Wary Warriors. Future Directions in Japanese Security Policies

摘要

This report describes our assessment of how changes in the domestic, regional,and international environments are likely to affect future Japanese security policies and defense cooperation between Japan and the U.S. We focused on two key areas in making our assessment: the broad policy trends in Japan and Japanese perspectives on evolving regional and global developments, and the force structure and operational capabilities of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF). We also examined Japanese defense resource and procurement trends with a view to assessing how Japanese technological developments and industrial policy decisions are likely to affect the Japanese force posture. As a final step, we arrived at what we see as the most likely prospect for Japanese security policies over the coming decade, the main alternatives to this most likely direction, and the implications of all these directions for the U.S. Air Force and, more broadly, the U.S. Our findings call into question the widespread view that Japan will inevitably move toward major rearmament and an independent military posture.