Japan’s self-defence

Defence is considered an extremely sensitive and highly complex matter in Japan. Military men are not supposed to defend the nation as they wish through their military might or strategy. There is an external link in the shape of the US-Japan security treaty signed after Word War II in 1951 at San Francisco on the eve of the signing of the Japanese peace treaty. The national check and balance system, in the shape of the Diet, virtually controls and democratises Japan’s defence policy to make it more responsible to the nation’s sensitivities and global concerns.
This makes Japanese self-defence extremely cooperative at the national and international level. By returning the Ogasawara in 1968 and Okinawa islands in 1972 to Japan, United States reposed trust amongst the Japanese. This was also an accomplishment of the US-Japan security treaty. Therefore, treaty itself seems to be a defence of Japan as stipulated in Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty.
Since the 1990s, Japanese defence policy has been in the process of change and transformation, owing much to the national debate and the US-Japan security arrangements in order to respond to global and regional security changes brought in the waters surrounding Japan. Ever since the end of World War II, Japan has loomed large on US security and defence policy in Asia. The county is considered to be the longest, stable, and most trusted ally of the United States in Asia.
It is through Japan that United States exerted its influence particularly in East Asia; otherwise United States would have been considered as an outside power in the region. Today the US enjoys “a much stronger position in Asia than at any other time,” as admitted by US Secretary of State, Dr Rice at a speech delivered at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on June 18. This would not have happened without US-Japan strategic partnership, which is a pillar of stability in East Asia.