The Self-defense Forces and Postwar Politics in Japan

The Self-defense Forces and Postwar Politics in Japan
Author: 佐道明広
Publisher:
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2017-03-27
Genre: Japan
ISBN: 9784916055743

"In 1947, Japan eternally renounced war and the possession of armed forces with its constitution. How, then, did the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) survive, moreover, evolve over the ensuing 70 years into the prominent presence it is today? Sado Akihiro reviews the JSDF's history chiefly from the viewpoint of restrictions imposed on it by civil officials of the national bureaucracy, based on lessons gleaned from the arbitrary conduct of the military in pre-World War II days. He also explores the financial constraints placed on the JSDF in the form of a percentage of the GNP. This book traces the inside story of U.S.-Japan relations and Japan's defense policy. It attempts to shine a light on the true state of the JSDF in the midst of new challenges that put it at a crossroads, including post-9/11 international terrorism, North Korean nuclear development, and China's increased military presence in Asia"--Back cover.

Defenders of Japan

Defenders of Japan
Author: Garren Mulloy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2021-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197644074

Japan's post-war armed forces are a paradox, both embarrassing remnants of the past and valuable repositories of experience. This book charts the development of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) from 1954 as both unorthodox military institutions and servants of a civil society that decries militarism. Investigating JSDF contributions to Japanese and global security, the evolution of such contributions during and after the Cold War, and their possible reconfiguration for Japan's security needs ahead, Garren Mulloy offers insight into the Forces' past, present and future. He explores the characteristics and contradictions of Japanese policy, including novel approaches in response to an increasingly assertive China, the latent threat of North Korea and contributory pressure from the US. Though the American alliance remains the core of Japanese security, new partnerships and international overtures will also shape the Forces' place in Prime Minister Abe's new vision of 'proactive contributions to peace'. Defenders of Japan deconstructs how the JSDF have adapted and will continue to adapt within domestic norms, caught between unresolved legacies of Japan's imperial past and a dynamically shifting balance of future global power.

The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force

The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force
Author: Robert D. Eldridge
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2017-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137551941

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.

Japan’s Military Power

Japan’s Military Power
Author: Robert D. Eldridge
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2020-01-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1527546136

This book is an insider’s account of the problems facing the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), Japan’s postwar military, authored by the country’s leading submariner, Hideki Nakamura. Specializing in the submarine fleet, he became an ace commander, in addition to serving as an analyst and professor in security studies. During his career, he became increasingly troubled by the SDF’s ability to fight due to legal, political, and operational restrictions placed upon it. This book, a translation of his 2017 bestseller, is a must-read for those interested in Japan’s military and its ability to partner with other countries.

National Police Reserve

National Police Reserve
Author: Thomas French
Publisher: Global Oriental
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2014-06-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004266828

Based upon years of research undertaken in the US Occupation archives, this book provides a history of Japan’s National Police Reserve (NPR), the precursor of today’s Ground Self Defense Force (GSDF). It is the first ever comprehensive and exclusively focused history of the force in any language. The book examines the domestic and international origins of the force, the American constabulary model upon which it was based, the NPR's character and operation, and its evolution into the GSDF. This volume provides numerous insights and fresh perspectives on the character of the NPR, the origins of the SDF, the US Occupation of Japan and Cold War era US-Japan relations.

The Japan Self-Defense Forces Law

The Japan Self-Defense Forces Law
Author: Robert D. Eldridge
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2019-05-22
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1527534944

This book is the first ever to examine the Japan Self-Defense Forces Law by providing an historical overview of its passage, changes, and function in Japanese defense policy since its passage in 1954. It is also the first to provide a full English translation of the Law, incorporating all of the more than 160 changes that have been adopted to it. This book will be of immense importance to students, scholars, practitioners, and officials working with or interested in Japan’s “military,” a term that is recognized internationally but remains sensitive domestically.

Uneasy Warriors

Uneasy Warriors
Author: Sabine Frühstück
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2007-08-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520939646

Following World War II, Japan's postwar constitution forbade the country to wage war or create an army. However, with the emergence of the cold war in the 1950s, Japan was urged to establish the Self-Defense Forces as a way to bolster Western defenses against the tide of Asian communism. Although the SDF's role is supposedly limited to self-defense, Japan's armed forces are equipped with advanced weapons technology and the world's third-largest military budget. Sabine Frühstück draws on interviews, historical research, and analysis to describe the unusual case of a non-war-making military. As the first scholar permitted to participate in basic SDF training, she offers a firsthand look at an army trained for combat that nevertheless serves nontraditional military needs.

Inglorious, Illegal Bastards

Inglorious, Illegal Bastards
Author: Aaron Skabelund
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501764381

In Inglorious, Illegal Bastards, Aaron Herald Skabelund examines how the Self-Defense Force (SDF)—the post–World War II Japanese military—and specifically the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), struggled for legitimacy in a society at best indifferent to them and often hostile to their very existence. From the early iterations of the GSDF as the Police Reserve Force and the National Safety Force, through its establishment as the largest and most visible branch of the armed forces, the GSDF deployed an array of public outreach and public service initiatives, including off-base and on-base events, civil engineering projects, and natural disaster relief operations. Internally, the GSDF focused on indoctrination of its personnel to fashion a reconfigured patriotism and esprit de corps. These efforts to gain legitimacy achieved some success and influenced the public over time, but they did not just change society. They also transformed the force itself, as it assumed new priorities and traditions and contributed to the making of a Cold War defense identity, which came to be shared by wider society in Japan. As Inglorious, Illegal Bastards demonstrates, this identity endures today, several decades after the end of the Cold War.

Creating Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015

Creating Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015
Author: David Hunter-Chester
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2016-11-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1498537901

Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.