Project MUSE - "We Must Protect This Peace with Our Hands": Strategic Culture and Japan's Use of Force in International Disputes as Depicted in Ministry of Defense Manga Promotional Materials (2024)

Endnotes

1. For an analysis of Japan's changing security threats and alliance relations in the postwar period, see Nicholas D. Anderson, "Anarchic Threats and Hegemonic Assurances: Japan's Security Production in the Postwar Era," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 17, no. 1 (January 2017): 101–35, https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcw005. For analyses of Japan's changing threat perceptions in the postwar period, see Eitan Oren, "Japan's Evolving Threat Perception: Data from Diet Deliberations, 1946–2017," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 20, no. 3 (September 2020): 477–510, https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcz016; and Eitan Oren and Matthew Brummer, "Reexamining Threat Perception in Early Cold War Japan," Journal of Cold War Studies 22, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 71–112, https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws_a_00948.

2. Including a strongly conservative and internationalist foreign policy ideology, generally high popular opinion ratings, majority control of both houses of parliament, a more assertive Chinese rival under President Xi Jinping, and a less reliable American ally under President Donald J. Trump.

3. As opposed to "public contests," which concern the struggle between domestic political actors in shaping public policy. See Jan Melissen., ed., The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2005), https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230554931.

4. For a recent empirical example on Japan, see Wrenn Yennie Lindgren, "WIN-WIN! with ODA-Man: Legitimizing Development Assistance Policy in Japan," Pacific Review 34, no. 4 (2021): 633–63, https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2020.1727552.

5. Jeannie L Johnson and Matthew T. Berrett, "Cultural Topography: A New Research Tool for Intelligence Analysis," Studies in Intelligence 55, no. 2 (2011): 11–12, https://doi.org/10.1037/e741172011-002.

6. Sabine Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 146.

7. For analysis of this reinterpretation, see Adam P. Liff, "Policy by Other Means: Collective Self-Defense and the Politics of Japan's Postwar Constitutional Reinterpretations," Asia Policy, no. 24 (July 2017): 139–72. For historical context, see Akihiko Tanaka, Japan in Asia: Post-Cold-War Diplomacy (Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2017); Matthew Brummer, "Bridges over Troubled History: Japan's Foreign Policy in Asia," International Studies Review 21, no. 1 (March 2019): 172–74, https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viy058; and Andrea Pressello, "Japanese Peace Diplomacy on Cambodia and the Okinawa Reversion Issue, 1970," Japan Forum (2021): https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2020.1863446.

8. For example, Japan possesses no nuclear weapons, strategic bombers, ballistic missiles, or ships purposely built as aircraft carriers. Yet, it has the resources to develop all of these capabilities.

9. For example, see scholarship on Japan as a "buck-passing": Jennifer Lind, "Pacifism or Passing the Buck?: Testing Theories of Japanese Security Policy," International Security 29, no. 1 (Summer 2004): 92–121; "reluctant," Michael J. Green, Japan's Reluctant Realism: Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of Uncertain Power (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299804; "post-classical," Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, "Postclassical Realism and Japanese Security Policy," Pacific Review 14, no. 2 (2001): 221–40, https://doi.org/10.1080/09512740110037361; or "mercantile," Eric Heginbotham and Richard J. Samuels, "Mercantile Realism and Japanese Foreign Policy," International Security 22, no. 4 (Spring 1998):171–203, https://doi.org/10.2307/2539243.

10. For example, see scholarship on Japan's constitution in Wada Shuichi, "Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution and Security Policy: Realism versus Idealism in Japan since the Second World War," Japan Forum 22, nos. 3–4 (2019): 405–31, https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2010.533477; for the electoral system, see Tomohito Shinoda, "Japan's Parliamentary Confrontation on the Post–Cold War National Security Policies," Japanese Journal of Political Science 10, no. 3 (December 2009): 267–87, https://doi.org/10.1017/S146810990999003X; and for role of the prime minister, see Christopher W. Hughes and Ellis S. Krauss, "Japan's New Security Agenda," Survival 49, no. 2 (2007): 157–76, https://doi.org/10.1080/00396330701437850.

11. Wrenn Yennie Lindgren and Petter Y. Lindgren, "Identity Politics and the East China Sea: China as Japan's 'Other'," Asian Politics & Policy 9, no. 3 (2017): 378–401, https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12332.

12. Andrew L. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture: Security Identity in a Fourth Modern Incarnation?," Contemporary Security Policy 35, no. 2 (2014): 229, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2014.928070. In this article, and in line with the authors' goal to shed light on the specific issue of use of force, the authors opt for a narrow definition of Japan's strategic culture as the "beliefs and values related to the use of its military power." See Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture," 229.

13. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture."

14. Thomas U. Berger, "From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan's Culture of Antimilitarism," International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 119–50, https://doi.org/10.2307/2539024.

15. Peter J. Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); and Stephanie Lawson and Seiko Tannaka, "War Memories and Japan's 'Normalization' as an International Actor: A Critical Analysis," European Journal of International Relations 17, no. 3 (2011): 405–28, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066110365972.

16. Andrew L. Oros, Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity, and the Evolution of Security Practice (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008).

17. Amy Catalinac, "Identity Theory and Foreign Policy: Explaining Japan's Responses to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 U.S. War in Iraq," Politics & Policy 35, no. 1 (March 2007): 58–100, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2007.00049.x; Glenn D. Hook and Key-Young Son, "Transposition in Japanese State Identities: Overseas Troop Dispatches and the Emergence of a Humanitarian Power?," Australian Journal of International Affairs 67, no.1 (2013): 35–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2013.748274; and Linus Hagström and Karl Gustafsson, "Japan and Identity Change: Why It Matters in International Relations," Pacific Review 28, no. 1 (2015): 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2014.969298.

18. Bhubhindar Singh, Japan's Security Identity: From a Peace-State to an International-State (London: Routledge, 2013).

19. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture," 231–32.

20. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture," 232.

21. Sheila A. Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019).

22. Jeffrey J. Hall, "Towards an Unrestrained Military: Manga Narratives of the Self-Defense Forces," in The Representation of Japanese Politics in Manga: The Visual Literacy of Statecraft, ed. Roman Rosenbaum (London: Routledge, 2020), 123–24.

23. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture," 228.

24. Takako Hikotani, "Japan's Changing Civil-Military Relations: From Containment to Re-engagement?," Global Asia 4, no. 1 (March 2009): 20–24.

25. Sado Akihiro, The Self-Defense Forces and Postwar Politics in Japan, trans. Noda Makito (Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture, 2017), 101.

26. Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture," 243.

27. Matthew Brummer, "Japan: The Manga Military," Diplomat, 19 January 2016.

28. Patrick Galbraith, The Moe Manifesto: An Insider's Look at the Worlds of Manga, Anime, and Gaming (Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2014).

29. Brummer, "Japan."

30. Brummer, "Japan."

31. Takayoshi Yamamura, "Cooperation Between Anime Producers and the Japan Self-Defense Force: Creating Fantasy and/or Propaganda?," Journal of War & Culture Studies 12, no. 1 (2019): 8–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2017.1396077.

32. Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors.

33. For example, see Koichi Iwabuchi, "Pop-Culture Diplomacy in Japan: Soft power, Nation Branding and the Question of 'International Cultural Exchange'," International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (2015): 419–32, https://doi.org/10.1080/10286632.2015.1042469; and Akos Kopper, "Pirates, Justice and Global Order in the Anime 'One Piece'," Global Affairs 6, nos. 4–5 (2020): 503–17, https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2020.1797521. For example, see Hall, "Towards an Unrestrained Military"; and Jeffrey J. Hall, "Japan's Anti-Kaiju Fighting Force: Normalizing Japan's Self-Defense Forces through Postwar Monster Films," Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture, ed. Camille D. G. Mustachio and Jason Barr (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017): 138–60.

34. Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors, 2–3.

35. Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors, 148.

36. Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors, 2.

37. Jeannie L. Johnson, Strategic Culture: Refining the Theoretical Construct (Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Threat Reduction Agency Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, 2006), 17; and Jeannie L. Johnson, The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture: Lessons Learned and Lost in America's Wars (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018), chap. 1.

38. Johnson, The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture, 7.

39. All the official manga can be accessed at the Japanese MOD website: www.mod.go.jp/j/kids/comic/index.html.

40. The Defense of Japan is an annual white paper published since 1970 by the Japan Defense Agency within the Ministry of Defense (MOD). The publication consists of a detailed overview of developments in Japan's defense policy within the context of the U.S.–Japan alliance, as well as analysis of the defense policies of other key players in the security environment surrounding Japan. See Eitan Oren and Matthew Brummer, "Threat Perception, Government Centralization, and Political Instrumentality in Abe Shinzo's Japan," Australian Journal of International Affairs 74, no. 6 (2020): 25, https://doi.org/10.1080/10357718.2020.1782345.

41. See Manga-Style Defense of Japan (Tokyo: Ministry of Defense, 2006); Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007); and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015).

42. The highest correlation between any two editions was obtained for the years 2012 and 2013, with a 0.83 Pearson correlation coefficient, followed by 2013/2014 (0.77), 2014/2017 (0.76), 2013/2016 (0.76), 2012/2014 (0.76), 2014/2015 (0.75), 2016/2017 (0.73), and 2012/2016 (0.71). The lowest correlations between any two editions were obtained for the years 2009 and 2010 (0.07), 2007/2009 (0.12), and 2007/2010 (0.15).

43. Japanese words related to "support" query: サポート, 助ける, 味方, 増援, 手助け, 掩護, 援助, 支える, 支援, 救助, 救援, 用途, 補佐, 補助, 資す. For "defense":ディフ ェンス, 備え, 守り, 守る, 守備, 掩護, 監視, 見る, 見守る, 見張る, 視る, 警備, 警戒, 警護, 護衛, 避難, 防ぐ, 防備, 防御, 防衛, 防護.

44. See, for example, Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2006), 12, 19–20; Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2012), 9; and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2016), 43.

45. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007).

46. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 34–35.

47. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2009), 26, 28.

48. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2018), 13.

49. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2018), 15.

50. Similarly, having learned that in addition to the MSDF activities in missile defense, the service also patrols Japan's oceans 24/7, a young character in the 2018 edition exclaims: "The SDF sounds so reliable!" See Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2018), 13.

51. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 14.

52. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007), 36.

53. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007), 44.

54. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 13; and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2017), 32.

55. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2018), 5, 6, 24.

56. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 16.

57. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 31.

58. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2009), 31.

59. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2009), 61.

60. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2009), 60.

61. The only time a document acknowledged that a certain threat is diminishing was the 2006 edition, when the threat of a full-scale land invasion of Japan was deemed less likely. See Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2006), 22.

62. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2016), 45.

63. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007), 2.

64. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007), 26.

65. Since the late 2000s, cyberattacks have become the most frequently mentioned threat in the Japanese Diet. See Oren, "Japan's Evolving Threat Perception," 25.

66. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2006). See Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2012–13); and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2016).

67. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2007); Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2006); and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2017).

68. Sabine Frühstück, "'To Protect Japan's Peace We Need Guns and Rockets': The Military Uses of Popular Culture in Current-day Japan," Asia Pacific Journal 7, no. 34 (2009): 3.

69. As distinct from the use of force. To recall, this article defined the use of force as using physical strength or capabilities to solve a military problem.

70. Oren and Brummer, "Threat Perception, Government Centralization, and Political Instrumentality in Abe Shinzo's Japan," 721–45.

71. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2019), 25, 27.

72. See Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2016); and Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2018).

73. Frühstück, Uneasy Warriors, 148.

74. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 9.

75. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 10.

76. Manga-Style Defense of Japan (2015), 19.

77. Alessio Patalano, Post-war Japan as a Sea Power: Imperial Legacy, Wartime Experience and the Making of a Navy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), 84–87.

78. For historical description of Japan's changing foreign and security policy, see Tanaka, Japan in Asia; and Brummer, "Bridges over Troubled History," 172–74.

79. Eitan Oren and Matthew Brummer, "How Japan Talks About Security Threats," Diplomat, 14 August 2020.

80. The mediums themselves may be an important part of the message. See Marshall Mc-Luhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: Penguin, 1964).

81. For strategic subcultures, see for example, Alan Bloomfield, "Time to Move On: Reconceptualizing the Strategic Culture Debate," Contemporary Security Policy 33, no. 3 (2012): 437–61, https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2012.727679; and Oros, "Japan's Strategic Culture."

Project MUSE - "We Must Protect This Peace with Our Hands": Strategic Culture and Japan's Use of Force in International Disputes as Depicted in Ministry of Defense Manga Promotional Materials (2024)
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