Japan’s Transformed Security and Military Posture: Sustainability and Ramifications

Commencing in 2022, and in keeping with late Premier Shinzo Abe’s guiding vision, there  has been a rapid transformation in Japan’s security and military posture, with the challenge of an assertive China being the main driver.

This has seen further acceleration over the past year, as PM Takaichi’s government has moved to advance both military modernisation and strategic alliances. Japan is transitioning from a posture of pacifist caution  to a proactive security stance driven by geo-strategic realism.

While assessing these developments, the author also underscores the ramifications for Northeast Asia, the larger Indo-Pacific, and Japan’s ties with major  powers, including India.

Faced with three nuclear armed adversaries in its immediate neighbourhood, the author suggests that Tokyo may turn to a measure of rapprochement with Moscow, while the possibility  of Japan crossing the  nuclear rubicon can no longer be dismissed.

The author concludes that current geopolitical circumstances,  coincident with Japan’s security transformation,  provide a major opportunity for India and Japan to translate years of ongoing dialogue and rhetoric into concrete defence and security cooperation between the two most capable democratic powers book-ending the Indo-Pacific. This augurs well for regional stability.

To read this DPG Policy Brief Volume XI, Issue 26, please click "Japan’s Transformed Security and Military Posture: Sustainability and Ramifications”.