Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity, and the Evolution of Security Practice

Special Asian Security Luncheon Seminar
Where: The East-West Center in Washington, 1819 L St. NW, 2nd Floor Conference Room
When: May 19, 2008, 12:30-2:30pm
What:
Andrew Oros's new book, Normalizing Japan, the latest in the East-West Center's Studies in Asian Security series published by Stanford University Press, seeks to answer the question of what future direction Japan's military policies are likely to take by considering how policy has evolved since World War II, and what factors shaped this evolution. Andrew Oros argues that Japanese security policy has not changed as much in recent years as many believe, and that future change also will be highly constrained by Japan's long-standing "security identity" – the central principle guiding Japanese policy over the past half century. His analysis is based on detailed exploration of three cases of policy evolution – restrictions on arms exports, the military use of outer space, and cooperation with the United States on missile defense – which shed light on other cases of policy change, such as Japan's deployment of its military to Iraq and elsewhere and its recent creation of a Ministry of Defense.