IGU 2013
Second Draft
Who Protects Whom?
Japan’s Security Identification and the Tohoku Earthquake
Atsuko Watanabe
The University of Warwick, Department of Politics and International Studies
Introduction
The last two and a half years were unusual for the Japanese—who have enjoyed peace for
nearly seventy years under the American nuclear umbrella—in the sense that they more strongly
than ever perceived security as their own immediate problem. The Tohoku Earthquake and the
subsequent disaster of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 vividly showed that
the real contemporary threats could be natural disasters—which is inherently local—whose
possibility is ever-increasing today. During the tragedy and its recovery process, there have been
abundant fragments that evoke memories of war: death, military forces, nuclear power, America,
the emperor, and so on. The experience was in fact accepted as the third defeat by the Japanese,
following the opening of the country in the 19th century and the defeat in the Pacific War, and
fostered the debate for amending the peace constitution.
Japan’s long-lasting reluctance to rearm is one of the puzzles that conventional security
studies do not find any specific reasons for other than Japan’s so-called pacifism. As several
scholars argue, the country has been seemingly fully ready to become a “normal” military actor,
given the dramatically changing international structure, domestic institutions, and the growing
hostilities of its neighboring countries. Due not only to the earthquake of 3.11 and the
consecutive largest-ever rescue operation but also to the anticipated major earthquakes in the
next few decades, the Self Defense Forces (SDF) seem to have finally found their place in
Japanese society, as an opinion survey shows the historically highest positive feelings towards
the SDF. In this respect, one of the main concerns for scholars engaged in East Asian security
issues is obviously whether the advent of these highly realistic threats that conjure images of war
could become the one final push for Japan’s official rearmament and normalization.
Bearing this larger concern in mind, this paper addresses the following question: Has the
subjectivity of Japanese national security changed throughout the experience of the Earthquake?
I argue that since the end of WWII until now, Japan has been lacking clear security
identification, especially in terms of who is protected. Largely because of its specific
geographical security arrangement under the Japan-US Security Treaty, US forces has been
confined within Okinawa and makes their existence near invisible from the mainland of Japan.
Since its birth, this security arrangement has been defined in terms of geography, which has
expanded from within the Far East towards a “global alliance.” Has this re-territorialized threat
brought any change for this gradually de-territorialized arrangement? As a starting point for the
analysis, I employ the concepts of securitization and reference object of the Copenhagen School
of International Security Studies (ISS). Then I conduct a poststructuralist discourse analysis
relying on the positioning theory of social psychology developed by Rom Harré et al, which
focuses on how actors position themselves in co-constructed games of power rather than
delineating what kind of identity a country has, as conventional constructivist security studies do.
In so doing, I hope to show that, in Japan’s security arrangement, with strong tensions between
regional and global, the Japanese themselves are historically referred to as a security subject only
indirectly, no matter what kind of threat it has. As a result, Japanese securitization has been
partly, if not largely, failing.
This article proceeds in five parts. First, I briefly sketch the Copenhagen School’s theory of
securitization and introduce their critique. Then I explain my analytical framework based on
positioning theory, which could to some extent supplement securitization theory’s limitations.
Third, I examine the Japanese developments of securitization and security identification: first in
a larger historical context, and then in relation to 3.11. In the final section, I conclude the
argument by considering the possible explanations of the continuing lack of Japanese security
identifications.
Securitization and Referent Objects: Limitation, or Flexibility?
At the outset of my inquiry, I want to present two questions. First, should natural disasters be
treated as a security issue? Second, is it acceptable for a nation to be protected by other states’s
military? It is probably the Copenhagen School’s theory of securitization that provides the most
useful concepts to consider these questions. Buzan, concerning the growing tension between “the
state as the protector of ‘its citizens’ security and the state as a threat to its own individuals,”
coined the term “referent object,” paving the way to treat new issues as security issues and to
widen securitizing actors beyond the state. Their securitization theory, drawing on Austin’s
speech act theory, Schmittian understanding of security and exceptional politics, and
traditionalist security debates, argues that security has “a particular discursive and political force
and does something—securitize—rather than an objective (or subjective) condition” (Buzan and
Hansen 2009, p. 213-214). Hence, they states, security is a “self-referential practice,” “a specific
way of framing issue,” in which the issue becomes security issue (Wæver 1996). Since security
is about survival, in its discourse, “something is presented as existentially threatened” and “we”
must use “extraordinary means to handle the threat” before it exceeds “a possible point of no
return.”
However, it should be noted that the school at the same time limits the referent object of
security within state and society, avoiding the limitless expansion of the concept to individual
human security. Wæver (1996, p.104), analyzing “Europe” as a security referent, argues that if
the referent departs from the state towards individuals, it is paradoxically quite easy to move
simultaneously “all the way up and all the way down: individual security is the security of the
single individual is the security of all individuals is the security of humankind is global security,”
which he sees as problematic as a concept of security. In addition, he states, a usually
“overlooked distinction” between referent objects and actors should be examined, with the
question of “in whose name is the security operation conducted?” but not “security for whom?”
(Wæver 1996, p.107). What is clarified here is that these acts are in practice operated by smaller
groups in the name of wider collectives and this question is getting more important—given that
the government of the state does not necessarily represent its people—as the composition of
society is becoming more complex. If a regime does not legitimately represent its people and is
not be able to mobilize wider groups, its framing of security cannot be successfully pronounced
as “our” security, which means that the securitization could fail. In this respect, the actors are
naturally limited to relatively stable and powerful governments or institutions. Moreover, the
school explicitly links referent object to territory by excluding individuals from its candidates. In
sum, while the theory significantly expands the field of inquiry for security studies by employing
speech act theory, it at the same time limits its invocation by presenting a systematic, and hence
relatively rigid, definition of security. In other words, the school see security as inherently
geographical, which works on a specific people.
Although this restriction is their deliberation for a more precise theorization, it is on this point
that the powerful critiques of the school have raised concerns, especially in terms of the theory’s
applicability to countries outside the West, where the state is relatively weak and freedom of
speech is more or less restricted. In these countries, their governments do not necessarily
represent their people’s voice. Hansen (2000) questions what happens if “insecurity cannot be
voiced, when raising something as a security problem is impossible or might even aggravate the
threat being faced.” Naming the situation that a potential subject of security “has no, or limited
possibility of speaking its security problem” ‘security as silence,’ she maintains that rather than
limiting the referent object, we should examine how discourses are produced through the
practice. Austin’s speech act, Hansen asserts, assumes that the subject who speaks precedes the
speech, and that significantly limits referent objects. Relying on Judith Butler’s performativity,
she points out that even speaking subjects are constituted not only through speeches but also
through actions.
Wilkinson (2007) likewise argues that because of the “Westphalian straightjacket” which sees
the state as universal, the theory does not explain non-Western countries’ experiences. The
Copenhagen School considers securitization as a linear process: “starting with a securitizing
actor who then construct a referent object and threat narrative to be accepted or restricted” by its
audience. However, in reality, she states that the process could “start at any point, with the
component parts developing simultaneously and contributing each other’s construction.” In her
case of Kyrgyzstan, while the referent object was constructed relatively quickly, the securitizing
actor appeared much later, as the threat narrative developed. Moreover, she states, those
narratives were accepted first on the local and then national levels. Wilkinson asserts that the
school, by focusing the formalized state level and ignoring the local context, obscures “informal
politics and their dynamics, which can possess significant influence and legitimacy.” In this
respect, the linear process of securitization accomplished by self-referential practices by the state
seems to be a luxury, which is allowed only for limited, if not only European, countries.
Who Protects Whom? The Need for Subjects
While I largely agree with these critics, I want consider the same issue from a slightly
different point of view. In relation to my second question presented at the begining of the last
section, my query here is: Who needs the referent object? If security is a “self-referential
practice” of framing an issue, and if there is tension between the state as a protector of its
citizens and the state as threat to them (Buzan and Hansen 2009), this tension immediately
indicates two possible answers and an implication to my question. First, the statecraft needs
referent object. Second, the people have to be identified as a direct referent object or be
mentioned in relation to it for its survival. Finally, however, these needs possibly do not match.
Wæver (1996, p107-108) insists that once referent objects and actors are distinguished, the range
of the collectives with demands for survival becomes naturally clear. The scope of actors as well
is limited. In practice, according to him, it is smaller groups who act in the name of the larger
collective. These smaller groups can be “politicians, activists, and academics” who “make a
choice when they treat something as a security issue” (emphasis in the original). This distinction
has been overlooked because of general acceptance that the collectives have a right to survival of
and the actor can act on its behalf, which has been becoming increasingly doubtful because of
the development of globalization. Meanwhile, when a regime holds no or less legitimacy as a
securitizing actor, they try to construct the threats by referring to “the environment,” “nation”
and so on, which have “no formalized spokesman and different groups can attempt to make such
appeals.” In this respect, security as well as threats are “not objective matters and security is a
way to frame and handle an issue.”
In sum, for Wæver, “self” has to be smaller groups within a society that includes larger
groups that can be its referent object for a successful securitization. To use Austin’s terminology,
this might be the minimum felicity condition for securitization, in which “particular persons and
circumstances in a given case must be appropriate for the invocation of the particular procedure”
(Potter, p. 44). When the actor is not appropriate for the performative utterance, they tend to look
for their legitimation by mentioning larger and ambiguous notions as referent objects in search
for the possibility of the felicity matching of securitization. In this way, the tension between the
state as citizens’ protector and that as citizens’ threat is compromised, making the state as almost
the only securitizing actor in the end.
However, in my point of view, at least three points are missing in this argument. First, is the
securitizing actor who needs the referent object only one? Second, is the actor always an insider?
Third, what about the subject’s side of will? Is it unproblematically assumed that they always
want to be protected? As I will explain in detail, under Japan’s current security arrangement with
the US-Japan Alliance, both Japan and the United States, fundamentally an outsider for Japanese
society, could be securitizing actors. Rather, under this arrangement, it is more the United States
and less their own government that in practice protects the Japanese people. Then, how do the
Japanese understand and accept the framing (by whom)? Is there any autonomy for them to
choose by whom they are protected?
Thus, the tension Buzan points out is in reality not between the two but can be within
multiples, possibly including outside voices. Once the multiplicity of the voices that form both
securitizing actors and referent objects are taken into consideration, securitization becomes not
simple “self-referential practice” of framing an issue by a securitizing actor and an
acceptance/rejection by its audience. Some of these voices, as Hansen mentions, might be silent
ones. Also, as Wilkinson asserts, in countries where society is not stable, the developments of
these voices are more multiple and complex, involving the external forces. To illustrate, the
unexpected evolution of NATO shows that for even European countries, the process could be
much more complex. Moreover, the term “Spaceship Earth” shows the widely shared sense that
“we” all are in the same global security community. As Krasner(1995) argues, the reality is that
the Westphalian model “has never been more than a reference point or a convention” (also see Ó
Tuathail 1998). If so, securitization could be successful not because someone has said so and
their people admit it. Rather, it could be successful when through both positive and negative
interactions, the reference of securitization begins making sense among several actors and hence
becomes performative, whose outcome can be an unexpected one, involving unexpected groups
and actors.
Then, as indeed Wæver insists, when individuals are identified as a referent object, the
referent could unlimitedly expands towards global security, because of this contingency.
Nevertheless, isn’t this a disposition of security? Foucault (2007, p. 42-47) states that the
apparatus of security, which had developed in the 18th century, is fundamentally conducted on
the “level of population,” as a power of “lets things happen.” Therefore the population as a
collective subject is very different from that of people, a subject created by the social contract.
The people are “generally speaking those who resist the regulation of population, who try to
elude the apparatus by which the population exists.” While discipline is the power to regulate
and divide, allowing nothing to escape within a limited space, the mechanisms of security
“works on the basis of this reality, by trying to use it as a support and make it function, makes its
components function in relation to each other.” Thus, the apparatuses of security are centrifugal
with “the constant tendency to expand.” Throughout the process, “new elements are constantly
being integrated... Security therefore involves organizing, or anyway allowing the development
of ever-wider circuits.” It is the “regulation within the element of reality”. Then, it is within this
regulation where security expands limitlessly where the multiple voices try to find their own
subjectivities interpreting the realities in accordance with their own needs through their action
and speech, rather than insisting on their own truth by framing a specific issue.
Positioning, Story-line, Co-constructed Meaning: The Intersection of Time and Eternity
Stuart Hall (1996, p.1-3), presenting the question of “who needs identity?” in order to consider
the question of agency in politics through the elusive character of contemporary identity, states
that identities are better understood as identification. It “points to temporary attachment to the
subject positions which discursive practices construct for us,” which is always in process, rather
than identity, as a result of a series of discursive representation. It is never unified and “never
singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic discourses,
practices, and positions.” How can this process of identification, for my case study, in
transnational and inter-cultural level, be analyzed in practice?
Instead of a theatrical perspective between actor and audience, which Copenhagen School and
some other constructivist scholars suggests (for example, Ringmar 1996, Hansen 2006), I
propose to see all participants to be simultaneously actors as well as audience. Rather than
examining boundaries as a result of an actor’s self-framing of an issue and how the practice are
accepted by its audience, my focus is how each actors situate themselves within overlapping
discursive fields, where the multiple actors are trying to secure their own positions, in order to
make sense their actions. The fields are multiple and overlapping due to spacial, cultural, and
historical differences and commonalities and the overlapping area has been undeniably widening
in the course of globalization. Of course, my focus is on the overlapping space but we should
bear in mind that the fields are inherently multiple and cannot be integrated, specifically in
transnational level.
While agents are confined in structure, they create structure simultaneously (Hajer 1995;
Mills 1997; Williams 2007). What is delineated here is subject positions, which should be
distinguished from political subjectivity. Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000, p.13), drawing on
Laclau and Mouffe, explains, “if the concept of subject positions accounts for the multiple forms
by which agents are produced as social actors, the concept of political subjectivity concerns the
way in which social actors act.”1 In other words, subject positions are a starting point of, or
consecutive moments through, identification as a open-ended process. Here, the question is:
First, under what conditions is a specific subject position—for example, in the case of Japan, a
developed country, Asian country, homogeneous nation, etc.—preferred to other alternatives?
Second, how does the position allow/constrain the subject’s actions? Third, how does the
preference to positions change diachronically?
For this analysis, I employ positioning theory as originally established by Rom Harré et al.
Arguing that “the constitutive force of each discursive practice lies in its provision of subject
positions,” what it examine is the discursive process through which “selves are located in
conversations as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced storylines.” (Davies and Harré 1990). Positioning is understood as “a co-constructed game of power”
(Moghaddam et al. 2008, p. 42). It is a conversational phenomenon and conversation is a social
interaction which includes non-verbal contributions. Discourse analyzed here is defined as “an
institutionalized use of language and language-like sign system” (Davies and Harré 1990).
The analytical framework of positioning is based on the triad of the position/action
(illocutionary force)/story-line. Story-lines structure participants’ actions, being interpreted in
various ways by them. In this respect, positions and story-lines are mutually constructive and
norms, ideas, values, and so on are negotiable within the structure ( Moghaddam et al. 2008;
Henriksen 2008). The sources of the story-lines are diverse but rooted in everyday experience,
such as fairy tales, histories, soap operas, and so on. Through the encounters, story-lines are
developed and realized intersubjectively. Hajer (1995, p. 56) explains the story-line as “a
generative sort of narrative that allows actors to draw upon various discursive categories to give
meaning to specific physical and social phenomena.” Once participants take positions, s/he sees
the world from the vantage point and talks according to available story-lines, images, and
metaphors, and may even be trapped in a web of them (Davis and Harré 1990; Hajer 1995).
1
Also see Doty (1997) pp. 384-85. Jackson (2006) pp.31
While narrative is a story that makes an identity meaningful, story-line is a common resource
which can be interpreted in various ways but at the same time can trap the actors.
Positions can be crystallized into roles, while roles dissolve into positions. They are
considered to be held by groups rather than individuals. As a consequence, selections of
positions are necessarily intentional and multiple. At the same time, however, they are usually
independent of motivation. Rather, people are trapped in motivations and seek ways of making
sense (Moghaddam et al. 2008), changing their positions accordingly. Hence positions, which is
inherently performative, are “created, occupied, held and abandoned through social interaction” (
Henriksen 2008, p. 42-48).
This volatility of positions is more evident for disadvantaged groups. While advantaged
groups have a clear consciousness of role which is accompanied by duties and rights and hence
their positions are relatively stable, disadvantaged groups tend to have difficulty defining their
duties and rights and may not take distinctive roles accordingly. The traditional social identity
theory unproblematically assumes that humans categorize people and all categories of people
have a “universal motivation for a positive identity” (Moghaddam et al. 2008, p.150). In reality,
a disadvantaged group could easily abandon their seemingly better positions when its members
notice that a socially prestigious position could deprive them of their acquired rights. Moreover,
when the disadvantaged group has internal conflict, the situation becomes complicated. This is
the case for women who have successfully developed their careers in a male dominated society.
They usually remains distant from their peers, act favorably towards men, and sometimes even
block their peers following their success (p.149-163). Put simply, disadvantaged groups have
more choices of positions and story-lines than the advantaged ones. In addition, their referent
objects to justify their positions can be wider and inclusive, because they tend to rely on
universal principles to enhance their positions. Hence, for disadvantaged groups, their positions
are always elusive and unstable.
In order to their positions function, actors rely on specific story-lines. They could be deployed
not only by one actor but by various actors in the overlapped discursive fields based on both their
own interpretations and mutual understandings between actors in a particular temporal and
spacial context. This leads us to the concept of “discourse coalitions” of socio-cognitive process
(Hajer 1995, p.58). Through the co-constructed game of power, the discoursing subjects produce
structures as well as are constrained by it. In this process of interaction, social arrangements are
constantly adjusted, transformed, and reinvented. When a certain story-line becomes salient
among multiple actors at a certain point of this process, here we see a “discourse coalition”
emerge. However, it should be noted that they do not necessarily share the same cognition, for
all actors select the story-lines from specific subject positions based on their particular
understandings in their temporal and spatial contexts.
It might be criticized that the framework merely depicts “a starting point for reflecting upon
the many different aspect of social life” (Harré et al. 1999, p.9) and positions might be
understood as mere reactions of each situation. Nevertheless, by focusing on the positions where
subjects are summoned up and story-lines rather than identity and actor-specific narratives, what
I hope to clarify is continuity and change throughout social interaction. Once identity is
considered as identification as a fundamentally open-ended process, which includes both selfidentification and identification by others,2 it can be seen as a process with consecutive moments
of positioning. If so, its change is traceable to some extent by examining these moments. As I
will elaborate in the following sections, however, while positions are multiple and easy to be
abandoned, story-lines, common resources between actors, which are developed
intersubjectively, seem to be difficult to transform, or at least change relatively slowly.
This rigidity of story-lines is nevertheless clue to change. I would explain the reason in three
steps. First, story-lines are a product of interactions among multiple actors and belong to no one.
Second, these intersubjectively constructed “social objects” are composed by our political
vocabularies which are rooted in our everyday language 3. Norval (2006, p.231-244) explains
this using the term “political grammar.” Our political vocabularies like ‘liberty,’ according to
her, “are neither set in stone nor easily amenable to change” because of the everyday-ness. In
order to understand possibility of its change, she argues, we need to understand its grammar,
which is “autonomous,” “cannot be falsified” and “cannot be correct or incorrect,” in a
genealogical fashion. Relying on Wittgenstein, she states that our difficulties with language-inuse stem from “the simplicity and familiarity of things.” Because of these simplicity and
familiarities, we don’t notice the “aspect of things.” The change of this aspect is realized not
when it has its elements transformed but “the way we see them” (emphasis added) has changed.
In other words, the aspect perception which is sedimented through repeated acts over time, could
2
Brubaker(2004) elaborates this multidimensionality of identity in detail.
About the development of ‘social object’, see Barnes (1988). He also mentions about “linguistic routine”(p.36) ,
which is slow to change
3
be changed when the relations between objects has shifted. It should be noted that this shift is
distinguished from framing of an issue, as theatrical perspectives often suggests, but patterns of
framing an issue.
Finally, I argue that this familiarity and simplicity of everyday-ness has a spatial and historical
dimension and could work as a medium for acceptance of foreign and new ideas which could
induce change. Maruyama Masao (1972; 1988), mentioning that Japan’s ‘historical dynamism’
since the Edo Period (1603-1868) has been not just a simple path of modernization but the
“complex process of multiple voices” in which the two momentums of modernity and “layers of
histories” go hand in hand, likewise elaborates “framework of way of thinking” or “patterns of
thoughts” (emphasis added). He claims that although the main theme of Japanese modernity is
exotic, the “whole tone” resonates as distinctively Japanese. Calling this tone “basso ostinato,” a
recurrent pattern of bass notes, he argues that exactly because of this continuity fostered in the
homogenous society, modern Japan had accepted the great historical changes.
According to Maruyama (1972), Japan’s basso ostinato of history can be described as
“momentum to ‘become’ one after another (tsugitsugi ni nariyuku ikioi).” It is this continuous
pattern of thoughts that allowed Japanese to interpret foreign ideas into their own. To illustrate,
Morris-Suzuki (1998) delineates how the notion of progress, combined with Japan’s traditional
thought of nature as “constantly changing, constantly ‘becoming’ reality in which human beings
are embedded,” had made its development to “universality” of its own interpretation. She argues
that this understanding of progress justified the idea of the Japanese as the most advanced nation
in Asia, and possibly the world into the future, which led them to define the Pacific War as their
mission.4
In the 1850s when Japan had first consecutive international treaties with the United States,
Townsend Harris, the first US ambassador to Japan, introduced the notion of international law.
According to Yoshino (1927, p. 423-455), The term was first translated as bankoku futsuu no ho
(universal law for all countries), which was generally understood as “the broad highway for all
things universe.” Although Japan yielded to the unequal treaties due to the term, the Edo
Shogunate abused this “universal law” to make people obey their weakening government,
relying on the authority of the universal West (also see Maruyama and Kato 1998). Maruyama
(1972, p. 207) argues that this understanding of international law was realized with the notion of
4
Suzuki relies on Eisenstadt’s argument but a more detailed argument is found in Maruyama (1972)
tendo (the San’s route in the sky) of Confucianism as a legitimate medium. In both examples,
ideas such as ‘universal’ or ‘progress’ were understood and interpreted in the specifically
Japanese context of “momentum to ‘become’ one after another,” allowing the ideas to be
accepted in Japanese society and hence to significantly transform it.
Meanings of any ideas and norms change through social interaction both in temporal and
spacial contexts. The transformation could be realized exactly because we continuously consume
and reproduce ideas and values through the filter of basso ostinato which hardly or, at most,
slowly change. The knowledge born out of this process is, however, “multi-productive
misunderstandings,” as the new knowledge produces new spatiality with slightly different
interpretations (See Foucault and Watanabe 2007 [1977]). Indeed, historical perception is
realized as knowledge “at the intersection of time and eternity” (Maruyama 1972, p. 350). What
we should pay attention here is not the result of the interaction (i.e. if the understanding was right
or not) but a “starting point,” “ambivalent” possibilities of to which direction it would develop
(Maruyama 1960).
To sum up, from the positioning perspective, securitization as an institutionalized use of
language is understood as a process of manifold practices through which multifarious voices and
actions co-construct the story-lines of who protects whom. Through the process, both securing
actors and referent objects are articulated as the apparatus of security of centripetal tirelessly
integrates and organizes new elements of reality. When new threat is accepted as “making sense”
by multiple actors, who simultaneously understand “who they are” in terms of the new threat,
both of them could become reality with a political subjectivity, though with possibly different
interpretations, expanding/limiting the community of security.
Economy and Peace-loving Peoples: Two Referent Objects in Japanese Security Discourse
Before examining the public debate after the Tohoku Earthquake, I begin my analysis by
looking back on the historical development of the Japanese security debate. Japan-US security
arrangements evolved after WWII might be an extreme example of how agents position through
interactions in order to secure themselves. Facing the defeat, Japanese political elites desperately
tried to ensure their own bottom lines through the negotiations with the vanquisher. Meanwhile,
the United States had to show its ability as the new leader of the “peace-loving peoples” to the
international community (Halle 1969). With these wishes and intentions, a power vacuum that
the war brought on, physical distances, and so on, the negotiations and the way to the
reconstruction traced a quite intricate path, accompanying even fancy interpretations of reality
(See e.g. Dower 1979; Dower 2010; Ito 2011). Here, however, my concern is how the Japanese
developed their story-lines through interactions mainly with Americans. For this analysis, I will
concentrate on how the question of “who protects whom (what)” is represented in public rhetoric
in terms of space and time.
As expressed in the Potsdam Declaration, the initial intention of the Allies was nothing but
the total disarmament and demilitarization of Japan (U.S. Department of State 1994). Following
this principle, Article 9 of the new Constitution, primarily drafted by GHQ (General
Headquarters of the Allied Forces) and promulgated in 1946, prohibited Japan from having any
military forces again. In 1951, the country signed the Peace Treaty of San Francisco and the
Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan. Together with the Constitution, these
treaties formed “the San Francisco System” (Dower 1979: p.371) of a separate peace, which
excluded China, India, and the Soviet Union and its allies, putting Japan under the Pax
Americana.
Nevertheless, in reality, this intention of the Allied Forces for Japan’s demilitarization
changed abruptly even before the consolidation of the system began, as the hostility between the
United States and the Soviet Union grew stronger. Consequently, the United States demanded
Japan’s rearmament. Meanwhile, the greatest concern of the Japanese elites had been the
preservation of the Kokutai, the national polity, which meant in practice protecting the emperor
(Dower 1979). In this respect, some argue that it was the Japanese side that proposed the
country’s war renunciation (Cf. Tsutsumi 2004). It was also Emperor Hirohito’s will to have the
US military stay in Japan even after the Peace Treaty had been concluded (Ito 2011). The
validity of these arguments is out of the scope of this paper, however, it has to be mentioned that
the Japanese elites were, in this respect, happy to abandon their military capability for their
greater purpose to protect the emperor system, at least for the time being.
Admittedly, this may be too simplified a delineation of the deeply complex postwar situation.
Nevertheless, this brief sketch leads me to the point that this paradoxical but fundamental
cleavage of the two countries’ intentions, together with the significant unevenness of the
relationship in terms of power, provided plenty of raw discursive materials that allowed Japan,
the disadvantaged, fancy interpretations based on particular story-lines in the game of power.
Here, I mention the emergence of two story-lines, which has been salient in Japanese security
discourse: Securitization of the economy and the peace loving peoples as their guardians, which
deeply link with each other and have been reproduced repeatedly by various actors’ manifold
voices.
The foundation of postwar Japan’s security arrangement begins no doubt with this passage in
the Constitution. In the second paragraph of the preamble, it declares:
We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals
controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and
existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire
to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace,
and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the
earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from
fear and want.5
Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, in the Lower House plenary session when the proposed
constitutional amendment was tabled, asserted that “Japan, facing this tragedy, for the purpose of
retaining Kokutai and maintaining its people’s welfare, what has to be cleared up at the outset is
the prevailing misunderstanding among countries that Japan’s traditional state apparatus could
again threaten world’s peace.” Asked if even the “just” war in self-defense could be renounced
by Nosaka Sanzo from Communist Party, Yoshida answered that even admitting that selfdefense was just war “could be harmful” (Yoshida 1998a). In fact, the main topic of the session
was not the abandonment of military but whether the new constitution would preserve the
Kokutai or not. The logic from this vantage point of maintaining Kokutai was that Japan could be
protected by other benign countries by entrusting their own life to them, the ideal of human
relations revealed in the new Constitution.
This deployment of the strategy of desperation had grave consequences for postwar Japanese
Diplomacy. First of all, it realized Yoshida’s specific diplomatic principle (later known as the
Yoshida Doctrine). Kosaka Masataka (2006 [1963])6 analyzes that Yoshida, who served out as
prime minister right after WWII for more than five and a half years, never gave priority to
military forces but to economy. In 1950, as the Korean War broke out, the United States
5
6
Translation found on the Website of Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet
All translations from Japanese texts are by the author
demanded that Japan rearm. Yoshida, facing the demand, explained to John Foster Dulles that if
Japan rearmed, Asian countries would fear Japan’s revival of militarism. This was a deft twist of
the strategy of desperation mentioned above. In the end, having General MacArthur as its
sympathizer, Japan only formed a National Police Reserve of 75,000 men, rejecting America’s
demand skillfully. Yoshida’s reluctance to rearm was indeed unshakable. After two years, the
United States this time insisted that Japan should increase its troops to 305,000 for its homeland
defense. Nevertheless, Yoshida again replied that Japan, being too exhausted by the defeat, had
become a “jaded horse.” Now, he continued, the priority was “gaining economic strength in
order to achieve stability of people’s livelihood” (Yoshida 1998). According to Dower (1979), he
was able to become assertive because he believed in Japan’s geopolitical importance for the
United States in terms of the Cold War.
This securitization of economy by Yoshida was accepted by Americans in the context of the
strong fear of Japan turning red, which was shared among elites both in the United States and in
Japan (Dower 1979). Irie (1966) warns that the prevailing understanding that the shift of
America’s occupation policy was a geopolitical consequence of the development of the Cold
War is an oversimplification. The United States, he states, assuming that the warfront was in
Europe, did not take Japan as a strategic hub. So the occupation policy had already been changed
in support of Japan’s economic growth. Therefore the United States, despite the outbreak of the
Korean War, allowed Japan to reject their demand. As Kosaka (2006) asserts, “the fact that
Japanse economy would not be able to endure the rearmament, together with the fact that there is
no unarmed country on the Earth, was more convincing than any other arguments.” This
economy-first principle has been handed down to his successors. Under the Ikeda administration,
which was established after the struggle over the U.S.-Japan Security Pact in 1960 (Rokujyuunen
Ampo), the culmination of this policy was seen. Setting the Income-Doubling Plan as a policy
agenda, Ikeda set economism solidly in place. Ikeda asserted:
What is important in diplomacy are to enhance the country’s credibility, to be respected by
liberal countries, and not to be disdained by the communist countries. To do so, stabilizing
the domestic system is the priority. If we did not take high diplomatic profile without
solidifying domestic situation, we would be insulted (The Asahi Shimbun 1960, quoted in
Kosaka 2006)
Here again, Japanese existence was fundamentally affirmed by other nations. To do this, Japan
should keep a low diplomatic profile. To be sure, as Kosaka (2006, p.144-146) points out,
Ikeda’s plan “fired the Japanese enthusiasm” and led the country to experience remarkable
economic growth, but it was not without a cost: the country’s independence. The ruling party
tried to enhance the country’s independence by emphasizing the continuity of Japanese history
which was symbolically represented by the emperor and his line “unbroken for ages eternal,”
while the oppositional parties insisted on the maintenance of independence by the radical
reformation of the social system. However, neither “the avant garde nationalism nor the
traditional nationalism” was able to be realized in Japan.
Nevertheless, keeping a low diplomatic profile could be frustrating when the country became
affluent. Ikeda, keenly understanding the importance of military capabilities in international
relations through the experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis, thought that Japan had to cultivate
human resources capable of dealing with security issues. According to Kosaka (2006: p.148154), this was Ikeda’s intention when he launched the Council for Human Resource
Development (Hitozukuri Kondankai) in 1963. In so doing, he tried to shift his policy from
“building things” (Monozukuri) to “building human resources” (Hitozukuri). In stark contrast to
his Income-Doubling Plan, however, his attempt to develop a “national compathy on national
security policy” failed, being “misunderstood” in various ways. In this way, the economy solely
had become Japan’s principal security issue.
Meanwhile, Yoshida’s twist of the desperation strategy contributed to form a salient story-line
repeatedly performed by also some other actors across time and space. Kissinger, at the meeting
with Zhou Enlai in 1972, stated that if America withdrew its troops from Japan, the country
would become out of control and dangerous to its neighboring countries (Sankei Shimbun 2002).
Known as the idea of “the cap in the bottle (bin no futa),” this argument returned in public
rhetoric in 1990, his time by an American military officer. Lieutenant General Stackpole claimed
that the second purpose of the U.S.-Japan Alliance was to contain Tokyo (Nikkei Shimbun 2012;
Bandow 2012). As Bandow points out, “It is a claim that even Japanese officials have used on
occasion: protect us, since surely you don’t want the Imperial Japanese navy wandering the
Pacific again.” (Bandow 2012). Furthermore, this “‘stop us before we aggress again’ argument”
is seen also in the left-wing protests against rearmament. Even Prime Minister Abe (2006, p.68),
known as a staunch conservative, writes: “Japan, for more than a half century, standing up for
liberty, democracy, and human rights, contributing world peace. It goes without saying that the
world has been watching those Japanese actions.” Certainly, it is the peace-loving peoples who
judge the Japanese government, and not the Japanese people. It is these peoples who protect the
Japanese. In this respect, Abe and the left-wing protesters are equally “aggressive nationalists”
who willingly would risk even their own security for world peace (Asaba 2004: p. 272).
Furthermore, in this context, the United States as the cap in the bottle protects the peace-loving
peoples from possible Japanese aggression. Thus, together with Kissinger and the military
officer, they all are forming a loose discursive coalition, despite the fact that their political
stances are different, admitting Japan’s reluctance to rearm “makes sense.”
This securitization of economy by the Japanese with the peace-loving peoples as their
guardians, has two critical evolutions. First of all, it has hampered Japan’s ability to form its own
security subjectivity. Second, it has obscured the U.S. military presence as Japan’s protector.
These two critical weaknesses have been further reinforced by the geographical setting of the
U.S.-Japan military alliance. Yamazaki (2002; 2005) argues that the arrangement of Japan’s
territorial defense, relying on the “forward-deployed military forces and nuclear deterrence of the
United States,” has contributed to the development of an “ambiguous defense subjectivity.”
Since the end of WWII, the U.S. military presence had been largely confined within Okinawa, a
southern island where the only ground battle was fought during the War. In the next section, I
will examine these developments especially in terms of geographical references in security
discourse.
From the Far East to Global: A Geographically Comprehensive Alliance
Hook and Son (2013, p.42) assert that the Japanese people, due to the harsh experience of the
war, developed a “peace state identity” after the war. Because of this specific identity, “the
government was unable to embed a security identity for Japan as an ally of the United States.”
To be sure, the focal point of the domestic debate on the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the SDF
has been about the right of collective defense of Japan, especially with alignment to the United
States. This agenda is even said to have been Japan’s largest political issue (Hughes 2006;
Maeda 2007; Mathur 2007; Toyoshita 2008). During the Rokujyuunen Ampo in the 1960s,
Premier Kishi ensured at the Diet that Japan did not have any obligation to protect the U.S. soil
even if it was attacked. From the late 1970s to the 1980s, safety of the world’s sea lanes became
a concern for Japan. As the Japan-U.S. joint exercises were routinized, whether the SDF would
have to protect the US fleet if it was set upon by a third country was intensely debated. What was
questioned at that time was whether the SDF had to defend the US fleet when it was attacked
while the SDF was escorting it. According to Nishikawa (2008), whilst the responses of the
government have been slightly different over time, they have largely converged on an
interpretation that Japan could protect the U.S. Fleet in an effort of self-defense, but not as
collective defense.
This line of debate has shown a new evolution as North Korea shows its aggressiveness in
recent years. Hughes (2009, p. 293) points out that North Korea is “adept at creating for Japan
alliance dilemmas of entrapment and, particularly, abandonment by generating and exploiting
differences of threat perception between the bilateral allies.” Certainly, North Korea knows the
contradiction between the two allies. During his visit to Japan in 2006, the U.S. deputy defense
undersecretary for Asia and Pacific affairs was quoted as saying that it was “crazy” for Japan not
to shoot down a missile heading toward the United States (Kyodo News 2006). Toyoshita
maintains that it is totally incongruous that the conservative politicians who are aiming for the
amendment of the “imposed” Constitution by the United States, can be intimidated by the United
States in this way.
Here, however, even putting this inconsistency aside, what is bizarre is the ambiguity of the
enemy. In 2004, Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda, facing the issues of the realignment of U.S.
Forces in Japan, complained, “in complying with the U.S. wishes, we sent the SDF to Iraq and
decided to introduce missile-defense system. How come the United States wants to put Japan to
annoyance this much?” (Toyoshita 2007). So it is the United States who impose, annoy, and
intimidate Japan and much less North Korea. Isn’t it this dilemma of Japan’s that North Korea
pokes at? This absence of the enemy was more striking in the debate when the Japanese
government decided to send the SDF to Samawah, Iraq in 2003. While the issue was perceived to
be whether the SDF could just stand by and watch once the forces of other countries were
assaulted, there were neither explanations nor questions as to how the SDF would be protected
by the troops from other countries (Toyoshita 2007), and less considerations of what will happen
if they were attacked. All in all, for Japan, neither securitizing actors nor referent objects are
clearly seen. Most notably, as Toyoshita points out, it seems to be no one but Japan who is in the
blind spot of its own view. It is as if it is unproblematically assumed that the Japanese would be
attacked by no one, as far as it behave well.
Having no clear view of who protects whom, Japan, with this peace identity, at a glance
appears to prefer staying within the islands. In the official documents, the U.S.-Japan alliance has
been defined in reference to region. Article 6 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty declares:
For the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international
peace and security in the Far East, the United States of America is granted the use by its land,
air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan.
This regional confinement has been in reality eroding, especially since the end of the Cold War,
as threats to the United States are de-territorialized in security discourse. In the “Japan U.S. Joint
Declaration on Security—Alliance for the 21st Century,” the two countries redefined their region
as “Asia-Pacific” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan). Yamazaki (2005) argues that the restrengthened U.S. Japan security arrangement had entered a new phase after 9.11. The United
States elucidates Asia as a “region susceptible to large-scale military competition” in the
Quadrennial Defense Review Report issued in 2001 and Japanese government is following suit.
The year of 2005 was another crucial turning point for the alliance. Arase (2007: p. 580-581)
points out that the issuance of the “U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the
Future” marked a “qualitatively new policy and operational alliance relationship.” In the press
conference announcing the agreement, Defense Minister Ohno Yoshinori explained the change
that “we’re now talking about joint activities in various areas between Japan and the United
States in order to improve the peace and security around the world.” Condoleeza Rice likewise
declared: “A relationship that was once only about the defense of Japan or perhaps about the
stability in the region, has become a global alliance.” Curiously however, despite this
significance, the meaning of this joint statement has been largely unnoticed domestically.
Moreover, several years later, this development became controversial as a retired diplomat wrote
about this change as a conspiracy in his best-selling book titled Unmasking the Japan-U.S.
Alliance (Magosaki 2009).
However, this indifference does not necessarily mean that the Japanese people want the SDF
staying within the Far East. This is obvious in the evolving role of the SDF in humanitarian
operations. Japan, since it first took part in PKOs in 1992, has dispatched the SDF all over the
world. This is an astonishing development given the massive resistance which insisted that
overseas deployments could lead the country to remilitarization. In 2007, the peace keeping
operations which “redress international security environment” was positioned as an “essential
mission” for the SDF (Ministry of Defense). The ‘National Defense Program Guidelines’ issued
in 2011 says:
The first objective of Japan’s security policy is to prevent any threat from directly reaching
Japan and to eliminate external threats that have reached it so as to minimize the ensuing
damage, and thereby secure the peace and security of Japan and its people. The second
objective is to prevent threats from emerging by further stabilizing the security environment
in the Asia-Pacific region and by improving the global security environment, so as to
maintain and strengthen a free and open international order and ensure Japan’s security and
prosperity. The third objective is to contribute to creating global peace and stability and to
secure human security.7
Hook and Son (2013, p.46-47) maintains that the cumulative dispatches of the SDF led Japan
to the “internalization of ‘humanitarian power’ as the most salient security identity” for three
reasons. First, it had been experiencing increasing pressure to contribute to the world peace from
the United States. Second, the structural change in the international system made the “peace state
identity” defunct. Third, “because humanitarian activities are non-violent, the dissonance
between the identity of Japan as a peace state and as an ally of the USA could be fused into the
identities of Japan as a civilian or humanitarian power.”
To be sure, the humanitarian power identity who helps others in order to protect the self—a
kind of karmic-backlash argument seen also in the Guideline—ostensibly lives up to the
Japanese story-line of the peace loving peoples as their guardians. However, this new identity
does not explain enough the awkward feeling of the Japanese toward the “global alliance” with
the United States, seen for example in the bewildering reactions to the new policy mentioned
above. If Japan now has a humanitarian identity, which harmonize with the American traditional
missionary identity (Foglesong 2007), the question of collective security defense should be
resolved, realizing the collective subjectivity of two countries. However, at present, there seems
to be the long way to go towards its resolution. In other words, while the Japanese admit the
overseas dispatch of the SDF, the “global alliance” is unacceptable for them.
7
the Website of Ministry of defense, Japan
Here, the Japanese notion of security might be a clue to understanding this inconsistency.
According to Watanabe (2006), the notion of security in Japanese (anzenhoshou) is different
from that of national security in English. For the Japanese, anzenhoshou is considered to be
“comprehensive security,” which fundamentally includes non-military matters (see also Buzan
and Hansen 2009, p.136). As we have seen, Japanese elites deployed a specific discourse which
securitized their economy with reference to “peace loving peoples” in the early stages of the
postwar period. Since then, Japanese referent objects have essentially been not the state, but in
relation to people’s welfare and peace. As Wæver (1996) points out, when the referent object is
individuals, it possibly expands toward cosmopolitans. This is the centrifugal power of security,
in Foucault’s terminology. Consequently, the Obuchi administration and subsequent Mori
administration put up human security8 as their main political agenda. In this context, it is natural
for the Japanese to go outside of the state boundaries and the region to global, as far as it risk
their own lives for the peace-loving peoples, while purely geographical expansion is
unacceptable.
Although Japanese reluctance to rearm is largely explained in terms of pacifism as a result of
the harsh experience of WWII by Western scholars (Hook et al. 2013, see also Bukh 2006),
when the debate is analyzed in terms of the question of who protects whom, it is easy to identify
that PKOs in reality have often been opposed on the grounds that the neighboring countries
would worry about Japan becoming aggressive if it deployed its troops outside, not that the
Japanese would worry that their government was becoming aggressive. However, interestingly,
going back to history, according to Tanaka (2005), during the Rokujyuunen Ampo, even among
the protestors terms like “wars of aggression,” “Asian Neighbors” were out of their concerns. At
that time, opinion polls showed that the majority supported rearmament, indicating the striking
absence of pacifism in the first postwar decade. Here, an implication is that these story-lines
have been gradually developed as actions and historical events have accumulated. What has
gradually changed in the course of time is indeed their pattern of seeing things, a political
grammar. In this respect, Japanese pacifism should be understood within a wider and longer
context of history, rather than as a simple result of the war. Throughout the development, the
“stop us before we aggress again” argument, together with the peculiar notion of security, which
example, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan (2011) ‘Human Security: In Order to Realize Enriched Human
Capability’ http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/hs/pdfs/hs_pamph.pdf
8For
is a product of Japanese interpretation through bassso ostinato, works as one of the main storylines, which is utilized by various actors so as to give specific meanings to social phenomena.
Concerning the Japanese understanding of comprehensive security, Watanabe (2006) presents
two questions: First of all, specifically after 9.11, has this peculiar understanding come to be
shared among more peoples? Second, is the notion of security based on Schmitian understanding
of friend/enemy relations still plausible? If the answers are assumed to be positive, isn’t it this
crossroad of “time and eternity” in Maruyama’s words—rather than their common interests—
that the Japanese and Americans have finally met at, rather than having the common
humanitarian power identity? Keeping these questions in mind, I now turn to the analysis of
discourse after 3.11.
Tomodachi in Need? Discourse after 3.11
Ó Tuathail (1998) argues that the emergence of “deterritorialized threats” and “global
dangers” discourses can be understood “as long-delayed unfolding a logic of reflexive
modernization in geopolitical theory and practice at the end of the century.” According to him,
Ulrich Beck’s understanding of risk society is that it is “a developmental phase of modern
society in which the social, political, economic and individual risks increasingly tend to escape
the institutions for monitoring and protection in industrial society.” At the first stage of the
development, “the effects and self-threats are systematically produced but do not become public
issues or the centre of political conflicts.” The second stage is when “the institutions of industrial
society become the producers and legitimators of threats they cannot control” (Beck, qtd. in Ó
Tuathail, p.24). At this stage, while the institutions are trying to control the risk, their credibility
becomes problematic. In this risk society, modernization is reflexive “because it is dealing with
problems, risks, and dangers created by its own modernity.” From this perspective, however,
contemporary US geopolitical discourse, staying at the second phase, “still articulates the mythic
system of industrial modernity.”
The same can be said for Japan’s geopolitical discourse to some extent. As Hughes et al
points out, the elites emphasize that the SDF is now a “multifunctional and flexible” force that
can confront globalized threats. For Japan, however, the threats after 9.11 were both global and
regional: Supporting the U.S.-led war on terror on the one hand, and facing growing hostilities
from neighboring countries on the other. Hook et al. (2005) states that Japan, in its New National
Defense Programme Outline in 2004, for the first time “explicitly” identified its threats. Then,
the massive earthquake hit the country. To be sure, as a quake-prone country, disaster relief
missions are defined as its side duty in the SDF Act. Nevertheless, the operation with onehundred-thousand troops is the largest-ever mission for them. According to a survey carried out
by the Cabinet Office (2012), 91.7% of people answered that they have a positive feeling toward
the SDF. It was the highest since the survey started in 1969. At the Diet, Tanioka, a Diet
member, acknowledged that the SDF “has been raised as the forces for peace, as the Constitution
first had intended, who protect Japan and the lives for the Japanese” (Committee on Foreign
Affairs and Defense). Has this development mean that the ‘real’ danger finally legitimate the
SDF?
In terms of my research question of who protects whom, the most bold development after
3.11 is Prime Minister Abe’s announcement for changing the name of the Self Defense Forces to
the National Defense Forces, as the LDP had promised in their manifesto for the election in
2012. Although the difference sounds slight in English, in Japanese kanji, it becomes striking.
While SDF is written as 自衛隊, which contains no reference to nation or state, NDF is written
as 国防軍, clearly showing that what is protected is Japan as the state. Also, while SDF is not
represented as Forces in 自衛隊, 国防軍 has the exact kanji that represents military, with a
reactionary connotation that invokes history and war. Therefore, it can be said that 国防軍 is
much bolder in its referent objects.
Meanwhile, the opponents’ contention to this change is obviously in line with the argument of
peace-loving peoples identified in previous sections. To illustrate, Mainichi Shimbun (2013)
worries the change “would induce distrust and backlash of international society, especially Asian
neighbors which Japan invaded” (also see Asahi Shimbun 2012a, Hokkaido Shimbun 2013b).
More interestingly, however, Abe as well states that “what Japan is saying [in terms of collective
defense] does not gain currency in the world” (Asahi Shimbun 2013). The difference here is
probably that while the former seemingly excludes the United States from the peace-loving
international society, the latter see the United States as a main member of the same society.
However, the same Asahi Shimbun (2012b) points out that “From the United States, we can hear
voices worrying Japan’s right-turn.” Tokyo Shimbun (2012), mentioning the Armitage and Nye
report, asserts that the Japanese government “can do only ad-hoc measures so it is under the
thumb of the United States.” But the question here probably is: To which direction would
“Americans” lead Japan? As Toyoshita criticizes, Abe is trying to change the “imposed” (by the
United States) constitution so as to strengthen U.S. Japan relations (Toyoshita 2007). Hokkaido
Shimbun (2013), relying on Yoshida Shigeru’s old argument, warns that “keeping high profile in
diplomacy would end up to lose support in international society. Even if [such a posture] is
supported by the Japanese, it is a dangerous road” (see also Iwate Nippo 2013). In the Diet
debate, Konno, a legislator, proposes that part of the SDF should be converted into a group of
experts of disaster relief activity. They, he insists, would rush over to the scene of natural
disasters overseas. This indeed can serve as “brilliant international contributions” (Budget
Committee). Here again, the Japanese themselves are absent while peace loving peoples are
salient.
A year after the tragedy, in their report on the U.S.-Japan Alliance, Armitage and Nye (2012)
write that the crises of 3.11 and Operation Tomodachi, the relief activities by U.S. Forces,
“raised an interesting irony for deployment of U.S. and Japanese forces,” showing that “under
the most severe conditions requiring the protection of Japan’s interests, our forces are legally
prevented from collectively defending Japan.” Undeniably, one of the biggest political concerns
after the event was if it would change the U.S.-Japan alliance that has not become a “collective”
yet. To be sure, the presence of American forces, which deployed 20,000 troops at most, was
massive. According to the survey mentioned above, 81.2% of people recognized that the JapanU.S. Security Treaty is beneficial for Japan, which increased 4.8% compared to a similar 2009
survey. Also, 79.2% think that the Tomodach Operation was effective (Cabinet Office 2012).
Nevertheless, despite this apparent affirmation by the Japanese public, it might be difficult to
identify any change. Samuels (2013), analyzing various Japanese domestic debates, visiting the
devastated areas, and conducting various interviews, argues that “the anticipated ‘deepened
alliance’ did not materialize, at least not in the form of structural change or agreement on the
realignment forces.”
Whatever the slogans like “Gambare Nippon” say, the incompleteness of “Kizuna (bond)”
was not just between the two countries. Instead, what many of the Japanese saw throughout the
very localized threat has been the boundaries drawn everywhere inside Japan. Ironically indeed,
they were “drawn” because of radioactivities vented from the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.
Sasaki (2011), a popular young critic, said to his audience at a speech event held a month after
the quake that “we are not them, the victims.” The difference is only relative, but “absolute.”
Ikeda (2011) likewise argues that events such as quakes and tsunamis, no matter how tragic, can
draw lines between the time when it happens and the time before and after it. However, “the
radioactivity made setting any boundaries impossible.” Exactly for this reason, people frantically
try to draw lines in the sphere of imagination. Many mothers in Tokyo escaped toward the west
with their children hand in hand. Not a few local governments outside Tohoku refused to accept
the wreckage of buildings from the devastated area, fearing radioactive contamination.
Nevertheless, in the areas, especially in Fukushima, the lines were not at all imagination but an
invisible reality, a frantic containment of radioactivity, by naming the area around the nuclear
reactor the “evacuating zone.”
Here, what is striking is uncertainty of space. As Ikeda states, while time whenever allows us
to draw lines, the invisibility of radioactive contamination refuses any boundary-making
attempts. It is nothing but where you live that distinguished the victims from others. One of the
most salient discourse after 3/11 was undeniably the brutality of the land of Japan, where
repeated giant earthquakes have been historically killing countless people. It is this land of
uncertainty where the Japanese live. Nevertheless, for Kato Norihiro (2011), one of the most
influential contemporary critics, it is the whole islands of Japan that is separated from the rest of
the World. He asserts, it was loneliness that the Japanese keenly felt throughout the experience
of 3/11. The nation was a “transfer student” and has been a “dissident” in international society.
Throughout the modernity, what Japan has been aiming is “catching up and overtaking others.”
However, in order to overcome this ”national crisis,” he asserts, Japan should feel “a sense of
unity” as a member of the society. This will be done only by abandoning nuclear power.
Mentioning that the nuclear fuel cycle policy was “in reality a policy to secure the nuclear
capability,” he urges his peers to become completely “unarmed,” by discarding this covert
nuclear deterrence, that is, nuclear energy. Kato States, Japan can’t survive without “trusting in
the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world” and “that’s fine.”
Ó Tuathail (1998) argues that it was the “national security” discourse which “rhetorically
contained unprecedented techno-scientific risks” of self-reflexive threats of nuclear weapons
during the Cold War. The two atom bombs showed that a “technological pinnacle to technoindustrial society could destroy the home of techno industry society.” Despite this reality, “the
mythic self-concept of ‘industrial society,’” has been surviving. However, with the demise of the
Soviet Union, this regime of risk containment and management was in fact collapsed. Drawing
again on Beck, he states, now, “No risk is self-evident in and of itself; it must be described,
represented and constituted as part of a larger narrative.” Moreover, the narrative is composed by
multiple voices of various actors. Even though a “parade of enemies” for Japan is a hybrid of
global and local, the “crisis of security,” which is ambivalent and undecidable, is likewise
obvious. Japanese risks as part of larger narrative, have always been up in the air in between the
tensions of global and local. More precisely, in Japan, the crisis of security might have been
continuing for almost seventy years, since the two atom bombs were dropped, without having
any clear-cut threats. Indeed, might it be the case that Fukushima, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki
equally showed across time the impossibility of drawing lines between enemies and friends?
Conclusions
“A strong Japan. The people who create it are not some other people. They are none other
than we ourselves. "’National independence through personal independence’”(Abe 2013).
At the outset of his policy speech at the Diet in February, Premier Abe quoted Fukuzawa
Yukichi’s well-known passage. Not to mention Maruyama’s (1946) postwar argument on
Japanese subjectivity (shutaisei), how to construct “we” has been almost an inherent, neverresolved issue for Japan since the end of WWII: “If you don’t conform, you will be ostracized.
Instead, as far as you conform, your life and security are ensured by the mura (community).”
Ozawa Ichiro (1993), a formerly renowned politician, thus depicted Japanese society in his book
in 1993. Calling this system “Japanese style democracy,” he urged his peers to be a “normal
country with independent individuals.” Since then, apart from Ozawa’s intent, Japanese
normalization has virtually meant rearmament, at least in the context of international politics
(e.g. Kang 2003, Mathur 2007). However, in the discourse I analyzed in this paper, we saw a
strong fear of the Japanese that rearmament would result in being ostracized from a global
community of peace-loving peoples.
When Yoshida Shigeru began his negotiation with the United States after WWII, he took a
position as the vanquished. This positioning occasionally allowed him and his successors to
securitize the economy, which was admitted by the United States, who wanted to avoid Japan
taken over by communists. Also, the phrase of the Constitution written by the United States was
weaved into a story-line of peace-loving peoples, who have been Japan’s guardians.
Interestingly, however, the United States, despite its authorship, has apparently been excluded
from this “peoples,” while for example China, who had been excluded from the San Francisco
System, is seemingly identified as one of such nations. Nevertheless, the argument of a cap in a
bottle, the other side of the same story, has also been utilized by the United States and others.
Thus, while the positions and voices of the Japanese seemingly vary, what is noteworthy is
the elasticity and malleability of the story-lines. The story lines, giving people a certain
autonomy of choosing referent objects, at the same time prevent specific subjectivities from
being crystallized, as they develop through peoples’ speeches and actions. The paradox which
Japan’s case shows is that the more ostensible autonomies one has, the more crystallization
(securitization) becomes difficult. Indeed, Japan was able to securitize the economy when it
positioned itself as the vanquished at the expense of its independence. In other words, while the
definition and construction of security is seemingly only in the hands of policy-maker, the
success of securitization is another matter. It is not a simple acceptance by their audience but it
has to become understandable in terms of story-lines. In addition, how the discursive coalitions
evolved around it is not at all clear-cut. They, despite their different positions, rely on the same
story-lines with different interpretations. Moreover, their interpretations are, as seen in Japanese
understanding of security, significantly influenced by each of their temporality and spatiality.
These story-lines might conflate into a larger narrative. Nevertheless, with numerous voices and
authors, the ‘crisis of security’ will continue, without having a narrative even for the two, much
less for all.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Abe, S., 2012. Policy Speech by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the 183rd Session of the Diet,
Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, [online]
<http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/96_abe/statement/201302/28siseuhousin_e.html > [Accessed 3
Oct. 2013].
Asahi Shimbun, 2012a. Editorial: What’s wrong with Self Defense Forces?, The Asahi Shimbun.
29 Nov. Morning edition. p.14.
Asahi Shimbun, 2012b. Editorial: We want sober politics. The Asahi Shimbun. 27 Dec. Morning
edition. p.3.
Asahi Shimbun, 2013. Collective defense and war-renouncing article 9. The Asahi Shimbun,14
Feb. 2013. Morning edition. p.7.
Budget Committee, The House of Councilors, 2011. 13 May [online]
<http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/cgibin/KENSAKUswk_dispdoc.cgiSESSION=4337&SAVED_RID=1&PAGE=0&POS=0&
TOTAL= 0&SRV_ID=9&DOC_ID=7900&DPAGE=1&DTOTAL=1&DPOS=1&SORT_
DIR=1&SORT_TYPE=0&MODE=1&DMY=6600> [Accessed 3 Oct 2013].
Cabinet Office, 2012. Survey of public opinion on SDF and security issues. [onlime]
<http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h23/h23-bouei/> [Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense, The House of Councilors, 2011. 26 April.
Hokkaido Shimbun. 2013a. Editorial: We should not leave all to politics: the path of the sate and
Abe administration. The Hokkaido Shimbun. 1 Jan. 2013. Morning edition. p.3.
Hokkaido Shimbun. 2013b. Editorial: Let’s dissolve the distrust this year. The Hokkaido
Shimbun. 3 Jan. 2013. Morning Edition. p.3.
Iwate Nippo. 2013. Don’t misunderstand the “favorable impression”. The Iwate Nippo. 12
March, 2013. Morning edition. p. 5.
Kyodo News. 2006. Collective defense ban crazy: lawless. The Japan Times. 7 Dec. [online]
<2006 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2006/12/07/news/collective-defense-ban-crazylawless/#.UeyJQOCFFMI> [Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
Mainichi Shimbun. 2013. Editorial: Constitution and amendment of article nine. worrying unfair
exercises of forces. The Mainich Shimbun. 5 May. Morning edition p. 5.
Ministry of Defense, n.d. What are the international peace keeping oooperation activities?
Ministry of Defense. [online] <http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/kokusai_heiwa/about.html>
[Accessed 3 Oct.2013].
Ministry of Defense, 2010, National Defense Program Guidelines for FY 2011 and Beyond.
[online] <http://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/d_policy/national.html> [Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
Japan U.S. joint declaration on security—Alliance for the 21st century. 1996. Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Japan. [online] <http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/namerica/us/security/security.html>.[Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
U.S.-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future’. 2005. Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of Japan. [online] <http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/namerica/us/security/scc/doc0510.html> [Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
Secondary Sources
Abe, S., 2006. Utsukushii Kuni e (Toward a Beautiful Nation). Tokyo: Bunshun Shinsho
Arase, D., 2007. Japan The Active State? Security Policy after 9/11. Asian Survey, 47(4), pp.
560-583.
Armitage, R. and Nye J., 2012. The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia. [online]
<http://csis.org/files/publication/120810_Armitage_USJapanAlliance_Web.pdf > [Accessed 3
Oct. 2013].
Asaba, M., Nasionarisumu: Meicho de Tadoru Nihon Shisou Nyuumon (Nationalism: An
Approach to Modern Japanese Thought). Tokyo: Chukuma Shinsho.
Barnes, B., 1988. The Nature of Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bandow, D., 2012. Give Okinawa back to the Okinawans (op/ed). Forbes. 23 Jan. [online]
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2012/01/23/give-okinawa-back-to-theokinawans/3/>
[Accessed 3 Oct. 2013].
Behr, H. and Rösch, F., 2012. Introduction. In: H. Behr. and F. Rösch eds. Morgenthau, H. J.,
The Concept of Political.
Browning, C. S., 2008. Constructivism, narrative and foreign policy analysis: a case study of
finland. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Brubaker, R., 2004. Ethnicity without groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bukh, A., 2006. Japan’s national identity and foreign policy: Russia as Japan’s other. London:
Routledge.
Buzan, B. and Hansen L. 2009. The evolution of international security studies. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, D., 1998. Writing security: United States foreign policy and the politics of identity.
Revised ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Davies, B. and Harré R., 1990. Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the
Theory of Social Behavior. 20(1 ). pp. 43-63.
Dower, J. W., 1979. Empire and aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese experience, 18781954. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Dower, J. W., 2010. Cultures of war: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9.11/Iraq. New York: W. W.
Norton.
Dower, J. W., 1986. War without mercy: Race and power in the Pacific War. New York:
Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M., 2003. Society must be defended. Translated From French by D. Macey.
New York: Penguin Books
Foucault, M., 2007. Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France 19771978. Translated from French by G. Burchell. A.I. Davidson ed. New York: Picador.
Foucault, M.and Watanabe, M., 2007 Testugaku no butai (Theaturm Philosophicum), revised
version. Tokyo: Asahishuppan-sha
Foglesong, D. S., 2007. The American mission and the “evil empire”. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hajer, M. A., 1995. The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the
policy process. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hall, S., 1996. ‘Introduction: Who needs identity?’ In: S. Hall and P. Du Gay eds. Questions of
cultural identity. London: Sage.
Halle, L. J., 1967. The Cold War as history. Translated from English to Japanese by H. Ota.
Tokyo: Saimaru Shuppankai.
Hansen, L., 2000. The Little Mermaid’s silent security dilemma and the absence of gender in the
Copenhagen School’. Millennium-Journal of International Studies 2000 29(2) pp.285-306.
Harré, R. and Van Langenhove, L. eds., 1999. Positioning theory: moral contexts of intentional
action. Oxford; Blackwell
Henriksen, T. D., 2008. Liquidating roles and crystallizing positions: Investigating the road
between the role and positioning theory. In F. M. Moghaddam, R. Harré, N. Lee eds. 2008
Global conflict resolution through positioning analysis. New York: Springer
Hook, G. D., Gilson J., Hughes, C.W. and Dobson H., 2005. Japan’s international relations:
Politics, Economics, and security. London: Routldge
Hook, G. D.. and Son K., 2013. Transposition in Japanese state identities: overseas troop
dispatches and the emergence of a humanitarian power?‘ Australian Journal of International
Affairs. 67(1). pp.35-54
Howarth, D. and Stavrakakis, Y. 2000. Introducing discourse theory and political analysis. In: D.
Howarth, A. J. Norval, and Y. Stavrakakis. Discourse theory and political analysis: identities,
hegemonies, and social changes. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Hughes, C. W., 2006. Why Japan could revise its constitution and what It would mean for
Japanese security policy. Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs. 50(4). pp.724-744.
Hughes, C. W., 2009. Super-sizing the DPRK threat: Japan’s evolving military posture and
North Korea. Asian Survey. 49(2). pp.291-311
Ikeda, Y., 2011, Warera fukushima kokumin (We the Fukushima nation). Shisou to shite no
3.11(3.11 as thought). pp.141-151. Tokyo:Kawaide Shobo Shinsha.
Ito, Y., 2011. Showa tenno den (Biography of the Emperor Showa). Tokyo: Bungei Shunjyuu
Irie, A., 1966. Nihon no gaiko: Meiji Ishin kara gendai made (Japan’s Diplomacy: from Meiji
Restoration to Today). Tokyo: Chukou Shinsho.
Jackson, P. T., 2006. Civilizing the enemy: German reconstruction and the invention of the West.
Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Kato, N., 2011. Mirai kara no fuiuchi (A raid from future). Shisou to shite no 3.11(3.11 as
thought). pp.70-84. Tokyo:Kawaide Shobo Shinsha.
Kang, D., 2003. ‘Getting Asia wrong: The need for new analytical frameworks’, International
Security. 27(4). pp. 57-85.
Kosaka, M., 2006. Saisho Yoshida Shigeru (Yoshida Shigeru, the premier). Tokyo:
Chuoukouronsha.
Krasner, S. D., 1995. Compromising westphalia’ International Security 20(3). pp. 115-151.
Laclau, E., and Mouffe C., 1985. Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic
politics. Second edition. London: Verso.
Magosaki, U., 2009. Nichibei doumei no shoutai: meisou suru anzenhoshou (Unmasking JapanUS Alliance). Tokyo: Kodansha.
Maruyama, M., 1946. The logic and pshycology of ultranationalism. In: M. Maruyama. 1964.
Gendai seiji no shisou to koudou (Thought and behavior in modern Japanese politics). expanded
edition. 1964. Tokyo:Miraisha.
Maruyama, M., 1972. Rekishi ishiki no koso (Basso Ostinato in historical consciousness) In:
1992. M. Maruyama, Chuusei to hangyaku: tenkeiki Nihon no seishinshiteki isou.
(Allegiance and rebellion: Japan’s intellectual history in the age of transformation). Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobo.
Maruyama, M. 1960. Shisou-shi no kangaekata ni tsuite (How to think history of thoughts). In:
1992. M. Maruyama, Chuusei to hangyaku: tenkeiki Nihon no seishinshiteki isou.
(Allegiance and rebellion: Japan’s intellectual history in the age of transformation). Tokyo:
Chikuma Shobo.
Maruyama, M., 1988. ‘The structure of matsurigoto: the basso ostinato of Japanese Political
Life’. In: J. P. Lehman and S. Henry eds. Themes and theories in modern Japanese history:
essays in memory of Richard Storry.
Maruyama, M. and Kato, S., 1998. Honnyaku to Nihon no Kindai (Translation and Japanese
Modernity). Tokyo: Iwanami.
Mathur, A., 2007. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces: Towards a normal military. Strategic Analysis.
31(5). pp.725-755.
Mills, S.,1997. Discourse. London: Routledge
Moghaddam, F. M., Harré, R. Lee, N. eds., 2008. Global Conflict Resolution through positioning
Analysis. London: Springer.
Morris-Suzuki, T. 1998. Re-inventing Japan: time space nation. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
Neumann, I. B., 1999. Uses of the Other: “The East” in European identity formation.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Nishikawa, Y., 2008. Collective security problems and Japanese constitution. Journal of
Regional Development Studies, 11. pp. 55-73
Nikkei Shimbun, 2012. Nichibei ampo ni tsukimatou bin no futa ron (The argument of ‘a cap in
the bottle’ and U.S.-Japan Relations). The Nikkei Shimbun. [online]
<http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFK0302S_Z00C12A2000000/> [Accessed 3 Oct.
2013]
Norval, A., 2006. Democratic identification: A Wittgensteinian approach. Political Theory,
34(2), pp.229-253.
Norval, A., 2000. Trajectories of future research in discourse theory. In: D. Howarth, A. J.
Norval, and Y. Stavrakakis eds., 2000. Discourse theory and political analysis: identities,
hegemonies, and social changes. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Ó Tuathail, G., 1998 Deterritorialized threats and global dangers: geopolitics, risk society and
reflexive modernization. Geopolitics, 3(1), pp.17-31.
Ó Tuathail, G., 1996. Critical geopolitics: The politics of writing global space. London:
Routledge.
Ozawa, I., 1993. Nihon kaizou keikaku (Blueprint for a new Japan: The rethinking of a nation).
Tokyo: Kodansha
Potter J., 2001. Wittgenstein and Austin. In: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor, and S. Yates, 2001.
Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader. pp.39-46. London: Sage Publications.
Ringmar, E., 2012. Performing international systems: two East-Asian alternatives to the
Westphalian order. International Organization, 66. pp. 1-25.
Ringmar E., 1996. Identity, interest, and action: a cultural explanation of Sweden’s intervention
in the Thirty Years War. Cambridge: Cambridge University press
Sasaki, A., 2011. Kudakareta daichi ni hitotsu no basho o. (Let us give a place for the broken
Earth). In: Shisou to shite no 3.11(3.11 as Thought), pp. 2-29. Tokyo: Kawade shobo shinsha.
Saeki, A., 2006. Sengo seiji to jieitai (Postwar Politics and the JSDF). Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Hiroshi Bunko
Samuels, R. J., 2013. 3.11 Disaster and change in Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Suzuki, S., 2009. Civiliztion and empire: China and Japan’s encounter with the European
international society. New York: Routledge.
Tanaka, N., 2005. Kenpou kyuujyou no sengoshi (Postwar history of article nine of the
Constitution). Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho.
Toyoshita, N., 2007. Shuudan jieiken towa nanika (What is ollective defense?).
Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho
Tsutsumi, G., 2004. Showa no Snaketsu (the three eminent men in Showa). Tokyo: Shuueisha
Intaanasionaru
Waeber, O., 1996. European security identities. Journal of Common Market Studies. 1(1).
pp.103-132.
Watanabe, A., 2006. Reisengo no anzenhoshou gainen to riron (Theories and concepts of
security after the Cold War). In: S. Morimoto ed. Kironi tatsu Nihon no anzen (Japanese
Security facing a Crossroads, pp. 12-23. Tokyo: Hokuseido
Wilkinson, C., 2007. The Copenhagen School on tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is securitization
theory usable outside Europe?’ Security Dialogue, 38(1). pp.5-25.
Williams, M., 2007, Culture and security: Symbolic power and the politics of
international security. London: Routledge.
Yamazaki, T., 2002. Is Japan leaking? Globalization, reterritorialization and identity in the AsiaPacific context’ Geopolitics, 7(1), pp.165-192.
Yamazaki, T., 2005. Ampo Saiteigi no chiseiteki contekusuto: posuto reisen ni okeru nihon to
beigun no perezensu (The realignment of ‘Ampo’ in geopolitical context: The postwar Japan and
the presence of the U.S. Forces). Jimbun Kenkyu, 56, pp.171-186.
Yoshida, S., 1998. Kaiso Jyunen (The Reminiscence of the Ten Years) Vol. 1. Tokyo:
Chuoukouronsha.
Yoshino, S., 1927. Wagakuni kindaishi in okeru seijiishiki no hassei (The birth of political
consciousness in modern Japan),1984. Nihon no Meicho (Japan’s Classics). vol,48. Yoshino
Sakuzo. Mitani Taichiro ed. Tokyo: Chuo-Koron Sha