JAPANESE POST-COLD WAR NATIONAL SECURITY

This research paper examines the policy alternatives facing Japan as it seeks to redefine its national security policy in the post-cold war environment and analyzes the factors which have in the past and may in the future influence its direction. Since the end of World War II, Japan has become an economic superpower, but its physical security as a nation has been largely dependent on the protection of American military power. Recently, Japan has become more assertive in world affairs and has strengthened its own military capabilities. The domestic economic difficulties and political instability of the 1990s have led to a period of strategic indecision in Japan. The future direction of Japanese national security policy will be affected by a number of factors, the most important of which are Japanese traditions, Japan's relationship with the People's Republic of China, its energy dependence and the evolution of the Japanese political system.

Post-War Strategic Dependence of Japan on the United States

Prostrate after its devastating defeat in World War II, Japan had little choice but to accommodate itself to American national security policy in the Western Pacific. Under the American occupation (1945-1951), Japan adopted a new constitution in 1947 under Article 9 of which Japan pledged "to forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes." T

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apable of producing an anti-missile defense system and spy satellites. Deployment of its advanced H-2 rocket engine, which could be used for military satellites, has been delayed by a series of failures. Perhaps more ominously, Japan has received for many years from the United States Department of Energy technical know-how on the production of weapons grade plutonium. It has been accumulating large stocks of plutonium from the spent fuel stocks of its civilian nuclear reactors and under agreements with European suppliers. Calder says that Japan "could easily go nuclear in a matter of months if technology alone were at issue." Japan's Energy Dependence Japan's $4 trillion economy depends to a perilous extent on imports of crude oil, most of which is imported from the Middle East. Japanese received severe oil shocks in 1973 and 1979. Today, it supplies one third of its domestic electricity requirements from domestic nuclear power plants; however, despite rigorous energy conservation measures, it imports 80 percent of the energy it consumes, $50 billion in annual imports. China's demands for crude oil, which can only partially be satisfied from domestic sources, are also rapidly rising and may reach three million barrels a da
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Soviet Union, Minister Nakasone, Okinawa Japan, Gulf War, Khmer Rouge, East Japanese, Alternatives Whenever, Pacific American, Economist Japanese, Polls Japan, national security, security policy, national security policy, united japan, postwar japan history, security treaty, defense expenditures, military bases, world war, berkeley university california, soviet union, university california press, cold war, california press 1993, university california,
Approximate Word count = 3621
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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