The New Politics of Antimilitarism: Explaining Japan's Development of Surveillance Satellite Capabilities.

Japan's Cold War politics of antimilitarism continue to operate in the post-Cold War era, and continue to affect important security policies such as the decision to develop and deploy surveillance satellites for military use. The central argument of this paper is part of a larger manuscript entitled, "The Politics of Antimilitarism: State Identity in Japan's Evolving Security Policies." The larger study examines how Japan's postwar state identity of domestic antimilitarism structured political debate and policy outcomes on arms exports and the use of outer space during the Cold War, as well as the post-Cold War security policy decisions to domestically develop and deploy surveillance satellites for use, in part, by the Japan Defense Agency and to work with the United States to develop and deploy a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. Drafts of chapters addressing these latter issues are available upon request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]