexamination of Article 9, the war-renouncing constitutional clause, thereby causing it to evade the serious matter of becoming a "normal country," that is, participating in the military peacekeeping activities of the United Nations (Carpenter 1995: 3-4, 8; Johnson and Keehn 1995: 106-108).

Considered anachronistic by advocates of the revisionist position, the bilateral alliance continues because the United States still fundamentally distrusts Japan. The security arrangement keeps Japan in check by providing assurance to the United States and to the Asia-Pacific region as a whole that it will not once again become a military threat. It is this distrust that prevents Japan from becoming a genuine ally, making not China but rather the United States the biggest threat to peace in East Asia (Johnson and Keehn 1995: 110). Manifested in the present security arrangement, U.S. distrust of Japan is unsettling to the bilateral relationship.

To eliminate this problem, the revisionist position argues for the creation of an "equal partnership" built on trust. Ending the current bilateral security arrangement, which includes rescinding or rewriting the extant 1960 Japan-U.S. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, is imperative to establish trust in the relationship. This trust, in turn, will lay the foundation for an equitable alliance and in time strengthen the bilateral relationship. Japan will assume more regional and security leadership, and so the chances of it becoming normal increase. Because a markedly changed security relationship should also make Japanese domestic markets more accessible to American goods, there is therefore no sound reason, say the revisionists, for the United States to continue providing security to Japan.

Analyzing the debate

Although very different from each other, both the preservationist and revisionist positions share three common points. The first point is that both positions advocate an equal partnership - or something very close to this - in the security relationship between Japan and the United States. Second, both positions encourage Japan to assume a greater role in its national defense, and also to become more involved in international security. Both positions, in other words, support the remilitarization of Japan. However, while the revisionists would require Japan to assume more security-related responsibilities and at a quicker pace, given their insistence that the existing bilateral security arrangement should end or significantly change, the preservationists endorse the incremental growth of Japanese military obligations. The third common point is that both positions keep Japan tied to America's military power and under its nuclear umbrella.

Despite the preservationists' commitment to maintaining the dominance of American military power in the Asia-Pacific region, this is entirely different from their not wanting to see Japan assume more burden-sharing responsibility. The preservationists are appreciative of Japan's willingness to increase host-nation support and welcome any enlargement of its military responsibility. But a larger military role for Japan is not meant to suggest an expected end at any time soon to the existing security arrangement. On the contrary, as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific area, the United States, working in cooperation with a strengthened Japan, can effectively prevent the emergence of the majority of problems that could create instability in the region. The most likely destabilizing force for the preservationists is communism; four of the remaining five communist nations are in East Asia (Department of Defense 1992: 10). The preservationist position thus sanctions the gradual remilitarization of a Japan still dependent on the military power of the United States.

Most ostensibly problematic with the preservationist position is the retention of perceived military threats in the Asia-Pacific region. This position not only relies ultimately on America's nuclear deterrence policy during a time when this is highly questionable, but the definition of "instability" as it applies to East Asia and the entire Asia-Pacific region utilizes a threat structure similar to that which existed during the Cold War. Seen from the preservationist perspective, in this part of the world the Cold War is still not over. Furthermore, the preservationist position places much more emphasis on the U.S.-Japan military alliance than on multilateral security organizations (Mochizuki 1996: 11; Okubo 1997: 105), such as the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum (ARF), which was recently established in 1994. While the preservationist position acknowledges that ARF is important, it provides only a sketchy discussion of this multilateral organization, suggesting that its place lies somewhere in the future of Asia-Pacific security. Since the appearance of rapid Japanese rearmament would be threatening to other countries in the area, for the preservationists the U.S.-Japan security alliance must remain the "linchpin" of Asia-Pacific security. The result of all of this is that continued U.S. domination of the "more equal" security alliance has the propensity to limit Japan's international security initiatives and give direction to its foreign policy.

In contrast, the revisionist position argues that the end of the existing bilateral security arrangement needs to be accompanied by an observable enlargement of Japan's regional security responsibilities. U.S. intervention should occur only as a "balancer of last resort" (Carpenter 1995: 23). Drawing here from a libertarian perspective which argues that the hegemonic objectives of America's massive military apparatus are far too costly and do not specifically support the national interests of the United States, but rather its global interests (Conry 1997), the revisionists indicate that it is time that Japan becomes a normal country by being considerably more active in security affairs. Not to be discounted, argue the revisionists, is that Japan's regional leadership will "balance the interests of the United States and China in East Asia." This requires that the United States develop a more equitable security relationship with Japan (Johnson and Keehn 1995: 110-11; Carpenter 1995: 22). But a more equitable security relationship and the revisionists' support for American intervention only as a final recourse means that Japan is still connected to the military power of the United States. The existence of this limiting factor places constraints on Japan's international security initiatives and foreign policy.

A major flaw in the revisionist position relates to the assumption that the end of the current bilateral security relationship will provide the United States with a key bargaining chip in trade matters. As seen above, the revisionist position stresses that the United States effectively concedes increased access to Japanese domestic markets as long as the present security arrangement remains in place, and that even the threat of its termination could bring trade concessions from Japan. However, since the revisionists emphatically state that "Japan faces no known external military threat," they leave unanswered a very important question: with no external danger currently confronting Japan, why would the threat of ending the bilateral security arrangement cause it to make its domestic markets more accessible to U.S. goods? The revisionist position makes even less sense if the existing security arrangement was ended completely. The only plausible answer is that revisionist observers in the West see something that the Japanese do not - or vice versa.

In any case, the revisionist position relating to security and bilateral trade is not only inherently contradictory, but it also is illustrative of a false reality. Specifically, the revisionist argument completely neglects the very important issue of how the bilateral security arrangement has been used to the advantage of the United States in trade matters. As the guarantor of Japanese security, the United States has been in the position for years to win trade concessions from Japan, or at the very least to apply continuous pressure on it (DiFilippo 1997a: 117-152, 226-279). That U.S. merchandise and manufacturing exports, including high technology products, have markedly increased to Japan since the mid 1980s certainly does not "prove" the revisionist argument that Japanese domestic markets have remained inaccessible to U.S. businesses for many years. It makes much more sense to argue that America's managed trade policy and the attendant growth of exports to Japan 4 have been the result of the dominant military position of the United States than to suggest that a major reason why the Japanese support the continuation of bilateral security arrangement is because they can turn their attention to keeping domestic markets closed to American goods.

An interesting contrast between the two positions relating to the bilateral security relationship is the different interpretations given to the extent of change in the post-Cold War period. The revisionists do not endorse the present bilateral security alliance because of changed international and regional security conditions; they have as their central objective the restructuring of the relationship so that the prohibitive military burden on the United States will end and so that American goods can flow freely into Japan's domestic markets. The revisionists' understanding of change in the security environment therefore is parochial in design, amounting to little more than expected economic benefits to the United States and, secondarily, to Japan. Supporters of the preservationist position, on the other hand, see a largely unchanged security environment in the Asia-Pacific region and in the international milieu as well. This position avoids giving significant, present-time consideration to the new regional and international securities opportunities that have emerged since the end of the Cold War.

Neither the preservationist nor the revisionist positions attempt to adjust completely the Japan-U.S. relationship to the current period where the prospect of major confrontations between military superpowers does not exist and where the possibility of a nuclear holocaust is remote. More specifically, both positions ignore the possibilities that have emerged in recent years which produce the opportunity to maintain peace and security in a way that is fundamentally different from the tactics that were employed during the Cold War. The differences between the preservationist and revisionist positions notwithstanding, they converge on the major issue of the need for the United States to remain the world's policeman - with the former supporting a much more visible American role and with much quicker response time than the latter.

In the final analysis, the preservationist and revisionist positions have not moved much beyond the postwar security status quo. The interpretation of "peace and security" therefore largely remains the same. Supporters of both the preservationist and revisionist positions fail to interpret peace and security in a way that is consistent with the conditions of the post-Cold War period, because in doing this they would be directly challenging the military hegemony of the United States.

Another security paradigm

There is another security position available to Japan. This position focuses on Japan's commitments to pacifism, global disarmament, and a revitalized United Nations. It seeks to put diplomacy far ahead of the use of military force to settle political differences, and when used it would require the consensus of the international community and rely on the collective security mechanisms of the United Nations. This position also seeks to strengthen significantly Japan's responsibility in regional security, most notably in ARF. To be effective, Japan's increased regional security efforts would require constant interaction and cooperation with the United Nations.

This position also requires Japan to provide an alternative to America's hegemonic position in global security as it works to implement Japanese values relating to international peace and security. On the surface, the challenge to America's international security position may seem an unlikely initiative for Japan. The endurance of Japan's peace constitution for more than five decades, its defense-oriented security strategy, and generally its passive approach to internationalism since World War II, together suggest that designing an alternative to American military hegemony is improbable. There are, however, several reasons to question this assumption.

Challenges to the United States

Japan has already seriously questioned and, in fact, resisted U.S. attempts to manage bilateral trade. Bilateral trade discussions taking place in early 1994 marked a critical turning point in Japan-U.S. economic relations. Since this time, Japan has continued to assume a decisively more matured approach to bilateral trade issues with the United States - a discernible departure from the concessionary posture it maintained for over four decades. This economic challenge to the United States by Japan has been significant, with industries as diverse as the automobile, airline, semiconductor, and film joining forces with government to resist American trade demands.

In the area of security, Japan has long seen the United Nations as an important arbiter of global conflicts, and ultimately as the chief provider of international security (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1994: 49). Not only were the early years of Japan's security alliance with the United States not trouble free (Packard 1966), but there also existed the belief that a stronger United Nations would be able to protect the country, as it worked to diffuse its peace constitution around the world. None of this materialized because the continuation of the Cold War left Japan connected to its security alliance with the United States.

However, the Persian Gulf War, followed by the end of the Cold War, eventually prompted thinking in Japan which questioned the necessity of the bilateral security arrangement, since the United Nations had emerged as the potential administrator of international security. During this same time, Japan became aware that it had to play a leadership role in the creation of a new and viable international system. 5 Although it is true that Japan has not retreated from the United Nations like the United States has in recent years, it has not assumed significant leadership responsibilities in the area of international security. Nonetheless, Japanese interest in achieving complete nuclear disarmament remains strong. Indicating this is Japan's recent initiatives in the United Nations supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons and statements (one in 1994 and another 1995) to the International Court of Justice denoting the nation's strong opposition to the use of nuclear weapons (DiFilippo 1997b: 389; Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1996).

Opposition to the use of nuclear weapons in the nuclear-devastated cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been more emphatic than that evident in the central government's position. Going a step further than the government of Japan, the mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima openly declared before the International Court of Justice in 1995 that the use of nuclear weapons is illegal and a breach of international law (Asahi Evening News 1995). Forty years after the bombing of these two cities, an Appeal from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a Total Ban and Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (1985) emphasized that the use of nuclear weapons is "illegal, immoral and a crime against the human community." As of the end of November 1997, this appeal had received more than 56 million signatures in Japan.

After learning of American plans to perform subcritical nuclear testing in 1997, the city of Nagasaki made several appeals to the United States government, including two letters sent directly to president Clinton, demanding the cancellation of the planned tests. In one letter sent to Clinton on July 3, 1997, the day after America went ahead with a subcritical nuclear test in Nevada, the mayor of Nagasaki literally demanded the cancellation of future subcritical nuclear testing by the United States. The mayor reminded Clinton of the position taken by the International Court of Justice in 1996, which stated emphatically that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law," emphasized that the United States' refusal to comply with international opinion concerning "nuclear disarmament will certainly be the object of condemnation not just from the American people but also from the international community," and officially registered his "vehement protest" against the test carried out on July 2, 1997, "which was conducted in defiance of the ardent requests of the citizens of Nagasaki" (Ito 1997). Moreover, the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest daily newspapers, editorialized (December 14, 1997) that, despite the adoption of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.N. General Assembly in the fall of 1996, subcritical nuclear testing by the United States (and Russia) is indicative of behavior which seeks to "preserve the idea of nuclear deterrence by exploiting loopholes" in the treaty, and thereby "exhibits a deplorable lack of self-restraint."

Since 1995 resistance has been strong in Okinawa concerning the continued quasi-occupied status of the island prefecture. Controversy continues to swirl around not just the disproportionately large number of American troops still stationed in Okinawa, but also the proposed building of a U.S. heliport off the shore of the city of Nago. Okinawans rejected the proposal to construct the Nago heliport as a replacement to the Futenma Air Station, even though Tokyo hinted that economic benefits to Okinawa could be canceled. It is important to understand that the spirit of pacifism is exceptionally strong today in Okinawa, as is the idea of "unarmed neutrality" 6 (Takubo 1996: 46-52). Compared to the rest of Japan, Okinawa's resistance to the bilateral security arrangement is more evident. For the past several years, Okinawans have not been reluctant to challenge Tokyo's continuing compliance to U.S. security demands.

However, Japanese uneasiness with the bilateral security arrangement is not confined to the people of Okinawa. Many in Japan are quite disturbed by the revised 1997 Guidelines for U.S.- Japan Defense Cooperation. They fear that the strengthened bilateral security arrangement has undermined Japan's commitment to pacifism and that the revised guidelines could drag the nation into an American military conflict in the East Asian region (Japan Times September 18, 1997). Recent results from the Japanese Public Opinion Survey Association indicate that slightly over half of the surveyed respondents in 1996 felt that the bilateral security treaty should be eliminated in stages, although nearly 70 percent said that treaty strengthened the nation's security (Takubo 1996: 52). But understand that for the large number of respondents who believed that the treaty increased the nation's security, as well as for those who felt differently, there is currently no security alternative for Japan, save rapid rearmament.

Removing the contradictions in Japan's security policy

Although Japan has recently challenged the United States on important matters pertaining to both trade and security, the most important immediate task it faces is overcoming the contradictions in the bilateral security alliance. As the world's only military superpower, the United States remains committed to an international security position that preeminently reflects American interests and that requires massive and increasingly sophisticated military capability. Whether rhetorical or genuine, the fact is that the United States' interest in ending all forms of nuclear testing, eliminating nuclear weapons, and achieving global disarmament, must be interpreted from its position as a hegemonic military power. This last point also explains the distance the United States has placed between itself and the United Nations in recent years. Thus Japan's enduring peace constitution and the desire to internationalization it, its ongoing opposition to the existence of nuclear weapons, its commitment to global disarmament, and its support for the end of all nuclear testing and a strong and revitalized United Nations, are incongruities in the bilateral security relationship that it must ignore in order to continue receiving American protection.

Japan strongly opposed nuclear testing in 1995 by France and China, but the central government in Tokyo remained silent about U.S. subcritical nuclear testing. Although Japan has long-called for the end of nuclear weapons and global disarmament, it remains under America's nuclear umbrella. Japan's position that the United Nations can become the true steward of international security is compromised by its recent efforts to strengthen the security relationship with the United States. Just recently Japan sacrificed its professed commitment to a strong United Nations for the sake of retaining a good relationship with the United States when it endorsed America's threat to use military force against Iraq, despite the fact that there was no consensus on this important matter within the security council or in the international community.

Ironically, Ryutaro Hashimoto spearheaded Japanese resistance to U.S. trade demands in 1994 while serving as the head of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. As prime minister, however, Hashimoto has fully aligned himself with the preservationist position, and has gone out of his way to give the appearance that the Japan-U.S. bilateral security arrangement has been strengthened during his tenure. Continued movement in this direction by Japan bolsters the military hegemony of the United States. This subjects Japan to constant unilateral pressure from the United States to remilitarization gradually and to make trade concessions.

i>Japan's place in designing pacific internationalism

Japan's current security relationship with the United States is incompatible with its commitment to pacifism and to a strong United Nations with a viable global security system. What is more, the bilateral security arrangement makes it very difficult for Japan to assume a responsible and somewhat autonomous international position, let alone to begin working on a new global security paradigm based on pacific internationalism. For the past several years, the United States has demonstrated in its relationship with the United Nations that maintaining the semblance of diplomatic protocol supersedes any genuine effort or intention to revitalize this multilateral organization by strengthening and instituting its collective security mechanisms. Not only has the United States been drifting away from the international security structure of the United Nations, but it has made clear, as in the case of Iraq, that unilateral military action will occur if deemed necessary.

Having been caught in the dilemma of seeking a responsible international role while remaining committed to its peace constitution, Japan has been exposed to suggestions that it should become a "global civilian superpower," that is, a nation committed to "pacific globalism" and "active pacifism" (Funabashi 1994: 11-13, 18-20; Lincoln 1994: 258-266). These suggestions stem from the recognition that Japan does have a major part to play in stabilizing and securing the post-Cold War international system - but a part that does not carry with it significant military responsibilities. Although meant to preserve Japan's postwar commitment to pacifism, these suggestions leave unaltered the present bilateral security arrangement.

As a civilian superpower, Japan is capable of developing an international security position that reflects its peace constitution and its currently latent desire to diffuse it globally. To do this, Japan must end its existing security arrangement with the United States and it must also begin working on initiatives designed to strengthen regional and international security. By taking the lead in developing ARF, and especially its conflict resolution mechanisms which have not yet been identified, while simultaneously working to implement the dormant security structure of the United Nations, specifically, its collective security system, including the Military Staff Committee, Japan would be cast in a throughly responsible international role that is fully consistent with the objective of achieving global peace and security (DiFilippo 1998a: 23-25; DiFilippo 1998b forthcoming).

By retaining the present bilateral security alliance, Japan leaves itself in the situation in which it can either be drawn into a war or become a key target as a result of unilateral decisions made by the United States. At the same time, sustaining this bilateral alliance means that Japan's regional and international security responsibilities must remain largely defined by the United States. Because political parameters have been set by the bilateral security arrangement, Japan must make certain that any steps it takes that pertain to regional or international security fall in the footprints left by the United States.

Few would deny that the Cold War created a culture of war: big and sustained military budgets, nuclear arsenals, and an arms race, together producing the constant threat of large-scale regional or global annihilation. Several years after the declared end of the Cold War, a culture of war still exists. The U.N. General Assembly has recently announced the year 2000 to be the "International Year for the Culture of Peace " (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 1998). Japan now has a chance to make a very significant contribution to the development of a sustainable culture of peace. But to do this, Japan must change its present security policy and begin to "act" on its claimed commitment to global disarmament.

Conclusions

Japan's current security policy is helping to maintain an international security milieu that is analogous to the one that existed during the Cold War. Maintaining this old international security structure in the post-Cold War period is very difficult to justify when it is subjected to practical criteria, such as significant threat reduction, cost efficiency, cooperation, consensus, and equity to all members of the global community. That there are continuing threats to global peace - as captured in the trite phrase "the world is still a very unsafe place" - does not legitimate the existence of a singular military superpower.

The Persian Gulf War markedly raised global expectations that a genuine multilateral security structure was imminent (see, e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1994). In Japan, the idea of a cooperative, multilateral security structure was reinforced somewhat with the appearance of the 1994 document which became known as the "Higuchi report" (Akaha 1997: 2). Along with cooperative regional security, Japan suggested that it was the responsibility of all countries to reform and strengthen the United Nations so it could work to ensure international prosperity and security. The time had passed when a one nation would attempt to solve international security problems. Thus in Japan, as well sustained military budgets, nuclear arsenals, and an arms race, togetheras in the United States and elsewhere, the feeling was that America no longer needed to play the role of the world's policeman. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized in its Diplomatic Bluebook 1994 that: "In today's international community, as clearly epitomized in the response to the Gulf Crisis, any single country, even the United States, can neither settle international problems nor ensure the peace and prosperity of the international community."

In the few short years that have passed since 1994, however, things have changed. The United States has slowly retreated from the idea of U.N. multilateral security and has demonstrated its intention to singlehandedly solve international security problems. Moreover, Japan and the United States have taken steps in the past few years to strengthen the bilateral security arrangement, most recently evidenced by the newly revised security guidelines which create an enlarged cooperative framework.

It is hard to fathom how Japan can work seriously to bring about the end of all nuclear weapons and achieve complete global disarmament while it continues to broaden - even if only superficially (DiFilippo 1998a) - its security relationship with the United States. Although the clear majority of nations want peace, achieving it through the threat or use of force by a military superpower is completely opposite from achieving it through the creation and implementation of an international security paradigm that promotes genuine global disarmament and relies exclusively on bona fide U.N. collective security mechanisms.

The present period affords Japan the opportunity to take a leading role in the development of a new international security system that is supported by regional organizations. Japan's postwar position relating to the elimination of all nuclear weapons and global disarmament is crucial to the development of this new security system. Internationalizing peace by assigning the coordination and achievement of this responsibility to the United Nations parallels Japan's position concerning the need to strengthen this organization. The bilateral security alliance makes it very difficult for Japan to move in a substantively different direction than the United States when it comes to regional and international security.

NOTES

Note 1: Article 9 in Japan's 1947 constitution renounces war. As a result of General MacArthur's order at the outset of the Korean War, the National Police Reserve was created in July 1950 so that Japan could deal with the "threat from the north" (that is, the Soviet Union). Two years later the National Police Reserve became the National Safety Force, which after reorganization became the Self Defense Forces (SDF) in 1954 (Maki 1962: 102-103, 182-183; Abe et al. 1994:102-104). The SDF's raison d'etre was that Japan had a sovereign right to self defense, and that the constitution only prohibited aggressive war making (Maki 1955: 558-564). Back.

Note 2: Johnson (1996: 10-18) argues that the United States and Japan are maintaining a containment policy toward China. Chinese military analysts support the position that the efforts to strengthen the Japan-U.S. security alliance amounts, at least in part, to an attempt to contain China (Montaperto and Binnendijk 1997). Back.

Note 3: The term neorevisionists might be more appropriate since the call for the elimination of the current U.S.-Japan security arrangement is an extension of the traditional revisionist position which focused on the bilateral trade problem and maintained that Japan was "different" and had to be encouraged - sometimes by employing more drastic unilateral measures - to change. Back.

Note 4: Measured in 1992 dollars, U.S. merchandise exports to Japan grew from $29.8 billion in 1986 to 60.6 billion in 1995; moreover, real (1987 dollars) U.S. high technology exports to Japan increased from $3.5 billion in 1978 to 12.6 billion by 1990. Even after excluding Japanese manufacturing exports from the United States to Japan, American manufacturing exports to Japan, measured in real (1987) dollars, grew sharply from 1980 into the 1990s (DiFilippo 1997a: 133-138). Back.

Note 5: For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1994: 48) stresses that "at a time when the international environment is changing, Japan should not merely adapt to an international framework as it exists. It is necessary for Japan to lead active and creative diplomacy in cooperation with other major countries by setting forth the direction to be taken toward the creation of a new international framework and to participate in its formation." Back.

Note 6: "Unarmed neutrality" grew out of the socialist movement in Japan during the early postwar years (Ishibashi 1984: 47-62). Back.

References