Japan's Awakening: Moving toward an Autonomous Security Policy

Japan has been moving toward a more independent security policy since the early 2010s, duplicating the military assets of the United States and reorganizing the Self-Defense Forces. In Japan’s Awakening, Lionel P. Fatton and Oreste Foppiani argue that the country faces an entrapment-abandonment dilemma in which any attempt to prevent abandonment by the United States vis-à-vis China negatively affects its national security by heightening the risk of entrapment in the Korean Peninsula, and vice versa. A move toward autonomy is the only way for Japan to solve this dilemma. The subject is at variance with both the insistence on the constraining effect of domestic norms on Japan’s security policy and the assumption of everlasting reliance on the United States for protection.

Lionel P. Fatton is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Webster University Geneva, Research Collaborator at the Research Institute for the History of Global Arms Transfer, Meiji University, Tokyo, and Adjunct Fellow at the Charhar Institute, Beijing. He researched extensively on Asian security issues and China-Japan-U.S. relations. He holds a Ph.D. from Sciences Po Paris.

Oreste Foppiani is Associate Professor of International History & Politics at Webster University Geneva, where he chairs the Department of International Relations. He taught or researched at New York University, Aoyama Gakuin University, and the J.M.S.D.F. Command & Staff College. He holds a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of International & Development Studies.