Akio Kawato
Former Ambassador to Uzbekistan; Former DCM, Embassy of Japan in Russia
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(Japan is currently conducting its once-every-few-years review of national security policy. As a result, the country’s three core strategic documents—the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program—are being revised.
Recently, the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) published a collection of policy recommendations by experts from both the public and private sectors. Since an English edition does not yet appear to be available, I am posting here only my own contribution in English.
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My proposal does not deal with familiar topics such as what percentage of GDP Japan should spend on defense or how far the range of its missiles should be extended. Instead, it focuses on three broader questions: how Japan should respond to the gradual decline of American power; how it can prevent a recurrence of the military’s unchecked autonomy that helped lead Japan into the Pacific War; and how the Self-Defense Forces should adapt to an era in which young people throughout the world are increasingly reluctant to serve in the military.)
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I. A Changing International Environment: An Era in Which U.S.-Russia, U.S.-China, and U.S.-North Korea Confrontation May No Longer Be a Given
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In the decades following World War II, confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union—and later between the United States and China—formed the basic framework of international politics. Alliance structures were built around that reality. This reflected the fact that Europe and Japan were devastated after the war, while the victorious Soviet Union was able to expand its sphere of influence with relatively little resistance.
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Today, however, Soviet communism has disappeared, while the Trump administration has shown far less commitment to the traditional American values of freedom and democracy. Relations among the major powers have increasingly become matters of power politics and pragmatic bargaining rather than ideological competition.
The international system is beginning to resemble the pre-World War II era, when Europe, Russia, Japan, the United States, and China constantly formed and dissolved alignments according to shifting national interests.
At the same time, South Korea and the ASEAN countries—once regarded primarily as security dependents—have developed into independent political, economic, and military actors in their own right.
The recent conflict with Iran also demonstrated that American military power has practical limits. In any future Taiwan contingency, the scale of direct U.S. military involvement is therefore likely to be more limited than many in Japan currently assume.
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Japan’s future security strategy should therefore be designed to accommodate a range of possible futures—from one centered firmly on the existing U.S.-Japan alliance to one that also incorporates a degree of accommodation with China.
Regardless of which strategic environment ultimately emerges, strengthening Japan’s own defense capabilities will remain a permanent national task. Accordingly, this thesis does not attempt to develop detailed contingency plans corresponding to varying levels of alliance cooperation with the United States.
A weakening of the alliance would inevitably activate the question of nuclear deterrence. Whether Japan should acquire its own nuclear capability is an issue of enormous importance. However, since I remain unconvinced about either the necessity or the effectiveness of Japanese nuclear armament, I limit myself here to acknowledging the issue rather than advocating a particular solution.
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Instead, I wish to focus on the need for Japan to change the way it presents its diplomacy in light of the evolving international environment described above.
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The previous National Security Strategy was built upon the concept of “working with the United States to contain China while mobilizing other Asia-Pacific countries.” That formulation no longer reflects the realities of today’s Asia. If Japan continues to define its strategy in those terms, it risks isolating itself from many of its neighbors.
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One possible alternative would be to advocate a broader regional framework in which the United States, China, Japan, and the other Asia-Pacific countries all participate in maintaining regional peace under the principle of non-use of force. In other words, every major participant would voluntarily accept mutual restraints.
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Such an arrangement would resemble, in spirit, the Washington Treaty System of the 1920s. It would certainly be imperfect, but it would still be preferable to a situation where we have no regional framework at all, and it could provide Japan with a constructive diplomatic vision.
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II. Transforming Communication Between the State and Society
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One striking omission from Japan’s 2022 security documents is the almost complete absence of discussion about communication with Japanese society itself. Public outreach receives remarkably little attention.
This is particularly unfortunate because many marxism-oriented opposition parties have shifted from the ideological assumptions of the Cold War—when the United States was often portrayed as inherently “bad”(in the eyes of the opposition parties) and the Soviet Union or China as inherently “good.”
Japan today has a much greater opportunity for realistic, bipartisan debate on national security.
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Improving the status and public standing of the Self-Defense Forces is certainly desirable. At the same time, institutional safeguards are needed to prevent national security policy from becoming a closed black box and to prevent defense officials from developing an inflated sense of their own authority or an excessively narrow worldview.
If the Self-Defense Forces were ever to become unwilling to engage in open policy debate in the Parliament and with other government ministries simply to protect their institutional authority, Japan would risk repeating one of the fundamental failures of its prewar military system.
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Public communication on national security has too often taken the form of lectures emphasizing citizens’ duty to defend the nation or apologetic explanations of Japan’s dependence on the United States. Such approaches rarely generate genuine public support.
Instead, policymakers should encourage open, substantive public debate and create forums—including online platforms—where specialists and ordinary citizens can exchange views on national security issues.
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III. Defense Policy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
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Artificial intelligence is transforming military operations at remarkable speed. Systems such as TITAN, developed by Palantir Technologies, integrate enormous quantities of information—including enemy targets, radar sites, friendly capabilities, logistics, and battlefield conditions—to generate operational recommendations. In some situations, AI may already be assuming functions that were once carried out by human battlefield commanders.
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This trend presents Japan with several important challenges.
Beyond Japan’s still-underdeveloped intelligence collection capabilities, the Self-Defense Forces simply do not possess the vast inventory and diversity of weapons available to the U.S. military.
Japan will therefore need to develop its own operational concepts for employing drones and artificial intelligence rather than simply copying American doctrine.
Ironically, however, the more distinctive Japan’s AI-based operational methods become, the more difficult close operational integration with U.S. forces during wartime could become.
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Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly throughout the U.S. military, and technological progress is occurring at extraordinary speed. Japan’s current procurement and budgeting system—characterized by long development cycles and rigid planning—cannot keep pace with such rapid innovation.
Japan should therefore establish a flexible budget category that allows defense authorities to experiment with and acquire emerging AI technologies more quickly.
Such flexibility, however, must never become an excuse for reducing transparency. Any new discretionary funding mechanism should be accompanied by robust oversight and meaningful auditing to ensure democratic accountability.
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