Speech
A New Japan for a New Century: What Role for Japan in the Emerging and Global Order?
Southern Methodist University Asian Studies Symposium "Japan's New Nationalism: How Japan's National Identity is Changing at Home and Abroad" - January 31, 2008
James B. Steinberg, Dean, LBJ School of Public Affairs
For nearly two decades, Japan has been grappling with the challenge of defining its role in a face of a changing and dynamic world. Since the twin shocks of the end of the Cold War and the 1991 Gulf War, the fundamental underpinnings of Japanese post World War II national security strategy have crumbled. Despite this long passage of time, a new template has not fully emerged.
This uncertainty should not be surprising. Even in countries with much stronger strategic communities such as the United States, there continues to be considerable debate and division about the nature of the global landscape and the character of the challenges and opportunities that it creates.
For Japan, this problem is complicated by Japan's own history, its relationships with key countries in the region, its complex and underdeveloped "policy politics," particularly with respect to national security policy, and its underdeveloped community of strategic analysts, both in and out government. Tonight I want to reflect on the trajectory of Japan's national security policy since 1991 and the implication for Japan's regional and global role in the coming decades.
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