Japanese Security Norms versus Realpolitik: The Coming Collision between Japan's Arms Export Ban and Theatre Missile Defense (TMD)

Japan’s quote;antimilitaristquote; security norms have come under increasing pressure in the ten years since the end of the Cold War. In particular, norms against deployment of troops abroad and participation in collective security arrangements have been pushed almost to the point of breaking. Japan’s arms export ban may be the next quote;antimilitaristquote; policy to be sacrificed in the name of realpolitik in the post-Cold War era, due to joint U.S.-Japan development of a Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system for East Asia. Questions of where and how such a system might be produced and deployed raise serious issues that have not been discussed sufficiently among Japanese decision-makers and the general public. What is driving such a policy shift? What new security norms are emerging?

This presentation examines these questions vis-a-vis contending interest-based and identity-based theories of foreign policy making, based on interviews with decision-makers and examination of primary-source documents in Japan and the United States.

Andrew Oros is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University.