With eyes wide shut: Japan, Heisei militarization, and the Bush Doctrine

Abstract

The effects and reception of the Bush Doctrine in Japan have to be seen in the light of a long drawn out and now quickening series of domestic legal, political, legislative, and equipment and force-structure changes in Japanese security policy. The Bush Doctrine has been welcomed for the opportunities it affords to accelerate already existing planning preferences for military expansion and the re-constitution of the Japanese state in a "normal" form-a pattern of "Heisei militarization." Heisei militarization is compatible with both a nuclear and nonnuclear Japan. Both options are consistent with the "normality" that Japanese governments are intent on achieving. Existing Japanese latent nucle..