Who Shapes the National Security Debate? Divergent Interpretations of Japan's Security Role.

With East Asian international relations in flux since the end of the Cold War, Japan's security role is critical in influencing the region's future. In this article, the author examines Japanese opinion leaders' attitudes toward relations with Asian countries, the U.S.-Japan security alliance, the role of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces, and Japan's culpability for the Fifteen-Year War of 1931-45. The four major contemporary security strands in Japan—pacifism, mercantilism, normalism, and nationalism—are analyzed. The author argues that normalism continues to rise in the post-Cold War era as the rightist conservatives (normalists) gradually gain predominance over the moderate conservatives (mercantilists). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]