Japanese security and defense policies-trends, threat perceptions and prospects

In December 2010, Japan’s defense and security policies were transformed from “basic” to ”flexible/dynamic,” meaning that Japan, from now on, reserves the right to upgrade (and no longer – if deemed necessary – to limit its defense expenditures to one percent of its GDP) and increase its military and defense capabilities if the security environment should call for such changes. That does not mean that Japan will spend more than one percent of its GDP on defense, but it does mean that Tokyo might do so if China or North Korea should become “threatening” enough. To be sure, North Korea has for years been Japan’s “catch-all” threat the development of North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs have been evidently and exhaustively exploited to justify changes and upgrade the country’s defense and security policy agenda. For example, the upgrade of Japan’s Coast Guard and the development of the envisioned U.S.-Japan missile defense system. Until now, Japanese defense and security policies were guided by the principle of maintaining the minimum military capabilities necessary for the defense of Japanese territory (on Japanese territory in the case of an attack on Japan). That principle no longer applies, which means that Japan is preparing to defend its security and territorial interests (East China Sea, Korean Peninsula/North Korea, regular North Korean intrusions into Japanese territorial waters) outside the Japanese “mainland.” That is not a real surprise (in 2001 the Japan Coast Guard had already sunk a North Korean warship), but the spelling out of Japan’s preparedness to defend its security interests militarily in the region is noteworthy, not least because Japan is still officially a “pacifist” country equipped with a pacifist Constitution.