Japan’s self-defence

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.

The US-Japan strategic alliance is working beyond East Asia and trying to find solutions to conflicts in other parts of Asia such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine as well as countless global issues. The scope of the alliance was enhanced in 2003. Moreover, common US-Japan strategic thinking and cooperation led many economic miracles to happen in East Asia with a number of countries assuming a high economic status, fighting economic backwardness, eradicating poverty, and assuring a better future for the new generation. Similarly, terrorism, WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, Korean Peninsula, and the Indo-Pakistan peace process are matters of grave concerns for the US-Japan alliance as explained in the Japanese defence policy report from time to time.

People who criticise Japan’s self defence on the ground that there is no “self-defence” but “defence” and every nation could claim that its “defence is self-defence.” Whether or not this is true, Japan’s policy of self-defence has prevented such a huge economic super power, only after the US, from military adventures, alliances, threats, and other disruptive moves in the past 55 years as the nation remained pacifist, calm, and peaceful unlike many of its neighbours.

Japan’s self-defence is cooperative in nature. It tends to minimise the conflict rather than to aggravate it. It has largely prevented the US from undertaking unilateral military actions in Asia. However, the new potential military build-ups in the region would disturb the power equilibrium in the region by creating apprehensions leading to global conflicts.