Japan and East Asian Security
Explores Japan's role in world orders, past, present, and future. Focuses on Japanese conceptions of security; rearmament debates; the relationship of domestic politics to foreign policy; the impact of Japanese technological and economic transformation at home and abroad; alternative trade and security regimes; Japan's response to 9/11; and relations with Asian neighbors, Russia, and the alliance with the United States.
Fall 2016
This course explores Japan's role in world orders, past, present, and future. It focuses on Japanese conceptions of security; rearmament debates; the relationship of domestic politics to foreign policy; the impact of Japanese technological and economic transformation at home and abroad; alternative trade and security regimes; Japan's response to 9/11; and relations with Asian neighbors, Russia, and the alliance with the United States.
Readings
- [BU] = Bull, Hedley. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics . 4th ed. Columbia University Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780231161299.
- [I] = Iriye, Akira. Japan & the Wider World: From Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present . Routledge, 1997. ISBN: 9780582210530.
- [P] = Pyle, Kenneth B. Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose . Public Affairs, 2008. ISBN: 9781586485672.
- [SM] = Smith, Sheila A. Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China . Columbia University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780231167895.
- Modernizing Japan, Imperial Japan, and Client Japan. Relations between Japan and the Great Powers Past and Present: China, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States.
- [P] Chapter 1: New International Orders.
- [P] Chapter 2: Japan’s National Style.
- [P] Chapter 3: The World Japan Entered.
- [P] Chapter 4: Stature Among Nations.
- * Drea, Edward J. Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall , 1853–1945. University of Kansas Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780700616633.
- * Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Policies . The Classics, 2013. ISBN: 9781230302164.
- * Morley, James William, ed. Japan Erupts: The London Naval Conference and the Manchurian Incident, 1928 – 1932 . Columbia University Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780231057820.
- * Rea, George Bronson. The Case for Manchukuo . D. Appleton-Century Company, 1935.
- Can we derive lessons for Japanese security from the previous transitions in world orders? How does IR theory apply to Japanese history?
- [I] Chapter 1: The Origins of Modern Japanese Diplomacy.
- [I] Chapter 2: The Emergence of Japan as a Great Power.
- [I] Chapter 3: The Road to Continentalism.
- [I] Chapter 4: Japanese Diplomacy in Transition.
- [I] Chapter 5: The Search for a New Order.
- [I] Chapter 6: The Ideology of the Chinese-Japanese War.
- [I] Chapter 7: The Road to the Pacific War.
- [P] Chapter 5: The Challenge of International Liberalism.
- [P] Chapter 6: Japan’s Abortive New Order.
- [S] Chapter 1: Japan’s Grand Strategies: Connecting the Ideological Dots.
- * Snyder, Jack. Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition . Cornell University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780801497643.
- How are doctrine, ideology, technology and national security linked? How are they linked to grand strategy? What is the strategic relationship of the military and civilian economies?
- [B] Chapter 1: Introduction.
- [B] Chapter 2: Understanding the Globalization of Production.
- [B] Chapter 3: Theoretical Foundations.
- [B] Chapter 4: The Globalization of Production and Military Technological Competitiveness.
- * Green, Michael J. Arming Japan: Defense Production, Alliance Politics, and the Postwar Search for Autonomy . Columbia University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780231102858.
- * List, Friedrich. The National System of Political Economy: All Four Books and the Appendices in a Single Volume . CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. ISBN: 9781976016578.
- * McNeill, William H. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000 . University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780226561585.
- * Nef, John U. War and Human Progress: An Essay on the Rise of Industrial Civilization . W. W. Norton & Company, 1968. ISBN: 9780393004687.
- To what extent do values, norms, and ideas drive strategic choices in Japan? And where do they come from? Do they shape institutions or are they shaped by them? What is the role of civil society in constraining foreign policy choices? How important is partisanship?
- [SM] Chapter 2: Diplomacy and Domestic Interests.
- ———. “The Future of the Neoclassical Realist Research Agenda.” Chapter 7 in Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics . Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 9780199899258.
- * Breen, John, ed. Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan’s Past . Columbia University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9780231700429.
- Smith, Sheila A. Shifting Terrain: The Domestic Politics of the U.S. Military Presence in Asia . East-West Center, 2006. ISBN: 9780866382038.
- What are the instruments and institutions of Japanese foreign economic policy? How are trade and aid linked to security and grand strategy?
- How have bureaucrats and politicians interacted and how have they maintained control of the Japanese military?
- [S] Chapter 2: Baking the Pacifist Loaf.
- [S] Chapter 3: The Change to Change.
- [S] Chapter 4: Whither the Yoshida Doctrine?
- [S] Chapter 5: The Discourse.
- * Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations . Belknap Press, 1981. ISBN: 9780674817364.
- * Maxon, Yale Candee. Control of Japanese Foreign Policy: A Study of Civil-Military Rivalry, 1930_ –1945_. Praeger, 1973. ISBN: 9780837167282.
- * Yoshida, Shigeru. The Yoshida Memoirs: The Story of Japan in Crisis . Greenwood, 1973. ISBN: 9780837167336.
- How do U.S.-Japan bilateral relations shape Japan’s strategic choices? How do Japan and the United States balance political, military, economic, and technological interests without one another?
- [S] Chapter 6: The New Threat Environment.
- [S] Chapter 7: Meeting (and Making) Threats.
- Katahara, Eiichi, ed. East Asian Strategic Review 2013 . National Institute for Defense Studies, 2013. ISBN: 9784789015264.
- Pollack, Jonathan D. “U.S. Strategies in Northeast Asia: A Revisionist Hegemon.” Chapter 3 in Power and Security in Northeast Asia: Shifting Strategies . Edited by Byung-Kook Kim and Anthony Jones. Lynne Rienner, 2007. ISBN: 9781588265067.
- From the Guam to the Fukuda to the Koizumi Doctrines and beyond. Japanese relations with its neighbors. Collective security and confidence building in Northeast, East and Southeast Asia. The rise of China, the Northern Territories, Korean Unification, the DPRK.
- [SM] Chapter 1: Contending with China.
- [SM] Chapter 6: Island Defense.
- * Bush, Richard C. The Perils of Proximity: China-Japan Security Relations . Brookings Institution Press, 2013. ISBN: 9780815725473.
- Is Japan a “great power”? What global public goods has it created—at United Nations? With its ODA? By championing non-proliferation? What of its international security role after the first Gulf War and in Iraq? And what of more recent anti-piracy campaigns?
- [BU] Chapter 9: The Great Powers and International Order.
- [BU] Chapter 10: Alternatives to the Contemporary States System.
- * Mearsheimer, John J. “Great Power Politics in the Twenty-first Century.” Chapter 10 in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics . W. W. Norton & Company, 2014. ISBN: 9780393349276.
- Midford, Paul. “Historical Memory Versus Democratic Reassurance: The Security Relationship between Japan and South Korea.” Chapter 5 in Changing Power Relations in Northeast Asia: Implications for Relations Between Japan and South Korea . Edited by Marie Soderberg. Routledge, 2013. ISBN: 9780415855334.
- The Council on Security and Defense Capabilities Report, August 2009.
- * Ozawa, Ichiro. Blueprint for a New Japan: The Rethinking of a Nation . Kodansha International, 1994. ISBN: 9784770018717.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: Permission of instructor Acad Year 2027-2028: G (Fall) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2016
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.