Myths of Pacifism: Domestic Politics and Contradictory Ambitions in Japan?s Defense Policy.

This paper argues that Japan?s foreign policy makers are trapped in self-made myths of pacifism. Ideas have consequences. The idea of Japan as ?first and foremost a cultured, peace-loving nation? (James J. Orr, The Victim as Hero, p2) is rooted in Article 9 of the nation?s constitution, which renounces war and prohibits the maintenance of military forces. During the US occupation of 1945-52, General Douglas MacArthur promised Emperor Hirohito that, in a hundred years the whole world would revere Japan for its renunciation of war. However, after just 52 years unexpected consequences of Japan?s constitution restrains its ability to develop a coherent policy regarding the use of force. The idea of Japan as a pacifist nation has been embraced by some and manipulated by others who have quietly built Japan?s Self-Defense Forces into the second-most powerful military in East Asia, after the United States. ?Doves? ignore this fact, even as they fret over the legality of deployments abroad. ?Hawks? can blame only themselves for these hurdles to joining multilateral uses of force as they also insisted on Japan?s constitutionally mandated anti-militarism for nearly 40 years. Both oversaw the publication of school textbooks that emphasize Japan?s ?unique? status as the only nation that has renounced war, both anchored Japan?s foreign policy and image to a myriad of international organizations and aid agencies, and both now struggle to meet international expectations about Japan?s position in the world without sacrificing its security needs. I invert the idea of ?myths of empire? from Jack Snyder?s Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell UP: 1991) to explain a predicament at the heart of Japan?s contemporary policies regulating the use of force: a myth of pacifism that hinders the development of independent and active policies regarding the use of force. I argue that democratic Japan?s professed pacifism is a myth shared by different groups for both common and particular purposes. This myth has led to an under-extension of Japan?s power. The state with the second-largest economy of the world contributes neither to peaceful nor military resolutions of conflict in proportion to its wealth or size. Snyder demonstrates that Japan?s military government in the 1930s propagated an imperial myth that justified the need for expansion on the Asian continent in response to perceived threats to Japan?s access to raw materials markets in the region from Britain, Holland and the United States. Industrialists and large landowners accepted this myth in order to expand their own markets into Asia as well as gain lucrative military contracts, and other elites were either oblivious to the overextension of power that led ultimately to the nation?s crushing defeat in war, or unable to change the public opinion they helped to form. A myth of empire led to a fatal overextension of Japanese power. Contemporary Japanese benefit from the international image of Japan as a peace-loving nation in as much as it they believe it makes the nation liked abroad. Appealing to this image, particular parties can claim the government is violating the Constitution and damaging Japan?s global reputation when it argues for sending troops to Iraq, for example, as it did in 2003. However, this myth also hinders the formation of a realistic counter-threat to those who may threaten Japan, such as North Korea and China. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]