The evolution of Japan peacekeeping policy explained

THE EVOLUTION OF JAPANS’ PEACEKEEPING POLICY EXPLAINED: AN INTERPRETATION OF SOTOMAYOR´S THEORY ON SECURITY DOCTRINES AND CIVILMILITARY RELATIONS (1945-2007)

By Arturo Magaña Duplancher (s0939366)

Master of Science in International Relations & Diplomacy, Leiden Universiteit /Clingendel Institute of International Relations, Leiden, The Netherlands, 6 June 2011.

First Supervisor: Professor Edith Drieskens Second Supervisor: Professor Niels van Willigen Word count: 23680

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

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1. The puzzle and case selection 2. The argument: variables and hypotheses 3. Methodology and research design

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II. CHAPTER I. COMMITMENT TO PEACEKEEPING, MAINSTREAM EXPLANATIONS, THE SECURITY DOCTRINES/CIVIL MILITARY RELATIONS THEORY AND JAPANESE POLICIES 10 1. Literature review on UNPKOs commitment theories and the Japanese case 2. The theory on security doctrines and civil-military relations 3. Japan’s UNPKOs policies, security doctrine change and the civil-military relations theory

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III. CHAPTER II. JAPAN’S NATIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE AND SEGREGATED CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS (1945-1990) 20 1.

2.

3.

4.

Constitutional and legal restrictions for the dispatch of troops.

20 The Yoshida doctrine and the United States security guarantee.

23 A political consensus, the bureaucratic policy-making structure and the civil-military dimension 24 Japan’s multilateral policies: Security Council politics, “quasi-membership” and financial support to the UNPKOs. 29

IV. CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF A MIXED SECURITY DOCTRINE/SEMI-INTEGRATED CIVIL-MILITARY PATTERN OF INTERACTION (1991-2000): SECURITY UNCERTAINTIES, THE BID FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL AND LEGAL ADAPTATION 33 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Demanding Japan to play an active role in UNPKOs: The Second Gulf War, security uncertainties and pressures 33 The quest for a seat at the Security Council and UNKO: the first decade 37 The UNPKOs law of 1992: its scope and contradictions 39 Japanese civil-military relations on the road of transformation 42 First UNPKOS experiences and their problems: the adaptation to a new security doctrine 44

V. CHAPTER IV. THE CONSOLIDATION OF JAPAN’S MIXED/SEMI-INTEGRATED MODEL (2001-2007): CHANGE AND CONTINUITY 48 1.

2.

3.

The 9/11 events and their implications for Japan’s UNPKOs policies: the revised peacekeeping law and East Timor 52 The bid for the Security Council and Japan’s UNPKOs new reluctance 55 Changing civil-military relations and UNPKOs: consolidating the mixed-semi integrated pattern 58

VI. CONCLUSION

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VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION “Japan should be proud of being a peace-fostering nation and of its commitment to multilateral security.

The Japanese people should know how much Japan’s global role is appreciated in the United Nations and worldwide”.

Ban Ki-Moon, July 20081

During the post-Cold War period, United Nations peacekeeping operations (UNPKOs from here onwards) acquired greater importance. As a mechanism of conflict resolution without the direct intervention of the former superpowers, as a tool to mobilize the international society in a multilateral commitment to peace and as a diplomatic key to prevent new conflicts, peacekeeping has become one of the favorite topics for research in the international relations field. From different perspectives, scholars have been analyzing the evolution of this crucial institution for the United Nations (UN)´ aim of maintaining international peace and security. Although peacekeeping operations have dramatically changed over time, passing throughout “three generations” from traditional peacekeeping to a complex and multidimensional perspective of peace making, peace enforcement and post-conflict reconstruction, military contingents of so-called blue helmets are still at the core of the current operations.2 These operations, although crucial for understanding the current role of the multilateral organization in making peace sustainable, are not literally specified in any disposition of the UN Charter. In fact, they draw upon an interpretation of provisions upon the authority of Charter Article 42 -enabling the Security Council to “take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security”, Article 25 according to which member States agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council- and Article 43 - by which members agree to “make available to the Security Council on its call…armed forces, assistance and facilities”.3 Since the UN has no army of its own, each peacekeeping operation mandated by the Security Council has relied on the military support given in this regard by Member States at the request of the Security Council.4 Thus, peacekeeping is mostly an hybrid, embracing at the same time elements of both Chapters VI -pacific settlement of disputes- and VII dispositions -breaches of the peace

“Ban Ki-Moon praises Tokyo´s UN work contribution”, United Nations, Press release, 1 July 2008.

Alex J. Bellamy, Paul Williams and Stuart Griffin, Understanding peacekeeping, Cambridge, Polity, 2004, p. 129; Robert C.R. Siekmann, National contingents in United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1991, p. 6.

3 Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Peacekeeping Operations, in Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws (ed), The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, New York, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.

4 Several provisions of the UN Charter establish this non-compulsory possibility as a contribution of all members to the maintenance of international peace and security. Articles 42, 43, 44 and 45 of the UN Charter allows the Security Council to call Members to provide armed forces only in the case Members so desires and within the limits on the special agreements referred to in Article 43.

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and acts of aggression- occupying some legal empty space frequently labeled as Chapter VI 1/2. As a consequence, mandates cover a wide spectrum of activities from protecting certain populations or facilities to protect human rights, assure the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the protection of the so-called safe heavens, among many others.5 Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the question of why some States choose to contribute with troops to UNPKOs while others do not and, at the same time, to the question of what are the determinants explaining the foreign policy variation among UN member States in terms of their levels of commitment as troop-lending countries. Although some States contribute financially, and even if both levels of participation can be estimated as equally important, a very salient fact of today’s multilateral politics is the fact that “the major burden of these operations in the field is borne by a small number of troop contributors”.6 As we will see in the literature review, the theoretical treatment of this matter is meager and the majority of theoretical approaches tend to provide too tentative and unsatisfactory explanations when failing to tell us more about a neglected and potentially crucial issue. By this I mean the internal processes within troop-lending countries and concretely the patterns of civil-military interactions deciding if, when, where and how to participate in UNPKOs. Theories of civil-military relations support the general idea according to which “the dynamics of domestic civil-military relations shape the likelihood of conflict and cooperation at the international level¨ and, indeed, analysts have been explaining, for example, in several cases in South America the substantial change of UNPKOs policies experienced by democratizing countries after decades of military rule and as a direct result of a dramatic change in civil-military interactions.7 However, it was not until very recently that a scholar decided to use this general approach to build up a general theory explicitly describing the mechanisms by which patterns of civil-military relations affects the level of military contributions to peacekeeping operations.8 The aim of this thesis is precisely to test, through a single case analysis, the theory recently developed by Arturo C. Sotomayor on security doctrines and patterns of civil-military relations and their effects on state participation in peacekeeping operations. Focusing on a comparison among Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, Sotomayor argues that the nature of security doctrines determine whether the armed forces will be concentrating toward external threats, national security concerns

Edward C. Luck, UN Security Council: practice and promise, London/New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 37.

Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some States participate in UN peace missions while others do not: an analysis of civil-military relations and its effects on Latin America’s contributions to peacekeeping operations”, Security Studies, vol. 19 (2010), p. 162.

7 Deborah L. Norden, “Keeping the peace, outside and in: Argentina’s UN missions”, International Peacekeeping, vol. 2, no. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 330-349.

8 Arturo Sotomayor, art. cit., pp. 160-195; Arturo Sotomayor, “Different paths and divergent policies in the UN Security System: Brazil and Mexico in Comparative perspective”, International peacekeeping, vol. 16, no. 3 (June, 2009), p. 365.

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or a combination of both. In either case, this has important implications for its decision to participate or not participate as troop-lending countries in UN peacekeeping operations. In a nutshell, his argument is that an externally focused doctrine entails a pattern of policy coordination and cooperation between military generals and diplomats, which tends to produce a policy of active troop dispatches to UN peacekeeping operations. In contrast, internally focused doctrines tend to involve a pattern of policy segregation between both actors ultimately leading to a policy of nonparticipation in UN peacekeeping operations. According to Sotomayor, there are also countries neither pertaining to the integration of policies pattern but to a peculiar combination of them in a middle-way category called as “mixed-doctrines and semi-integrated policies”. This mixed doctrine combines both the internal and external uses of the military, something determining an ambiguous pattern of interaction between military generals and diplomats and therefore leading to the country in question to send only a limited force to UN peacekeeping operations.

1. The puzzle and case selection If as George and Bennett argue, the strongest possible supporting evidence for testing a theory is the least likely case9, even from a first glance, Japan seems to be an ideal case. Indeed, the case of Japan seems perfect to test and refine Sotomayor´s theory when looking for evidence to sustain or disconfirm the generalizability of his theoretical argument. A quick look to the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping policies shows an interesting puzzle. In 1992, against predictions based on the policy preferences of the Japanese elite, the severe constitutional restrictions for any military dispatch abroad, the general opinion of the Japanese society and the historically embedded norms regarding the peculiar status of the Japanese military, the Japanese parliament passed the so-called PKO law providing the country, for the first time in its contemporary history, with a legal framework for the dispatch of military forces in United Nations peacekeeping operations. One decade after, Japan were sending hundreds of peacekeepers in the form of UN troops to the missions in the Golan Heights and East Timor suddenly positioning itself into the 26th troop contributing UN Member State as of October 2003.10 Surprisingly, after the PKO law was passed, the dispatches of the JSDF to the UNTAC in Cambodia and the UNTAET and UNMISET in East Timor were on a major scale in terms of the total number of personnel, both civil and military.11

Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, Cambridge Ma, MIT press, 2005, p. 75.

10 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Japan and UN Peace Operations”, Japanese Journal of Political Science, vol. 5, issue 1 (2004), p. 138; Data can be verified looking at the summary of troop contributors of 2003 in the UN peacekeeping archives (http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors_archive.shtml).

11 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration between Japan and Australia”, in Brad Williams and Andrew Newman, Japan, Australia and Asia-Pacific Security, New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 150.

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Neither without obstacle nor opponents to this trend has Japan started to visualize its increasing participation in peacekeeping operations as a way to cope with international pressures demanding it to adopt a more decisive role in this regard and as a tool to reinforce its image as a responsible candidate for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.12 Both the number of troops deployed and the number of missions in which Japan participates have been exponentially increasing since 1992. Although the limitations and restrictions outlined in the International Peacekeeping Operations Law and in further amendments and versions of it, deeply embedded with the antimilitarist doctrine of Japan postwar political culture, have being highlighted by numerous scholars13, the most pressing puzzle is that even under these conditions, the country had achieved a prominent role in the field when becoming, for instance, in the period between 2000 and 2005, one of the top forty contributors to UN operations even surpassing countries with a long tradition in this regard such as Italy or Sri Lanka.14 Hence, my research question points to the puzzle of what explains the evolution of Japan’s UNPKOs policies in the presence of severe restrictions to the international deployment of the military and particularly after decades of upholding one of the most antimilitarist and restraining security doctrines in the world.15 This process of reconsideration of previous convictions, doctrines and norms influencing Japan’s foreign, security and defense policies throughout most part of the postwar period is particularly puzzling as seen through theories based on civil-military relations particularly for two reasons.

Firstly, Japan’s security doctrine has been clearly a national security doctrine emphasizing the internal uses of the military and severely restricted in its international projection by a number of considerations including constitutional limitations, the foundations of Japan’s postwar pacifism and a very special security relationship with the United States that goes back to the fifties. The emphasis on a minimalist defense policy derives also, according to some authors, from a deliberate policy -the peaceful trading State and the Yoshida doctrine- of focusing on the economic, social and political aspects of security rather than on the explicitly coercive dimensions of state policy.16 Secondly, because Japan’s civil-military relations were far from reproducing a pattern of integration of policies and, in fact, during large part of the post Second World War period, constituted an extreme case of segregation of policies or ¨subjective civilian control¨ in which the military held a

Ibid., p. 151.

Tsuneo Akaha, “Beyond self-defense: Japan’s elusive security role under the new guidelines for US-Japan defense cooperation“, The Pacific Review, vol. 11, no. 4(1998), p. 478; Kimberley Marten Zisk, “Japan’s United Nation’s Peacekeeping Dilemma“, Asia-Pacific Review, vol. 8, no. 1 (2001), p. 22.

14 Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some States…“, art, cit., p. 167; Go Ito, “Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations“, in Thomas U. Berger, Mike M. Mochizuki and Jitsuo Tsuchiyama, Japan in international politics: the foreign policies of an adaptive State, Boulder/ London, Lynne Rienner, 2007, p. 82.

15 Douglas H. Mendel Jr, “Public views of the Japanese Defense System”, in James H. Buck (editor), The modern Japanese military system, California/London, Sage Publications, 1975, p. 161.

16 Akitoshi Miyashita, “Where do norms come from? Foundations of Japan´s postwar pacifism”, International Relations of the Asia -Pacific, vol. 7 (2007), p. 103.

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substantially lower status and a very low level of influence in the foreign and security policy decision-making process.17 Such an extreme case of segregation of policies is self-evident when witnessing a very low level of articulation of military and foreign policy objectives between Ministries. This normative consensus, as Katzenstein and Okawara call it, has being shaped by historical lessons of World War II and the emergence of Japan as a peaceful, stable and prosperous power in world politics.18 2. The argument: variables and hypotheses As seen through this theoretical approach, the recent evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping came rather unexpectedly. And this, I contend, has to do with the fact that in Sotomayor´s theory security doctrines and patterns of civil-military interaction seem static and difficult to transform.

Indeed, except for acknowledging that democratizing countries may experience a transformation of their security doctrines, there is no indication of the way both can change over time and on the mechanisms in which this can actually take place.

In order to test Sotomayor´s theory my independent variable will be the nature of security doctrines, whether constituting a national, international or mixed-oriented doctrine, and levels of integration of policies as seen through the pattern of peacekeeping policymaking among ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense in the country selected. While doing the process tracing of events I will look for evidence to sustain or disconfirm the main causal relationship and therefore the generalizability of this theoretical argument. However, we will also assess the importance of two additional variables to understand the process of change of security doctrines, an empty space in Sotomayor´s framework. Hence, two hypotheses will guide the present research dealing with the evolution of Japan’s security doctrine and its effect into Tokyo’s peacekeeping policies, namely: Hypothesis 1: The changing attitude of Japan towards UNPKOs can be explained through Sotomayor´s theory when focusing on the evolution of a security doctrine, from an internally oriented one to a mixed-doctrine determining a modest pattern of semi-integrated interaction among civil and military officials, something instrumental in shaping a policy of partial troop commitment with the United Nations missions.

However, in order to explain this evolution, both foreign policy preferences -a variable in which motivation theories focus upon- and changes in the international context -a variable emphasized by realist theories- are utterly important explanatory elements. Indeed, pressure from the changing international system and a new set of preferences by political elites –aiming to transform Japan into

Takao Sebata, “Is Japan becoming a ¨Normal State¨ in Civil-Military Relations?”, East-West Studies, vol. 20, no. 1 (2008), pp. 202-203.

18 Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security: Structures, Norms and Policies“, International Security, vol. 17, no. 4 (Spring, 1993), p. 104.

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a relevant world power within the multilateral framework as seen, for example, through the candidacy to occupy a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council- play both a relevant role in these evolution. Moreover a situation of “security uncertainty”, as portrayed by the work of Emily O. Goldman, helps to explain the international processes triggering a reformulation of security doctrines, civil-military interactions and foreign policy preferences.19 Consequently, Hypothesis 2: The evolution and further adaptation of the new security doctrine of Japan -as witnessed through its gradually active peacekeeping policies- is a consequence of, on the one hand, pressure from substantial changes in the role of Japan within a new international context of security uncertainties and, on the other hand, of new foreign policy preferences, particularly regarding its candidature for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council.

Both independent variables -an international context involving security uncertainties and the bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council- are helpful to explain the evolution of the Japanese security doctrine, the changes in its civil-military relations and the way this evolution determined the pattern of gradual change of Japan’s peacekeeping policies. Go Ito, for example, argues that important changes in the international context and particularly the Gulf War in 1990-1991 were a turning point in Japan’s foreign policy and in the decision of the Japanese Government to send SDF officer into conflict areas. According to this view, facing the international criticism for what the US portrayed as “checkbook diplomacy”, the government decided to transform the old nondispatch principle at a moment where also regional tensions and demands of involvement started to increase.20 As Takashi Inoguchi had argued, “Japanese participation in and perceptions of peacekeeping operations undoubtedly have to be viewed through the prism of global change”.21 The second variable can be operationalized through the policies towards the United Nations and concretely Tokyo’s position regarding the United Nations Security Council as a key factor influencing the decision to deploy troops in cases of UNPKOs.22 This variable might be relevant due to different reasons. First, some authors describe what seems the fine line Japan has walked between a strong commitment to the United Nations, organization to which the country was admitted in 1956, and its reluctance to play a full part in peacekeeping due to constitutional restrictions and the so-called peace provision on article 9.23 Secondly, because Japan’s recent activism

Emily O. Goldman, “New Threats, new identities and new ways of war: the sources of change in National Security Doctrine”, Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 2001, pp. 43-76.

20 Go Ito, “Participation in UN peacekeeping operations”, art. cit., p. 76; Hugo Dobson, Japan and United Nations peacekeeping: new pressures, new responses, London/New York, Routledge, 2003, p. 34.

21 Takashi Inoguchi, “Japan´s United peacekeeping and other operations”, International Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (Spring, 1995), p. 331.

22 Nopranue Sajjarax Dhirathiti, Identity transformation and Japan´s UN security policy: from the Gulf Crisis to human security, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2007, available at http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/1141/ 23 Gary D. Rawnsley, “May you live in interesting times: China, Japan and peacekeeping”, in Rachel E. Utley (ed.), Major Powers and Peacekeeping: perspectives, priorities and the challenges of military intervention, Burlington/Hampshire, Ashgate, 2006, p. 88.

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to become a permanent member of the Security Council should necessarily be considered since, for some scholars, the Japanese government is growingly convinced this will be instrumental for the international campaign of the country portraying it as a suitable candidate who pays its burden in terms of global peace and security.24 Moreover, this seems to be also the conviction of other UN members. For example, the United States Senate passed a resolution “threatening not to support Japan’s bid for a permanent seat unless it lived up to its full commitment to PKO. ”25 Therefore I argue that Japan is currently experiencing a transformation from a national security doctrine –severely constrained by constitutional restrictions, a political understanding- bureaucratic consensus around pacifism narrowly defined and a strong security relationship with the United States- to a mixed doctrine leaving some room open to an increasingly important participation in UNPKOs but also keeping important institutional, legal, cultural and bureaucratic limitations and conditions preventing a radical transformation towards an externally oriented doctrine. Although Japan does not precisely follow the same path described by Sotomayor (when illustrating its emblematic case of country with a mixed-security doctrine and a pattern of semi-integration of policies, i.e. Brazil), I think there is enough evidence to successfully apply his framework to our case in point.

3. Methodology and research design The analysis will focus on explaining variance in the dependent variable (UNPKOs attitudes and policies). In this context, and to assess the causal power of the independent variables, I will use the method of process tracing, probably the ideal method to link, in a single-case study the so-called “putative causes to the observed effects at the appropriate levels of analysis as specified by the theory being tested”.26 In order to avoid the simplification of the “chain of events”, my argument will take the form of a “convergent colligation”, which depicts the outcome to be explained -the variation in the dependent variable- as the convergent action of several independent variables in two casual chains.27 The first casual chain refers to the impact of security doctrines and civilmilitary relations on the levels of peacekeeping commitments. The second one refers to the determinants of security doctrine change and consolidation. The advantages of process-tracing are specially relevant to my case in the sense that it is a useful method for analyzing data on casual

Ryo Yamamoto, “Legal issues concerning Japan’s participation in United Nations Peace-keeping operations“, The Japanese annual of international law, vol. 47 (2004), pp. 136-167; Hisashi Owada, “Japan’s constitutional power to participate in peacekeeping“, New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 29, issue 3 (1997), pp. 271-284; Shunji Yanai, “Japan’s legal framework for peacekeeping operations and international humanitarian relief operations“, in Michael Young and Yuji Iwasawa (eds), Trilateral perspectives on international legal issues: relevance of domestic law and policy, Irvington, Transnational publishers, 1996, pp.567-579.

25 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration between Japan and Australia”, art. cit., p. 151.

26 Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, op.cit, p. 223.

27 Ibid., p. 227.

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mechanisms, it permits a causal inference on the basis of a single case and it can point out new variables that were left out in previous research. Therefore I will be building and refining upon Sotomayor´s theory when testing it and offering an explanation to the historical evolution of Japanese security doctrines and its influence over peacekeeping policies and attitudes. That is why the thesis will adopt the form of a theory-testing case study and, to some extent, also a heuristic exercise when unveiling a causal mechanism involving new variables.

After explaining and discussing Sotomayor´s approach vis-à-vis other approaches in a first chapter, I will then concentrate, during a second chapter, in explaining the factors supporting the consolidation of an internally oriented security doctrine and informing a very radical version of the policies-segregation model. I will briefly address the emergence and consolidation of a certain attitude towards peacekeeping characterizing Japan’s answer to this increasingly important multilateral tool. Thirdly, I will focus on the way the end of the Cold War and certain events like the Gulf War forced Japan to reassess both its foreign and security policies. I will explain what I call the rise of a mixed security doctrine and several although modest changes in the civil-military interactions leading to a new although modest participation in UNPKOs in a 8 years time starting from 1992, when the PKO law was approved, and until 2000. I will also take a look into the first years of the candidacy of Japan for a permanent seat at the Security Council and the way this relates with its changing UNPKOs policies. In a fourth chapter, I will analyze the way this quest and certain international events like the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been instrumental in further consolidating Japan’s mixed security doctrines and changing civil -military interactions from 2000 and until 2007, when a major change in Japan’s civil-military relations took place after the creation of the Ministry of Defense, substituting the old Defense Agency. I will also relate this with a process of consolidation of the policy of moderate commitment of Japan towards UNPKOs. On the next chapter, I will present a review of the most important literature explaining States commitment to UNPKOs, explore the shortcomings and advantages of mainstream explanations on Japan’s attitudes and policies regarding peacekeeping compared to those entailed by the security doctrines/civil military relations theory. I will also comment upon the shortcomings of this framework and on the determinants we will argue are necessary to understand the dynamics of security doctrine change, a problem posed by the empirical evidence associated to Japan UNPKOs policies.

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CHAPTER I COMMITMENT

TO

PEACEKEEPING,

MAINSTREAM

EXPLANATIONS,

THE

SECURITY

DOCTRINES/CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS THEORY AND JAPANESE UNPKOS POLICIES

According to Hammerström’s comprehensive definition, UNPKOs take place when “the memberstates of the United Nations supply military or civilian personnel to undertake a limited operation involving military personnel within the borders of another country, all under the authority and command of the United Nations.”28 Today, the UNPKOs are recognized as an important tool for reducing violence, prevent major humanitarian disasters, and contribute to building long-term and stable peace in conflicting regions. Therefore, the vast majority of the international community has participated, to a certain extent, either in politically supporting, financing or dispatching civilian and military contingents to UNPKOs. If the dispatch of civilian components during peacekeeping operations do not normally entails a political debate within the United Nations membership, the opposite is true when it comes to military personnel. It is the dispatch of military personnel what normally evokes sensitive issues regarding the nature of the multilateral intervention, the risks involved, the limitations and scope of the operation and the legitimacy, pertinence and political or public support of this, as any other, military endeavor. Therefore the question on what are the determinants to explain the different levels of commitment among countries in terms of troop dispatch in UNPKOs becomes relevant.

1. Literature review on UNPKOs commitment theories and the Japanese case Different schools of thought within the international relations scholarship have been addressing this issue. In a nutshell, we can mainly identify two groups of literature. The first group deals with motivations and objectives states decide to pursue when choosing whether to participate as trooplending countries in UNPKOs. With the idea of obtaining a certain recognition by the international community, of pertaining to a certain group of States, acquiring economic earnings, status, prestige or a certain reputation, countries make their choice to participate or not in UNPKOs. Andrew Blum, for example, focuses on the motivations “weaker states” -basically developing states- have to participate in UNPKOs.29 Kabilan Kirshnasamy has referred to small “newcomer” States participating in peacekeeping as a way to improve its global image, attract greater economic

M. Hammerström, Securing resources by force - the need for raw materials and military intervention by major powers in less developed countries, doctoral thesis, Uppsala University, Sweden, 1986; quoted in Andreas Andersson, “United Nations intervention by United Democracies?: State Commitment to UN Interventions (1991-99)”, art. cit., p.

65.

29 Andrew Blum, “Blue Helmets from the South: accounting for the participation of weaker States in United Nations peacekeeping operations”, Journal of Conflict Studies, vol. 20, num. 1 (2000), p.56.

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assistance and foreign investment.30 Finally, Bobrow and Boyer argue that small States are driven by private economic benefits while bigger States are driven by their necessity to maintain the international peace and stability conceived as a public good.31 Other single case studies have been emphasizing a wide range of foreign policy, security, and geostrategic and military objectives in explaining the decision of States to participate or not in UNPKOs.32 Although it is hard to argue that normative factors, among others involving motivations and policy objectives, do not play an important role in shaping state behavior, it is self-evident that, as Akitoshi Miyashita argues, explanations based on norms and identities cannot be separated from a discussion on material and structural factors.33 It is rather obvious that States´ commitment to UNPKOs does not depend exclusively on will but on structural elements and capabilities determining its level, hampering some of them to send more troops and leading some others to send less or no send troops at all.

Indeed, different and contending theories exist in this second group of literature focusing on the incidence of structural conditions and capabilities. A first group of theories rely on realist explanations pointing to notions of military, economic and geopolitical capabilities, spheres of influence34 and in the international distribution of power. For example, some argue that middle powers -“those nations that are influential economically or in terms of certain strategic aspects but that do not aspire to rival the major nations such as the U.S. in terms of hard power capabilities”are precisely the States in the best position, neither superpowers nor weak states, to exert moral influence on international politics through a very active orientation within multilateral organizations.35 This was a very influential theory before the end of the Cold War since the vast majority of troop-lending countries were, at that time, actually “internationalist minded middle powers” as Bellamy calls them.36 However, this theory obviously cannot account for variations in behavior among nations with similar characteristics.

A second theory states that the type of regime largely determines the degree of participation of the State in question. Andreas Andersson, for example, shows how democracies commit more than

Kabilan Kirshnasamy, “Bangladesh and UN peacekeeping: the participation of a small State”, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, vol. 41, no. 1 (March, 2003), p. 25.

31 Davis B. Bobrow and Mark. A Boyer, “Maintaining System Stability: contributions to peacekeeping operations”, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 41, no. 6 (Dec.1997), p. 727.

32 Alan Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping Operations”, International peacekeeping, vol. 4, num. 1 (1997), pp.

106-108; Aurelia George Mulgan, “International peacekeeping and Japan’s role: catalyst or cautionary tale?”, Asian Survey, vol. 35, no. 12 (December, 1995), p. 1108.

33 Akitoshi Miyashita, art. cit., p. 99.

34 Laura Neack, “UN Peace-keeping: in the interest of Community or Self?”, Journal of Peace Research, vol. 32, no. 2 (May, 1995), p. 189.

35 Yoshihide Soeya, “Japanese Security Policy in Transition: the rise of international and human security”, Asia Pacific Review, vol. 12. No. 1, 2005, p. 105.

36 Alex J. Bellamy, Paul Williams and Stuart Griffin, op. cit., p. 96.

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other regimes to UN interventions -basically because democracies share important norms regarding peace- although anocracies -a middle way category describing countries in the process of democratization- also actively participate. Indeed, according to Andersson, the effect of democracy is greatest at the early increments in democracy “but wanes at the later increments and the effect of policy on commitment is suppressed, or saturated, when a certain level of democracy is reached”.37 James H. Lebovic disagrees and points out that UN peace operations rely much more on democratic contributions since those missions entail opportunities to spread and preserve liberal values around humanitarian objectives.38 Similarly, Daniel and Caraher argue that democratic, stable and both high and lesser-developed and high and middle-income States constitute the profile of the majority of the troop-lending community.39 Others have pointed even to the power of public support in liberal democracies as an explanatory factor.40 The problem with this approach is that very often the evidence easily contradicts their assumptions. For instance, they cannot explain why some liberal, democratic, high and middle-income States, such as Mexico, do not participate in UNPKO. Although all these theoretical perspectives point to important issues, the evidence in every case seems not strong enough to go beyond a mere probabilistic relation. A good example of their limits its precisely the case of Japan. Both groups of literature have been dealing with Japan and its peacekeeping policies. On the one hand, according to a pioneering work by Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, there is a normative context determining Japan’s security policy and particularly the policy of not participating or participating “superficially” in UNPKOs. According to these authors, Japan’s linkage between internal constitutionalism and foreign policy is admittedly unique among the world’s democracies in the sense that the Constitution renounces war as instrument of security policy.41 When imposing severe restraints on the conduct of Japan’s security policy, the Constitution embodies a widely accepted norm repudiating the use of force for settling international disputes, which has evolved into a normative consensus.

This normative consensus seems likely to persist even in the situation of important pressures from the international system. A deliberate policy of caution, says Katzenstein and Okawara, is ultimately “rooted in the traumatic experience of losing a disastrous war”.42 But most importantly, it will persist since it is part of a major objective the Japanese elite has established for the country, namely

Andreas Andersson, “Commitment to UN interventions”, Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association vol. 37, no. 4 (December 2002), p. 379.

38 James H. Lebovic, “Uniting for peace? Democracies and United Nations Peace Operations after the Cold War”, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 48, no. 6 (Dec., 2004), p. 916.

39 D.C.F. Daniel and Leigh C. Caraher, “Characteristics of troop contributors to peace operations and implications for global capacity”, International peacekeeping, vol. 13, no. 3 (September, 2006), p. 303.

40 Alynna J. Lyon and Mary Fran T. Malone, “Where are the ¨Good Samaritans”? Assessing Cross-National Support for Peacekeeping Operations”, Journal of International Peacekeeping, vol. 13 (2009), pp. 239-266.

41 Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, art. cit., p. 103.

42 Ibid., p. 108.

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achieving economic power, something consider to be mutually exclusive with a strong preference towards building and using a strong military in international missions. And this, according to them, is the evidence supporting their argument that “Japan’s social and legal norms account for the rigidity with which its security policy adapts to a changing world”.43 Not only antimilitarism, but also other norms like UN-internationalism, collective security and East Asianism have also been mentioned in the literature as playing a role in Japan’s policies regarding UNPKOs.44 However, it we are to apply this framework, we wont be able to answer the questions posed by Miyashita to these constructivist approaches. For instance, where do these norms come from?, and, perhaps most importantly, how to explain the structural conditions that shaped these norms?; how to understand the reinterpretation and evolution of those norms over time and the way a new norm replaces an old one?

45

As Miyashita argues, in the absence of the American

security guarantee Japan had through the Security Treaty signed with the United States, its is doubtful whether this kind of pacifist norms might emerge and prevail obstructing, for example, the possibility of an active participation in UNPKOs since the fifties.46 Further, structural variables in both the international and domestic realms have been stressed in the case of Japan’s PKO policies. For example, the argument that the post-Cold war international context increased the external demands on Japan to assume new global responsibilities it’s as omnipresent as persuasive in the literature. Indeed, numerous authors have argued that during the Cold War, the United States provided for Japan’s security, which, in practice, yielded on a certain attitude against an active participation in security affairs. Although this common explanation is somehow present in almost any analysis on this question, it has two important shortcomings. The first has to do with what I argue is its inability to explain what has prevented Japan to radically change their security policies. If the international factors hampering Japan to actively participate in UNPKOs have changed dramatically, then what can explain the ambivalent and still reluctant character of Japan’s stance as a peacekeeper in UN peace operations particularly, as we would see later on, in the so-called robust peacekeeping.47 The second obvious but important shortcoming has to do with the way it neglects domestic factors, noticeably relevant in the sense they describe with more in-depth details the main circumstances of the decision making process. When looking into domestic factors, authors have stressed a new

Ibid., p. 117.

Hugo Dobson, op cit., pp. 34-41; Bhubhindar Singh, “Peacekeeping in Japanese security policy: International-domestic contexts interaction”, European Journal of International Relations, vol. XX, num. 10 (2010), p. 6.

45 Akitoshi Miyashita, art. cit., p. 116.

46 Idem.

47 Frank A. Stengel, “The Reluctant Peacekeeper: Japan´s ambivalent stance on UN peace operations”, Japan aktuell, vol. 1 (2008), pp. 37-55.

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generation of revisionist politicians arguing in favor of a reinterpretation of the so-called “peace Constitution”. According to them, a consequence of the revisionist consolidation of power within the Japanese political system was the weakening of the antimilitarist doctrine and the emergence of a new attitude in favor of an active role for the Self-Defense Forces in both regional and international security affairs.48 The problem with this approach is the way it totally overlooks the pressures of the international system and the way it considers the political-electoral agendas of parties as immutable over time. In fact, the revisionists were generally those parties in power while the antimilitarist doctrine was basically the political niche of the opposition parties.49 Indeed, the comfortable status of Japanese opposition, without direct responsibilities in the diplomatic arena, allowed opposition parties to sustain its pacifist agenda except when participating in coalition governments, per se a transforming experience towards revisionism. But there is a potentially crucial issue that the majority of analyses on Japan and other countries have left out of the picture. By this I mean the neglected and overlooked internal processes within the troop-lending country and concretely the patterns of civil-military interactions deciding if, when, where and how to participate in UNPKOs. A third group of literature emphasizes precisely the way “the dynamics of domestic civil-military relations shape the likelihood of participating in peacekeeping operations”.50 Figure 1. The theoretical state of the art on peacekeeping State commitment

Bhubhindar Singh, art. cit., p. 8.

For example, the Japan Socialist Party, the largest opposition party of postwar Japan, used to be the main actor advocating constitutional pacifism, unarmed neutrality and the abolishment of the US-Japan security treaty. Once in power, in July 1994, the party officially “backed down from its pacifist stance”, arguing in favor of the constitutionality of SDF missions abroad. Surprisingly enough, in 2001 the JSP as soon as came out from power, decided to revisit the pacifist agenda and to adopt their old security guidelines (Akitoshi Miyashita, art. cit., p. 115).

50 Arturo Sotomayor, “Different paths and divergent policies”, art. cit., p. 365.

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2. The theory on security doctrines and civil-military relations Security doctrines, argues Emily O. Goldman, are both the instrumental goals though which security interests are protected and the means -whether military, diplomatic, economic or domesticemployed to serve those instrumental goals.51 1 In other words, as Daniel Kliman argues, a security doctrine is “a state’s defense strategy and framework of norms, policies and attitudes through which government elites approach national security”.52 However, it was until recently that Arturo Sotomayor employed the concept for the development of a theory focusing on their influence on civil-military relations and UNPKOs policies.

Sotomayor argues that troop commitments for UNPKOs are affected by “doctrinal preferences and civil-military interactions”.53 According to this framework, doctrines determine whether the armed forces will be focusing toward external threats, national security concerns or a combination of both resulting in different levels of military support or resistance for participation in PKO as a result of the armed forces´ predisposition to adopt one or the other behavior. Thus, Sotomayor argument is that military institutions with national security or internal doctrines won’t commit soldiers in support to UNPKOs. Exactly the opposite is predicted when taking military institutions acting in the context of so-called external doctrines. The mechanism is basically the following: An externally focused doctrine entails a pattern of policy coordination and cooperation between military generals and diplomats generally through the identification of goals, the establishment of regular interministerial meetings, joint committees and particularly by appointing military attaches to diplomatic posts. The result is a scheme of integration of policies, a situation in which decisions on peacekeeping will most likely be substantially influenced by foreign policy imperatives and not mainly or exclusively by military preferences. The opposite case is true when an internally focused doctrine determines basically a low level of interaction, policy coordination and cooperation among military generals and diplomats in what Sotomayor depicts as a scheme of segregation of policies.

National security doctrines are not integrated into a nation’s foreign policy and follow a pattern also portrayed as “parallel spheres of action”.54 An externally oriented doctrine is the result of external security threats and the perception that the protection of the State from an attack or invasion from a rival State is a top policy priority. The expectation according to which, in general, externally oriented armies will be supportive of UN peace missions has to do with the fact these operations do not necessarily question their doctrinal principles and provide an opportunity for gaining experience, training and skills that would be

Emily O. Goldman, art. cit., p. 43.

Daniel M. Kliman, Japan´s Security Strategy in the post- 9/11 world, Washington, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2006, p. 6.

53 Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some States participate…”, art. cit., p. 173.

54 Ibid., p. 175.

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potentially useful in international political crisis and even in situations of real interstate wars.55 Therefore, in the absence of war opportunities but with a scenario of potential external threats, UNPKOs becomes a particularly attractive option. The expected level of policy coordination and cooperation between military generals and diplomats is particularly high and, as a general rule, the more integration among them, the more likely decisions on UNPKOs “will be deeply influenced by foreign policy imperatives rather than strict military preferences”.56 National security doctrines have their origins, in contrast, with a situation in which the armed forces hold tasks related to public order, law enforcement, the preservation of internal order and political stability. In the absence of considerable external threats and due to the concerns regarding the instability of the domestic context, national security doctrines emerge reducing considerably the incentives to participate in peacekeeping operations. This doctrine is expected to lead to a situation of segregation of policies where, as a general rule, the more segregated the armed forces are from diplomacy, the more likely decisions on UNPKOs will be “influenced by doctrinal and military preferences -normally much more concerned with domestic security concerns- rather than foreign policy imperatives.”57 Emily O. Goldman when arguing that the extent of the military influence security doctrines depends on the state of civil-military relations also elaborates this part of the argument. For instance, if military elites are well represented in government, or if over time civilians have delegated more authority to military leaders, then is reasonable to expect a narrow military view of national security downplaying the role of diplomacy and economics. In contrast, if military elites are being marginalized the opposite might occur.58 But sometimes, argues Sotomayor, there are countries neither pertaining to the integration of policies/externally oriented security pattern nor to the segregation of policies/internally oriented security pattern but to a combination of them in a different category namely “mixed-doctrines and semi-integrated policies”. This mixed-doctrine, combining both the internal and external uses of the military, determines the level of integration between defense and foreign policies something leading to the country in question to send only a limited force “consisting of military observers or small units participating only in a couple of PKO”.59 Mixed-doctrines originate in contexts where military institutions face unclear orientations and suffer from an unclear civilian control. According to Sotomayor, this is normally the case of democratizing countries confronting a transition from internally to externally oriented doctrines. The result is a transitional process where the integration between defense and foreign policies is rather weak and where there is, following the author, a

For building this argument, Sotomayor uses extensively the book by Charles C. Moskos, Peace Soldiers, the sociology of a United Nations Military Force, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1976.

56 Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some States participate…”, art. cit., p. 175.

57 Ibid., p. 176.

58 Emily O. Goldman, art. cit., p. 60.

59 Ibid., p. 177.

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political management of the military. According to Sotomayor, the political management of the military takes place whereby political leaders are able to subordinate the army to the civilian rule but without a fundamental knowledge or an interest in defense affairs.60 This means that every time a decision is made on the dispatch of military contingents to UNPKOs, a political compromise is needed between diplomatic leaders and military generals. As a result, countries in the described situation will only moderately participate in UNPKOs. 3. Security doctrine change and the civil-military relations theory: its application to the Japanese case My argument is that the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping policies can be successfully explained when applying Sotomayor´s theory. As a country experiencing a transition from an internally oriented doctrine/segregation of policies pattern to a more outward doctrine and a more integrated pattern of civil-military relations, Japan’s current security doctrines does fit in the mixedsecurity/semi-integrated pattern of policies. This also means an important change in its UNPKOs policies.

This approach presents a crucial advantage to analyze a case like Japan. In contrast with other bureaucratic or domestic politics approaches, it also comprises the analysis of some aspects of the international context when recognizing that the nature of threats a State perceives determines the formulation of military doctrines as external, internal or mixed. The theory’s explanatory power in fact resides in the interaction of systemic elements and domestic structures. However, some disadvantages are also noteworthy. According to this approach, both security doctrines and the patterns of civil-military interaction seem elements rather static and there is no indication about under which conditions they might change over time. Moreover, it fails to explain, independently from the systemic conditions, the dynamics of changing foreign policy motivations and objectives elites may experienced to participate or not in UNPKOs. Security doctrines do change and adjust though and there is a literature dealing with this phenomenon.61 However we will basically rely on the framework by Emily O. Goldman to cover some of the shortcomings of Sotomayor´s theory. For her, dramatic shifts in security doctrines are only possible as the product of major nationally or internationally originated discontinuities altering the foundations of national power such as a regime change, defeat in war, major technological breakthroughs or the disappearance of a key threat.62 Nonetheless, moderate changes are possible when a particular situation arises and which she portrays as of “security uncertainty”. Security uncertainty implies “ambiguity about the nature of threats” the changing security doctrine must

Idem.

See for instance Peter Trubowitz, Emily O. Goldman and Edward Rhodes, The Politics of Stategic Adjustment, Ideas, Institutions and Interests, New York, Columbia University Press 1999, 368 p.

62 Emily O. Goldman, art. cit., p. 43.

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face. In other words, security doctrines adapt when former threats stop to exist or where there is a dramatic change in the international distribution of power and consequently the former certainties are suddenly replaced by ambiguity surrounding the threats, the identity of potential adversaries so much as the contingencies and timeframe within which threats are likely to arise. This also can produce alliance uncertainty and substantial shifts in foreign policy, strategic and domestic orientations.63 In our view, during the early nineties, an again during the 9/11 events aftermath, Japan faced a situation of security uncertainty, which compelled it to reformulate its security policy, to gradually change the pattern of civil-military interactions and to transform some of its foreign policy priorities producing an important transformation in Japanese policy on UNPKOs. This approach for explaining the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping policies -within Sotomayor´s framework- is particularly attractive since it involves and combines elements from both theories of motivations (the bid for permanent membership at the UNSC) and structural capabilities (changing international context) in assessing State commitment to UNPKOs. Once I have discussed different theoretical approaches trying to explain States commitment to UNPKOs, presented the security doctrines/civil military relations theory, in which I will be building upon, and showing the way some shortcomings of the theory can be overcome in direct reference to the case of Japan’s changing peacekeeping policies, I will start the analysis of my case study. In the following chapter, the reader will find an explanation on the determinants for Japan’s national security doctrine and segregated civil-military relations, which prevailed during the postwar period and until the early nineties. I will elaborate on the roots behind the monumental restrictions Japan decided to adopt for an eventual international deployment of troops. Further I will analyze the normative, strategic and political foundations of Japan’s national security doctrine and a pattern of extreme segregation of civil-military relations hampering an active participation of the country in the first decades of peacekeeping multilateral efforts. Moreover, I will explain the way these elements were instrumental in the implementation of a policy of partial commitment with the United Nations and of indifference regarding the security advantages of a full participation in peacekeeping multilateral missions. Finally, I will also explain how Japan elaborated a discourse on its policy of financial-rhetorical commitment with the United Nations based on its so-called exceptional position regarding security and defense issues, something preventing it to fully launch a candidacy for a permanent seat at the UNSC, an idea the Japanese government did not completely endorse yet.

63

Ibid., pp. 45-54.

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Figure 2: Variables for the evolution of Japan’s peacekeeping policies

Figure 3. The timeline of Japan’s peacekeeping policies evolution

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CHAPTER II JAPAN’S NATIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE AND SEGREGATED CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS: 19451990 During the Cold War, Japan’s national security doctrine emerged as a response to a particular historical context experienced by the country after its defeat during the Second World War and further occupation by the allied powers. Among scholars there is a consensus around the fact that Japanese policy makers decided to separate Japan’s national security from the international security environment. In military terms, Singh argues, Japan focused on mitigating the impact of the threats steaming from the international environment relying on the security guarantee provided by the United States and, in a narrow definition of national security, limiting the role of the military to the defense of national borders and the maintenance of internal order and its economic-based interests.64 Further, these policies gave way to the consolidation of an inflexible normative consensus punishing politicians trying to change them and determining the development of a certain civil-military pattern of segregation, which reinforced Japan’s constraining security and foreign policies.

1.

Constitutional and legal restrictions for the dispatch of troops

After the Second World War, Japan was very interested in avoiding being dragged into an international conflict that might revive the right-wing militarism responsible for the tragedy of its defeat, invasion and reconstruction.65 Furthermore, issues of war guilt were seriously discussed leading to a postwar pacifism of unprecedented dimensions, which was also instrumental in convincing the world and particularly the Asian continent that “Japan shall never do wrong again”.66 Therefore, Japanese leaders decided to become very active participants in the United Nations, organization to which Japan was admitted in 1956, but without taking part in one of its core activities: peacekeeping operations. This unwillingness to the threat or use of force, in any manifestation and for any purpose, including the objective of fulfilling the UN mandate, is particularly evident in the restrictions established in the new Japanese Constitution of 1947. In its Article 9, vehemently called as the “peace provision”, the Constitution states the following: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling

Bhubhindar Singh, “Japan´s security policy: from a peace state to an international state”, The Pacific Review, vol. 21, no. 3, July 2008, p. 310.

65 Byron Shibata, “The Spirit of Civilian Control of the Military: Lessons from the United States Constitution”, Ritsumeikan Law Review, vol. 17 (2002), consulted online on April 18, 2011, www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/law/lex/rlr19/shibata.pdf 66 Yasuaki Onuma, “Japanese war guilt, the peace Constitution and Japan´s role in Global Peace and Security”, in Michael K. Young and Yuji Isawara, Trilateral perspectives on international legal issues: relevance of domestic law and policy, Irvington, Transnational Publishers, 1996, pp. 523-546.

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international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”67

But beyond the meaning of this provision, a number of authoritative interpretations came to establish the foundations of Japan’s peaceful model of economic transformation and political stability.68 The former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, for instance, maintained that the constitution obliged Japan to spend all its resources and devote its energies in “pursuing economic recovery and maintaining political stability while postponing indefinitely the task of preparing the Japanese people themselves for a return to the harsh realities of international politics”.69 This was precisely the doctrine that will later receive the name of its author, or Yoshida doctrine, establishing the fundamental parameter of Japan’s post World War II foreign policy: free-riding on the United States security to pursue economic development and without the need to maintain a standing military draining valuable resources.70 In fact, Japan didn’t have any formal militia until 1954 when the Self Defense Force (SDF) was established. The force, as its name shows, was specifically intended for the defense of the Japanese territory and the law establishing it prohibited its dispatch abroad. Article 3 of the SDF Law of 1954 stipulated that the fundamental duty of the SDF is to “defend the nation of Japan from direct and indirect aggression”, objective for which Article 88 disposes the use of “the necessary force”.

However, it established monumental restrictions for its utilization. For example, as a logical consequence of Article 9 neither the Constitution nor the law have a “war-declaring authority” provision except for article 7 establishing that the prime minister has the supreme right to command the SDF within the margins of the Constitution.71 Furthermore, and for clarifying this crucial point, the House of Councilors passed that same year a resolution prohibiting the foreign dispatch of the SDF and reaffirming both its strictly defensive nature and, as its most important function, the protection of national security.72 In fact, this was a reaction to the widespread fears in 1956, upon Japan’s admission to the United Nations, that the UN Charter would compromise Japan’s peaceful constitutional provisions. It was acceptable that, for instance, Japan serving as

Quoted in Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 35.

Jitsuo Tsuchiyama, “War renunciation, article 9 and Security Policy”, in Thomas U. Berger, Mike M. Mochizuki and Jitsuo Tsuchiyama (eds), Japan in International Politics: the Foreign Policies of an Adaptive State, Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, p. 51.

69 Gary D. Rawnsley, “May you live in interesting times: China, Japan and peacekeeping”, in Rachel E. Utley, Major Powers and peacekeeping: perpectives, priorities and the challenges of military intervention, Burlington, Ashgate, 2006, p. 88.

70 Kevin J. Cooney, Japan´s foreign policy maturation, London, Routledge, 2002, p. 34.

71 Akiho Shibata, “Japan: moderate commitment within legal strictures”, in Charlotte Ku and Harold K. Jacobson (eds.), Democratic accountability and the use of force in international law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 219.

72 Takashi Inoguchi and Paul Bacon, “Japan´s emerging role as a “global ordinary power”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, vol. 6, num.1 (2006), p. 14.

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non-permanent member of the Security Council participated in the drafting resolution establishing some peacekeeping operations like the United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL) but the dispatch of Japanese troops in it was unthinkable.

In 1958, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, invited Japan to participate in UNOGIL. After a very long and agitated process of deliberation in the Japanese Parliament, Hammarskjold was informed that the as an overseas military involvement of the SDF, the initiative contravened the Constitution.73 This political consensus was expressed in 1969 in the following way by the director general of the Cabinet Legislative Bureau, the agency responsible for drafting bills and giving legal advice to the cabinet: “the right of collective self-defense is not admissible for Japan under article 9 of the constitution, in the sense that Article 9 does not allow dispatch of our forces for the security of other states”.74 However, in order to demonstrate at least its political support to peacekeeping operations, Japan soon started to imagine other ways in which it could participate without violating the Constitution.

For example, Japan did dispatched civilian personnel in minor fact-finding missions like the one established in Laos in 1971, and proposed, following the seminal idea by professor Sakamoto Yoshikazu, to establish a UN international police force for maintaining law and order, something that could have been in perfect consonance with the Constitution since it was planned to be “a peaceful police force not conducting military activities”, which “would not pose problems relating to the First Clause of Article 9”. 75 In 1960, Japan was again asked by the United Nations to contribute with SDF involvement in the United Nations Operation in the Congo. Again, Japan stated that the Resolution 161, establishing that operation was at odds with the Constitution in the sense it allows the peacekeeping mission to use force. This sort of statement were about to be repeated almost every time the country was asked to participate with troops in UNPKOs. Against the popular wisdom in many countries where peacekeeping operations are seen as perfectly compatible with peace-loving Constitutions and nations, Japanese legal constitutionalism for decades emphasized the illegality of UNPKOs in light of both the use of force and the armed nature of peacekeeping forces.76 However, other variables were also instrumental in configuring this security doctrine impeding international military entanglements.

Gary D. Rawnsley, op. cit., p. 89.

This statement is particularly important since large part of the actions authorized by the UN Security Council resolutions has by legal basis precisely the right of collective self-defense contemplated by Article 51 of the UN Charter (Akiho Shibata, op. cit., p. 212).

75 Hugo Dobson., op. cit., p. 52.

76 Yoshiro Matsui, “United Nation’s activities for peace and the Constitution of Japan”, in Michael K. Young and Yuji Isawara, op. cit., p. 514.

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2. The Yoshida doctrine and the United States security guarantee For many observers, during the Cold War, Japan was the first example of a State, in contemporary history, wielding an immense economic power without corresponding military might.77 The “onecountry pacifism” policy led to the formulation of a low profile security policy characterized, on the one hand, by the constraints on the use of the military as an instrument of state policy and, on the other, by the subordination of any domestic and international objective to the economic recovery and growth as main “national purpose”. Over time, this objective started to be seen also as a foreign policy issue in the sense that Japan’s contribution to international affairs will be mainly associated to the world economy in terms of aid, financial assistance and economic stabilization and not to any military endeavor. Yoshida Shigeru, first Japanese prime minister during the postwar period, and this group called “the pragmatists”, supported the Peace constitution in order to deflect US pressure on Japan to develop its military capabilities and expand its security responsibilities in Asia while at the same time taking advantage of the Security Treaty with the United States for achieving their vision of Japan as a shonin kokka or “merchant nation”, a model of prosperous, peaceful and economical buoyant power.78 The policy of alliance with the United States has often been called the most important bilateral relationship in the world and this has a lot to do with the implications of the US-Japanese Security Treaty of 1951. According to this Treaty, signed after the outbreak of the war in Korea and under the imperative of using Japan’s military bases for the United States, the Treaty came to further convinced Japan that there was no real need for it to directly participate in security affairs. Indeed, the United States decided to grant Japan a security guarantee for its defense against any attack by a third power in exchange of Japan granting the United States the right to dispose land air and sea forces in and about its territory for their common defense in the Asian region.79 The treaty, originally thought as an interim base-lending agreement, has remained, with some changes, mostly intact for more than 60 years and its relevancy and main contents have been ratified in the successive so-called Guidelines for the US-Japan Defense Cooperation from 1978 and up to the present. Furthermore, the Treaty provided the basis for a strategic relation between the SDF and the US army, which, in terms of military training and interaction, was the perfect replacement for the impossible deployment of Japanese troops in UNPKOs. In fact, the Guidelines of 1978 stipulated an enhanced cooperation on military matters including processes of sharing information and launching joint military exercises. And although the self-defense concept stretched during the late seventies and early eighties to include joint exercises and new forms of military cooperation, Japan didn’t feel the need to counterbalance this overwhelming presence of the United States in its

Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, art. cit., p. 85.

Bhubhindar Singh, “Japan’s security policy…”, art. cit., p. 307.

79 Jitsuo Tsuchiyama, art. cit., p. 58.

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military linkages with the world or to use UNPKOs as a tool of its multilateral foreign policy.

Although the United States repeatedly pressured Japan to participate in UNPKOs, the Japanese leaders remained firmly in their position portraying them as going against Japan’s constitution and constituting a step too far from its position on military international entanglements. This security alliance with the United States made possible the emergence of a certain political consensus and policy-making institutional dynamics further hampering Japan from participating in international military endeavors like UNPKOs. 3. A political consensus, the bureaucratic policy-making structure and the civil-military dimension In 1961, immediately after Japan decided to reject calls for participating in the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC), the then Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations made some critical remarks regarding his country’s ambivalent policy towards the multilateral organization. Extremely frustrated by the negative response of the Japanese cabinet to this request of the United Nations, he argued there was a contradiction between Japan’s commitment to the UN, on the one hand, and the country’s resistance to be involved in UNPKOs, on the other hand.

In a press release, he said: “It would not be reasonable for Japan to remain unalterably opposed to sending troops abroad”. Soon he was forced to withdraw his statement and after the opposition parties furiously demanded his removal, to resign.80 This episode describes well the existence of a political consensus on the issue punishing those thinking differently and making impossible for some normative entrepreneurs, as Hugo Dobson calls them, to obtain any significant triumph in moderating this rather inflexible collective conviction. Behind this attitude the fear of a reemergence of Pre World War II militarism was also evident.81 Indeed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) became one of the most important normative entrepreneurs within the Japanese government promoting, with extreme caution and without any public grandstanding, the expansion of Japan’s role within UNPKOs. However, the strength of the anti-militarist norm and the constraining factors already described played an instrumental role in preventing the Ministry to achieve any success in this direction. In fact, the Ministry never dared to adopt any position on the subject without consulting other equally powerful Ministries in the foreign policy decision-making process.82 But its recommendation was always positive in terms of looking for an increased entanglement of Japan with UNPKOs. In 1966, for example, the MOFA

Gary D. Rawnsley, op. cit., p. 88.

In an editorial column published a few days after Ambassador Matsudaira´s resign, on the Yomiuri Shimbun, one of the most influential newspapers of Japan until our days, the following statement contextualize these fears rather accurately when saying: “If the constitution is revised so that troops may be sent abroad nobody knows when the rightist forces will strengthen their influence and embark on aggression instead of dispatching troops for peaceful purposes” (L. William Heinrich Jr, Akiho Shibata and Yoshihide Soeya, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: a guide to Japanese policies, Tokyo, United Nations University Press, 1999, p. 14).

82 Idem.

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ministry admitted in a report that: “if Article 42 of the UN Charter (regarding the use of force by a collective operation) were to be set in motion, the actions taken would be that of the United Nations and not military activities of individual Member States, and thus would not amount to the exercise of the belligerent right of each State participating in it”.83 However, the government never seriously considered proposals like these.

During large part of the eighties, MOFA advocated in different ways a step-by-step incremental participation in police operations, transportation, communications, medical support and the dispatch of military personnel on supervision missions. Worthy of mention is a report prepared in 1983, which, after the harsh criticism by opposition parties, had to be contextualized by the Prime Minister as “merely one view put forward by a study group”.84 Immediately afterwards, the Foreign Minister Abe Shintaro had to declare that “Japan will neither attempt to become a major military power nor send numbers of its Self-Defense Forces on overseas peacekeeping missions”.85 Furthermore, every answer like this automatically referred to the “official position paper” the Japanese government presented to the Diet in 1980 on this matter. In that policy paper, the government distinguished two types of peacekeeping operations namely: 1) cease-fire observations groups, charged with monitoring the implementation of the agreement and reporting any breach to the Security Council and 2) peacekeeping forces for all tasks related to preventing conflict, restoring and maintaining peace. The government took the position that only in the first group of activities, as they did not involve the use of force, the participation of Japan, through civil officials, was constitutionally acceptable.86 The Ministry’s lack of success in terms of convincing the rest of the government to adopt this position and the fact that at times it was forced to tone down any support for the dispatch of SDF members to UNPKOs shows also the bureaucratic inertias and complex interactions regarding the design and implementation of Japanese security policy which led to a very particular civil-military relations pattern. In the opinion of several scholars, this is the result of three levels of civilian control of the military, namely in the Diet, the Cabinet and within the Japan Defense Agency.

According to the Constitution and the Law on the Establishment of the Defense agency, the Diet makes decisions both legislative and budgetary on substantial matters of the operation of the SDF. Further, for its dispatch abroad, in case of an emergency or self-defense situation, the Primer Minister must obtain first the approval of the Diet. Within the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, the primer minister exercises supreme control of the SDF and every important decision must be

Hugo Dobson, op cit., p. 52.

Ibid., p. 56.

85 Idem.

86 According to Shibata, usually the government presents “unified official views after it is requested to do so by the Diet or by an individual Diet member” (Akiho Shibata, “Japanese peacekeeping legislation and recent developments in United Nations operations”, Yale Journal of International Law, vol. 19 (1994), p. 313).

83 84

25

consulted with other members of the Cabinet, all of them civilians. Finally, in the agency, there is a naikyoku or internal bureau, which mainly consists of civilian bureaucrats and who is responsible to directly assist the defense minister.87 Japanese security policy used to be formulated and implemented jointly by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Finance (MOF), and International Trade and Industry (MITI) as well as the JDA (Japanese Defense Agency) playing only a minor role. However, there is an agency even more powerful than these ministries when it comes to defense policies: the Cabinet Legislation Bureau (CLB). More than a Ministry is an elite unit in charge of all legal aspects regarding government policy, acting as legal counsel of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet when examining bills and treaties before their submission to the Diet. In this context, the Bureau is by far the most important actor responsible for the government’s interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution.88 According to Katzenstein, this bureaucratic model rests on the premise that the use or threat of military force is not a viable political option and therefore major defense decisions need the approval of the Cabinet and must always “go through an especially cautious consensus-building process in which virtually all relevant ministries participate”.89 It is rather evident that the bureaucratic interests of the CLB make radical change in security policy something extremely difficult to achieve in Japan. Furthermore, major changes do not occur very often since the CLB´s main concern has to do with maintaining the consistency on its rulings over time.90 Further, major defense decisions required, as a general rule, to be approved also by a bureau called, until 1986, as the National Defense Council (later the Japan’s Security Council).91 Quite the opposite of what happened in other latitudes where armies generally think of UN missions as endeavors giving them the chance to achieve a new sense of purpose and a new injection of morale in peaceful times, the Japanese military, an unpopular institution in the country due to Second World War memoires and a historical sense of guilt, did not play until the midnineties the role of an advocate in peacekeeping missions.

For Marten Zisk, this is mainly the result of two conditions. Firstly, it’s the result of a risk-avoiding attitude within the JDA extremely concerned with the safety of Japanese troops and with the implications of putting troops in danger. But secondly, and probably most importantly, it’s also the

Peter D. Feaver, Takako Hikotani and Shaun Narine, “Civilian control and civil-military gaps in the United States, Japan and China”, Asian Perspective, vol. 29, num. 1, 2005, pp. 245-246.

88 Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, art. cit., p. 92.

89 Ibid., pp. 93-94.

90 Kimberley Marten Zisk, art. cit., p. 30.

91 This Council is composed of the Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and the Directors of the Defense Agency and the Economic Planning Agency.

87

26

consequence of the fact the military holds a very low status within the Japanese government and therefore a public call to obtain a relevant role in any policy going beyond the national security realm and its narrowly defined self-defense purpose can entail negative political implications harming even more its already diminished role.92 Further, the defense of the status quo entailed no electoral costs in the sense that to become hawkish in defense matters was considered “unwise and possibly suicidal” given the pacifist consensus and the ban on sending SDF units abroad as one of its fundamental elements.93 Therefore, the national security policy of Japan also supposed a certain type of civil-military interaction, or should I say absence of interaction, that Takao Sebata has portrayed, following the conceptual categories by Samuel P. Huntington, as of subjective civilian control. Sebata argues that the civilian control was maintained by maximizing civilian power and through a deliberate policy refusing to accept the army’s autonomy and the acknowledgement of its expertise and value in defense and security issues. On the contrary of situations where there is an “objective civilian control” and a policy of cooperation among civil and military authorities, in Japan there were no incentives to establish egalitarian relations of coexistence, consultation or joint policy-making.94 The bureaucratic architecture in postwar Japan subordinated military officials to civilian officers in governmental bureaus, agencies and ministries and allowed the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance and International Trade and Industry as well as other agencies to place their officials into top decision-making positions of the JDA. The segregation of policies described by Sotomayor´s framework finds in the postwar Japan a very extreme case as seen through the relations between the Foreign Ministry and the JDA. Although Japan was able to send SDF military foreign attachés, especially from the seventies onwards, they were under the power and total jurisdiction of the Foreign Minister and were not allowed to directly communicate with the JDA.95 Further, for the elaboration of the National Defense Program Outline of 1976, civilian officers took the leadership and, on Sebata´s words, “overwhelmed military officials”. In fact, it was one civilian officer, Takuya Kubo, who as director of the National Defense -the internal bureau of the JDA- took the leadership of this endeavor in meetings where military officials “seldom talked”.96 Indeed, it used to be considered as breaches to the principle of “civilian control”, when top SDF officers spoke to the

Ibid., p. 32.

Takako Hikotani, “Japan´s changing civil-military relations: from containment to re-engagement?”, Global Asia, vol. 4, no. 1 (2009)., p. 23.

94 In this context, semantics are also important. Japanese scholars and practitioners, argues Theodore McNelly, almost never use the European-American expression “civil-military relations”. Their historical experience with militarism “has not disposed them to emphasize the rights and authority of the military”.

Instead they use the expression “civilian control” (Theodore McNelly, “Disarmament and civilian control in Japan: a constitutional dilemma”, Occasional papers in Contemporary Asian Studies, University of Maryland, vol.

53, num. 8 (1982), p. 9).

95 Takao Sebata, art. cit., p. 210.

96 Ibid., p. 212.

92 93

27

general public on defense issues.97 Civilians, comment Katzenstein and Okawara, were in full control of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces. The institutional structure biased policy strongly against notions of “military security” and it established a layer of civilian personnel colonizing the Agency sanjikan system- and through which the military interacted with everyone in the outside world including the Diet, the mass media, the general public and the government itself.98 However, as Takako Hikotani explains, the SDF became relatively autonomous in a number of fields where military expertise is crucial -particularly in procurement, personnel recruitment and promotion, education, training and internal organization of the army- something contributing to this radical form of segregation of policies.99 Although Japan’s policies on UNPKOs during this period were not exclusively influenced by military preferences, as the theory would expect in cases of national security doctrines, they were neither oriented by foreign policy imperatives. Rather, they were influenced by a political consensus, a bureaucratic arrangement and an institutional architecture characterized by a strong segregation of the military from the rest of the governmental agencies and by a radical separation between Japan’s internal and external security policies. Japanese military generals considered that their role in the model was to advise the government only in matters requiring professional military expertise and on those fields of policymaking concerning national security measures. For instance, under the Self-Defense Forces Law of 1954, the SDF are entitled to provide humanitarian relief in the event of a natural disaster, as requested by either the Federal or prefectural governments, and to contribute to stabilize domestic affairs and enhance public welfare by developing a strong selfdefense capability with no major role to play overseas and only considering international operations on the basis of the Japan-United States security arrangements.100 MOFA officials in Japan -pushing in favor of an active UNPKOs policy- in spite of exerting considerable power and influence compared to their military counterparts, were incapable of transforming a doctrine constraining the defense and security policy of the country for decades in the post Second World War era and determining a pattern of segregation of civil-military interactions. For instance, Yasuhiro Nakasone, prime minister of Japan in the period 1982-1987, tried unsuccessfully alongside the MOFA to put into practice a very ambitious program “grand design” of policies with the aim of transforming Japan into an “international state” (kokusai kokka) and eventually a troop-lending country. However, in the context of the Cold War and segregated

Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan´s security policy: political, economic, and military dimensions”, in Peter J. Katzenstein, Rethinking Japanese Security: Internal and external dimensions, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 64.

98 Ibid., p. 61.

99 Takako Hikotani, art. cit., p. 23.

100 L. William Heinrich Jr, Akiho Shibata and Yoshihide Soeya, op. cit., pp. 35-36.

97

28

civil-military interactions, Nakasone failed.101 Indeed, the international context seems to have been instrumental in preventing Japan to become an active player in the regional and global security realm. The national security doctrine and civil-military pattern of segregation were so deep-rooted and reaffirmed by strategic and foreign policy imperatives that they were almost impossible to transform without an external pressure for radical change. In this context, Japan’s UN centrism policy appears as an important part of an attitude oriented towards showing some commitment with the United Nations but avoiding any entanglement beyond those under the United States security umbrella, particularly an active participation in UNPKOs. Only as part of this design, it is possible to understand the unclear and ambivalent quasi-membership position Japan asked to obtain in the Security Council as a status perfectly congruent with its reluctance to dispatch troops in peacekeeping missions abroad.

4. Japan’s multilateral policies: Security Council politics, “quasi-membership” and financial support to the UNPKOs The first White Paper on foreign policy produced by the Japanese government in 1957, already mentioned the so-called three foreign policy pillars namely: 1) UN centrism, 2) cooperation with the free democratic world and 3) membership of Asia. The UN-centered policy however was understood in a very different way we currently tend to interpret it as a foreign policy priority.

From the beginning it was clear that in terms of international security, Japan didn’t actually feel the need to actively participate in the United Nations framework. In fact, according to Liang Pan, Japanese officials showed no remorse in saying that “with the existence of the US-Japan military alliance, there was no reason or necessity to request anything regarding our security from the United Nations”.102 Therefore, the importance of the United Nations for the Japanese foreign policy makers during the fifties and sixties had much more to do with participating in “an arena for campaigns to demonstrate our benevolent and active international cooperation” and in with counting with a forum “to formulate an atmosphere of good faith and understanding towards Japan in the international society”.103 Indeed, an interest on political, economic and procedural matters, but neither will to discuss security issues or an eventual participation in peacekeeping policies nor an

Bhubhindar Singh, “Peacekeeping in Japanese security policy..”, art. cit., p. 8.

Liang Pan, The United Nations in Japan´s Foreign and Security Policymaking: National security, party politics and international status, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2005 p. 24.

103 Idem.

101 102

29

explicit candidature for a permanent seat at the Security Council were the main elements of Japanese participation in the United Nations.104 In a first moment, Japan defended its participation in the UN based as well on its activism, during the sixties and early seventies, pushing for a UN Charter review suggesting the expansion of the membership of both the Security Council and the Social and Economic Council. However, leaders were still hesitant to clearly formulate the idea of a candidacy of Japan to a permanent seat at the Security Council especially when being aware of the link between the bid and its eventual PKO participation. As early as in the sixties, MOFA articulated the idea according to which, without Japanese participation in UNPKOs, both its candidacy to a permanent seat at the Security Council and its proposal to “improve” the peacekeeping functions of the UN “sounded hollow”.105 Although Japan was eager to obtain more international recognition, it feared to face a review of its constitutional restrictions on the use of force and the reaction of Asian neighbors to its international protagonism. In this context, during the late sixties, the Japanese government declared its will to run for non-permanent membership of the Security Council as frequently as possible.106 According to Reinhard Drifte, this was the ideal formula to transmit the idea that Japan wanted to be regarded as a responsible Member State of the UN but within its own “exceptionalism”, namely without paying the burden of military contributions, peacekeeping operations, and the eventuality of domestic controversy steaming from constitutional changes.107 That was the longstanding policy of Japan regarding its membership to the Security Council during most part of the Cold War period except for a brief parenthesis between 1968 and 1972. During this period, the Japanese government through the Foreign Ministry Aichi Kiichi and the Japanese mission at the UN headed by Ambassador Tsuruoka Senjin suggested that Japan should obtain an appropriate status as a permanent member of the Security Council based on two considerations.

Firstly, on the economic contributions to the UN budget and, secondly, on the grounds of Japan’s reassertion of its global position through an innovative proposal of balancing and keeping an eye on the activities of the other permanent Security Council members.108 Unsurprisingly, the attempt failed. Too many obstacles were mentioned in both the international and the domestic realm. But the most important one was the fact that Japan’s legitimacy in the Security Council was

Kazuki Iwanaga, “The United Nations in Japan´s Foreign Policy”, in Bert Edström (ed), The United Nations, Japan and Sweden: achievements and challenges, Stockholm, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, Conference Papers 22, 1998, p. 33.

105 Reinhard Drifte, Japan´s quest for a permanent security council seat: a matter of pride or justice?, Oxford, Macmillan, 2000, p. 30.

106 Japan was non-permanent member of the Security Council during ten periods from 1958 and until 2010 (United Nations Security Council website, Members of the Security Council, http://www.un.org/sc/searchres_sc_members_english.asp?sc_members=191).

107 Reinhard Drifte., op. cit., pp. 27-31.

108 Ibid., p. 29.

104

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unremarkable due to a UN low-key performance and particularly to the notorious restrictions to become a troop-lending country. After this failed attempt only Prime Minister Nakasone, in the eighties, vaguely referred to the bid after an innovative argument, namely that it was inappropriate that only nuclear weapons states were permanent members of the Security Council.

However, the predominance of US-focused bilateralism in Japanese foreign and security policies, and his own conviction on the importance of strengthening the relation with the United States, prevented Nakasone from going further on this endeavor. In fact, he seemed to withdraw from his original position when in a surprising move asked President Reagan, in 1987 during a G7 meeting in Venice, to treat Japan as a quasi permanent member of the Security Council in order to join the talks being held by the five permanent members about the end of the Iran-Iraq war.109 The quasipermanent membership -emphasizing a de facto process of consultation with other countries without a formal amendment to the UN Charter- was seen as an alternative to the perceived unattainable permanent membership.

Furthermore, instead of the military contribution the country was unable and to some extent uninterested to provide, Japan offered something perfectly suitable in its contextual situation regarding UNPKOs: financial assistance. Japan, declared Foreign Minister Sakurauchi Yoshio in October 1982, is now “ready to cooperate more actively in the strengthening of the peacekeeping operations of the UN”. However, he was mainly referring to “securing effective financial backing” and to the obscure objective of helping with “the organization of the personnel and equipment”.110 After harsh criticism by the opposition, the government soon learned that it should state clearly what kind of collaboration was expected from Japan in UNPKOs. Two years later, the Japanese prime minister declared its intent of cooperating with the mission supervising the partial cease-fire between Iran and Iraq “by providing civilian personnel, equipment and financial assistance”.111 At the same time and partially, as acknowledged by several scholars, in response to the pressures of the US, the administration of Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru achieved in 1988 two great foreign policy successes. These were, on the one hand, the adoption by the UN of a Japanese proposal aimed at persuading the UN Security Council to send before proper peacekeeping missions, good offices and/or fact finding missions to which Japan could obviously participate without violating the Constitution and, on the other hand, the approval of an International Cooperation Initiative founded

Reinhard Drifte., op. cit., p. 49.

Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 55.

111 Ibid., p. 56.

109 110

31

upon two pillars namely the dispatch of civilian personnel and the provision of financial support for the resolution of regional conflicts.112 An internally oriented doctrine, emphasizing the internal uses of the military, restricting its dispatch abroad for any significative mission, and segregating the armed forces from diplomatic roles, have produced a policy of non-commitment with UNPKOs, as predicted by the theory, since those operations are perceived skeptically by military commanders and politicians alike. At odds with the theory, however, the segregation of civil-military relations and the national security doctrine of postwar Japan were not a result of a particular type of authoritarian political regime in which the military plays a role in the political stability of the country. In contrast, they were a result of particular strategic, political and normative conditions as the result of postwar developments.

However, the implications for UNPKOs policies remained basically the same. “The SDF comments James H. Buck in his classic article- is not regarded as an instrument of diplomacy in Japan” and, at the same time, “it is hard to describe its function in terms applicable to other states which have conventional military forces with conventional functions and missions”.113 However, this situation was about to significantly transform in the near future. In the next chapter, I will discuss the determinants of change for Japan’s security doctrine and the combined effect of the variables sparking off a reconceptualization of peacekeeping and the UN as top priorities for Japan’s new foreign policy and security situation. Through a process of legal change and policy adaptation, the bid for UNSC membership and a growing participation in UNPKOs had a mutually reinforcing effect. However, the survival of still important structural, normative and strategic restrictions in Japan’s process of becoming an active player in international security issues was influential in shaping a policy of moderate commitment to UNPKOs. Table 1. Cumulative record of Japan’s UNPKO troop contributions (as of December 2004)114

UN Peacekeeping Operations

Period

Number of Troops

United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia(UNTAC)

Sep 1992-Sep 1993

1216

United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ)

May 1993-Jan 1995

154

Sep-Dec 1994

283

United Nations Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights (UNDOF)

Feb 1996-Dec 2004

774

United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and

Feb 2002- Jun 2004

2994

United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR)

United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET)

Idem.

James H. Buck, “Civilian control of the military in Japan”, in Claude E. Welch, Civilian control of the military: theory and cases from developing countries, New York, State University of New York, 1976, p. 180 114 Sources: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Japan’s Diplomatic Blue Book, Tokyo, 2005, p. 150; Yongwook Ryu, “The Road to Japan’s “Normalization”: Japan’s Foreign Policy Orientation since the 1990´s”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. 19, no. 2 (2007), p. 72.

112 113

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CHAPTER III THE RISE OF A MIXED SECURITY DOCTRINE/SEMI-INTEGRATED CIVIL-MILITARY PATTERN OF INTERACTION

(1991-2000): SECURITY UNCERTAINTIES, THE BID FOR THE SECURITY COUNCIL

AND LEGAL ADAPTATION

1. Demanding Japan to play an active role in UNPKOs: The Second Gulf War, security uncertainties and pressures With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Japan had to face the radical transformation of an international context and particularly important challenges to its security policy. The certainties of the Cold War regarding the international distribution of power and the nature of threats suddenly changed transforming as well the set of security uncertainties and concerns in Japan. In both the regional and international contexts, Japan was asked, this time considerably more vehemently, to assume a greater role in the security environment. The transformation took place in the material distribution of power but also in what Singh calls the international structure of peace-based initiatives in global security affairs. According to Singh, there was a sense of uncertainty among states on the better way to address new security challenges related to civil and ethnic strife, the ascendancy of new emergent powers and the implications of the end of a rivalry-based international culture and its replacement with a collective security one.115 It was no more possible to retreat into the backstage of international politics free-riding from the adversarial bipolar system of power during the Cold War, and Japan started to feel the pressures from abroad to change its passive, bandwagon, economically-based, and US-dependent involvement in international security affairs. In several ways, according to Jennifer Lind, the end of the Cold War changed Japan’s security environments. Firstly, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, conventional military threats dropped rather significantly. Secondly, the probability of war in Asia increased importantly with tensions emerging among rival middle powers, with China and North Korea as new threats to the Japanese power and with an obvious change in the East Asian balance of power.116 Thirdly, the emergence of a collective security paradigm as a response to nontraditional security challenges transformed the UNPKOs from an important into a vital policy available to states. Indeed, the UN rose above its not so advantageous position during the Cold War to become “a primary actor in international relations” as soon as new actors and norms emerged revitalizing peacekeeping as the ideal diplomatic tool to tackle regional and intra-state conflicts. For Takashi Inoguchi, there was however another major implication of this post-Cold War scenario for Japan. He meant the fact that the disappearance of the competition between Russia and the US produced uncertainty around Japanese leaders on how much longer Japan will be

Bhubhindar Singh, “Peacekeeping in Japanese security policy..”, art. cit., p. 10.

Jennifer M. Lind, “Pacifism or passing the Buck? Testing theories of Japanese Security Policy”, International security, vol. 29, num. 1 (Summer. 2004), p. 110.

115 116

33

able to rely on the US-Japan Treaty for its security and, at the same time, how important will this Treaty continue to be as the keystone of the American security policy in the Asia -Pacific region.117 In the view of Inoguchi, for instance, Japan decided to participate in peacekeeping once it discovered to be a useful instrument in dispelling what he calls the uncertainties and anxieties of the post-Cold War world.118 Japan started to recognize the strength of new norms of burden-sharing in collective security endeavors as soon as some of the first conflicts started to emerge in the post Cold War period.119 The Second Gulf War of 1991 came as a watershed for Japan’s UNPKOs policies. Although the Foreign Ministry were already pushing, as previous years, in favor of military personnel contributions instead of simply giving money to UNPKOs, the rest of the government was still openly against this possibility. However, Japan started to be harshly criticized by this policy clearly avoiding those global responsibilities commensurate with its political and economical preeminence.

This produced a shock forcing Japan to enter into a process of reflection about its role in the world. At the beginning Japan participated with a generous financial contribution and a firm position in favor of sanctions against Baghdad, which was criticized by the United States, the leader of the Multinational Force, when portraying them as “useful first steps” while saying “but we want to see the Japanese flag in the Gulf area”.120 When the US president George W. Bush requested Japan to send minesweepers and military personnel for providing logistical support, the government tried to pass a law -The UN Peace Cooperation Bill- allowing the SDF to conduct tasks abroad such as the supervision of ceasefire agreements, provision of medical assistance and monitoring of electoral processes. However, the government was unable to obtain the approval of the opposition parties, in part because the Bill included provisions allegedly going against the constitutional restrictions for the use of force.121 In contrast, according to the government there was a difference between “cooperation” and “participation” in UN-led armed missions and, in its view, Japan’s involvement was constitutionally allowed if following a policy of cooperating, while remaining outside the use of force activities. MOFA defended also the fact that peacekeeping operations were not military operations in the traditional sense, something with misleading implications in the political debate, but operations for the maintenance of peace executed by the

Takashi Inoguchi, art. cit., p. 327.

Takashi Inoguchi, art. cit., pp. 326-327.

119 New arguments for the revision of the Constitution started to proliferate in the early nineties intending to promote the use of force as a means for making an international contribution (kokusai koken). At the same time, the old arguments defending the Constitution started to be criticized as of selfish pacifism (ikkoku heiwashugi) (Yoshiro Matsui, art. cit., p. 498).

120 Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 64.

121 One of these provisions allowed for SDF members to carry small weapons for their self-defense (Frank.

A. Stengel, art. cit., p. 42).

117 118

34

UN.122 Not surprisingly, these interpretations failed to convince the Diet and particularly the opposition parties.

And again Tokyo was the target of new criticism. The accusations of practicing a “narrow chequebook diplomacy”, according to the statement of the Former US Secretary of State James Baker, replicated by numerous similar statements from the US and European governments, and by the UN itself through the voice of its then Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. Moreover, the government of Kuwait published and advertisement in the New York Times thanking all nations that contributed to its fight against the Iraqi invasion and Japan was not part of the list, in spite of its huge financial contribution of more than 13 billion dollars.

As never before, Japan was asked to perform the duties of a major power and to demonstrate the world its commitment with the UN. Although the US-led coalition was not a peacekeeping operation, it was assembled to fulfill the UN Security Council authorization to use force in expelling Iraq from Kuwait and, in a sense, it was the most decisive test for Japan’s commitment with the organization since its accession in 1956.123 By the time the government, already convinced that “Japan’s contribution should include some sweating rather than relying on a lavish scattering around of aid”124 decided to send, without the approval of the Diet, a contingent of six minesweepers arrived in the Middle east, the war was pretty much over and the international opinion joined fiercely to the critical remarks of Japanese belated and reluctant security policies.

The war, as the Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki acknowledged, proved to be the triggering factor of a foremost crisis, “a major time of testing for Japan as a nation of peace and the most severe trial we have faced since the end of the war”.125 The embarrassed government and the Diet were favorite targets of an opinion trend according to which Japan was a freeloader profiting from American protection to oil routes to and from the Middle East but not prepared or simply not willing to contribute to its maintenance. Almost every Japanese official visiting the US or Europe was the subject of some sort of rebuke.126 In the aftermath of the Gulf War and partially as a consequence of a strong campaign of the government in this direction, the Diet started to discuss the conditions under which Japanese troops could participate in missions abroad.

Bhubhindar Singh, art. cit., p. 13.

Gary D. Rawnsley, art. cit., p. 90.

124 The quote is from the then Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa (Katsumi Ishizuka, “Japan´s policy towards UN peacekeeping operations”, International peacekeeping, vol. 12, no. 1 (Spring, 2005), p. 68.

125 Go Ito, art. cit., p. 75.

126 Important international actors joined also in this campaign. For example, the then Swedish Prime Minister, Ingvar Carlsson, urged Japan to “adopt the identity of a nation like Sweden with a pacifist image, but a high profile in UNPKOs (Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 87).

122 123

35

In this process, it seems the multilateral policies of Japan also played a relevant role. In January 1992, the then secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali urged Japan to participate in peacekeeping operations even in a “small number”. The Foreign Minister, Taro Nakayama, replied asking for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and the removal of the enemy nations clauses in the UN Charter. However, this tone of confrontation did not necessarily imply an unsuccessful multilateral policy. Quite the opposite, Japan was able to obtain its seventh two-year period as nonpermanent member of the Security Council and managed to appoint Mr. Yasushi Akashi as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cambodia and therefore as the Head of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), a peacekeeping operation to ensure the implementation of a peace and political settlement agreement. As a consequence, not only became clear that an active participation in peacekeeping operations would further enhance Japan’s ability to obtain a permanent seat at the Security Council but also Mr. Akashi became an important actor pushing Tokyo to support the UNTAC mission with military personnel. Moreover, during a trip to Tokyo on March 1992, the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urged Japan to pass the legislation for Japan’s SDF to participate in the UNTAC. In his speech he stressed the way Japan should leave the past behind and assume the burden of peacekeeping when saying: “More than 20 nations have already decided to dispatch their troops for UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia. Why doesn’t Japan decide to dispatch its troops? It is known that Japan hesitates to dispatch SelfDefense Forces troops abroad because of its remorse over the nations acts in the past. But such an attitude is behind the times. The Cold War is over and so are ideological conflicts. Even if Japan dispatches its troops to the UNTAC, no country would associate it with Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere concept, which prevailed before and during the war. The lives of some troops of the UNTAC may be claimed, but it is similar to the possibility of being killed in traffic accidents”.127

The agreement reached by the three most important parties in the Diet is that they will only participate in and under certain conditions intended to preserve and abide by the constitutional restrictions. Consequently, the Japanese security doctrine started its transformation toward one taking into account international responsibilities of the Japanese army exclusively through the UN framework. In the words of the Komeito party spokesman: “There has been a national change of mind in this country. The Gulf War had a strong impact. We watched the war on TV, with newscasters and scholars and pundits talking about what Japan’s role in the world ought to be. And the new consensus that merged is that our strong antiwar pacifism is still there. But, beyond that, shouldn’t Japan have some role in helping the UN to preserve peace? How can our country lock itself out of the world and sit here behind the closed door of antiwar pacifism?”128

127 128

Milton Leitenberg, op. cit., p. 11.

Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 88.

36

Three reasons, in the opinion of Singh, were instrumental for Japan to choose the UN-sponsored multilateral path “as the most appropriated security policy option” responding to the “collective security nature” of the post Cold war world.129 Firstly, the UN was considered as the ideal source of Japan’s legitimacy in the new international system and an “embodiment of the kind of security goals and principles” Japan was ready to defend and had been defending, at least on the rhetorical arena, since the mid-fifties. Secondly, as a member of the UN, Japan had the obligation to promote peace and therefore its participation in this regard could be presented as constitutional. Interestingly enough, Article 2 of the UN Charter contained pacifist provisions similar to those in Article 9 of the Japan constitution. Finally, the UN option seemed the most adequate to appease both the concerns of Asian countries, extremely suspicious of any international military entanglement of Japan due to World War II memoires, and political groups in Japan still convinced of the need of maintaining the US - Japan security guarantee. The result of these deliberations was a law, which we will analyze later, that opened the door to further and unforeseen changes in Japan’s UNPKOs policies over time. At practically the same time, Japanese policymakers were about to change dramatically their posture regarding the old but yet surreptitious bid for Japan’s Security Council permanent membership.

2. The quest for a seat at the Security Council and UNKO: the first decade Many scholars agree that the post-Cold War period provided Japan of a momentum to step up its candidacy to a permanent seat at the UN Security Council as part of those measures intended to do justice to its political and economical position in the emerging international system.130 The same year Japan passed its UNPKOs legislation, it was voted for the seventh time as non-permanent Security Council member. Although it is true that there is no obligation of permanent or nonpermanent Security Council members to contribute in UNPKOs -apart from the obligation to participate in the Military Staff Committee established by Article 47 of the Charter-, it is rather obvious that there is a political link between both policies. As shown before, the Japanese government has been historically aware that a fully-fledged PKO contribution is needed if the bid to the Security Council is to have the necessary legitimacy and credibility.

Therefore, no clear campaign started in this direction before the UNPKOs law approval. In contrast, in September 1992 during the opening session of the UN General Assembly Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa made explicit, in an unprecedented clear statement, Japan’s intention of becoming permanent member of the Security Council in the near future, if possible as early as

129 130

Katsumi Ishizuka, “Japan´s policy towards”, art. cit. p. 69.

Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., p. 53; Takashi Inoguchi, “Japan´s United Nations…”, art. cit., p. 335;

37

1995.131 After him, all Japanese prime ministers and foreign ministers have been consistently argued on Japan’s right to secure a permanent seat.132 The official reasoning had to do, firstly, with Japan’s financial contribution to the UN -ranked only second after the United States- but particularly with a redefinition of the Security Council tasks in an age of low-intensity conflicts. Furthermore, according to Singh, the Gulf War made Japan to acknowledge how important is to have a permanent seat on the UNSC as a source of vital information in order to take proactive and effective measures.133 Therefore, from the MOFA point of view, a permanent seat is “a pre-eminent badge of international prestige that would signify recognition of Japan’s economic success by the international community” and also a position affording Japan “international political legitimacy and determining influence over the course of international affairs by making it a rightful party to high-level international consultations”.134 Eventually more important was the expectation that, according to the testimony of high-rank MOFA officers, a permanent seat at the Security Council could be useful in forcing Japan to become more assertive and realistic in its international affairs including UNPKOs. One of them quoted by Mulgan, stated: “Japan might go through a series of embarrassing events that would force the pace of change at home”.135 Furthermore, the link between both policies were clarified by Aichi Kazuo, a LDP Diet member, who declared that the bid for the Security Council was also important for obtaining more approval and support from the general public and Japanese politicians to burden sharing policies like its participation in UNPKOs.136 In contrast, for some observers the relationship between both issues was a reinforcing cycle in which, for example, Japan’s decision to commit with the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights was primarily motivated by a desire to create an image as a suitable and competent candidate for the Security Council.137 The link between the bid and UNPKOs policies was also obvious in the support other countries gave to the former. For example, in July 1994, the US Senate passed a resolution supporting Japan’s bid but under the condition of an active participation in UNPKOs and other policies showing it as “capable of discharging the full range of responsibilities accepted by all current permanent members of the Security Council”.138 Other countries, particularly Canada and Italy, went as far as stating that without actively participating in UNPKOs, Japan would not have the necessary

Takashi Inoguchi, art. cit., p. 336.

Bhubhindar Singh, art. cit., p. 15.

133 Idem.

134 Aurelia George Mulgan, art. cit., p. 1108.

135 Ibid., p. 1110.

136 Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., p. 109.

137 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration between Japan and Australia”, art. cit., p. 151.

138 Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., p. 79.

131 132

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qualifications for permanent membership.139 In this context, even the former UN secretary-general was a very active promoter of the link. Before a visit to Japan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali maintained, during an interview, the hope that Japan “would change its constitution to permit it to join peacekeeping operations” adding that this would, in clear reference to Japan’s bid, “facilitate Japan’s greater political role in the UN”.140 Since it was clear that no credible campaign for Security Council membership was possible without a participation in peacekeeping, and that peacekeeping was basically the price to pay to win the coveted permanent Security Council seat, the Japanese elite changed its previous reluctance into activism.141 The speech of Kono Yohei, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, during the 50th anniversary of the UN left no room for doubts when stating: “Reflecting with remorse upon the Second World War, Japan has never wavered from its commitment to contribute to world peace and prosperity. Japan does not, nor will it, resort to the use of force prohibited by its Constitution. In keeping with Japan’s basic philosophy regarding international contributions I wish to state that Japan is prepared, with the endorsement of many countries, to discharge its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Security Council”.142

Similarly, the 1998 program of the governing party, the Liberal Democratic Party, stated: “we aim for Japan to gain a permanent membership in the Security Council with the support of the Japanese people and other members states. And we shall participate in UN peacekeeping operations but to the utmost allowed by our Constitution”.143 3. The UNPKOs law of 1992: its scope and contradictions As noted above, the Gulf War was a watershed moment in the transformation of Japan’s UNPKOs policies. With the Diet’s approval, a new law emerged on June 1992 enabling the dispatch of SDF members abroad in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. The Law Concerning Cooperation for UN Peacekeeping Operations and Other Operations was the result of a consensus among the main political parties opening the way to this participation but still restricting it to five main conditions.

The so-called Five Principles limited the conditions under which Japanese troops were to participate in UNPKOs. Therefore, Japanese troops were allowed to participate in UN-led peacekeeping operations only when 1) all parties in conflict have agreed to a cease-fire, 2) the parties have given explicit consent both to a UN deployment and to Japanese participation, 3) the operation is conducted with “complete impartiality, 4) the Japanese continent retains its sovereign right of

Idem.

Ibid., p. 80.

141 Tsuneo Akaha, art. cit., p. 478.

142 Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., pp. 132-133.

143 Ibid., p. 135.

139 140

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withdrawing from the mission if any of the first three principles were breached and 5) weapons are used only in “minimal self-defense” and exclusively when its use is necessary to “protect the lives of Japanese personnel”.144 Many of these dispositions, were at odds with the UN practice in the field and against the practice of the vast majority of countries simply accepting the command of the UN in all matters related to PKO. For example, the UN does not require a cease-fire guarantee for launching a peacekeeping operations since many of them are established after violations of cease-fire agreements and under the mandate of restring such cease-fire conditions. The same applies to the “consent” requirement, which is sometimes impossible to obtain particularly in operations of preventive deployment, and to the question of the “impartiality” which is rather a subjective notion open to never-ending interpretations. It is the UN and not troop-lending countries who determines whether a cease-fire, impartiality or consent exist within an operation. Nonetheless, the Diet and the government correctly forecasted them as useful to deflect controversy and obtain support for the bill. It’s interesting to note, however, that the principles of consent, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defense are generally accepted as cardinal principles governing UN peacekeeping missions of the first generation from the fifties and until the late eighties.145 Clearly, when arriving late to this doctrinal evolution of UNPKOs, Japan was showing its interest to embark on a restrictive policy of moderate commitment.

The law created an International Peace Cooperation Headquarters (IPCH) office within the Japan’s Prime Minister office and headed by him with a deputy director from MOFA. In every UN operation Japan is asked to participate, the role of this office is to draft and negotiate with the Diet an Implementation plan specifying the activities, scope and duration of the SDF involvement. Before the SDF units are dispatched, the Prime Minister must obtain the Diet’s approval for a two years time in light of the Five principles and their inclusion in the Implementation Plan. If the SDF units must continue performing military tasks, the Prime Minister must obtain a new approval by the Diet. In contrast, the Japanese military establishment has far less influence on the decision making process than the military agencies of other countries.146 The headquarters are also in charge of drafting Operating procedures containing detailed and confidential guidance to Japanese personnel, in conformity with the UN Secretary-General’s commands. And here an interesting although rather modest innovation in civil-military relations which already was indicating that the further interaction of both groups would end up reproducing a semi-integration policies pattern of unclear civilian control and political management of the military. Although the Prime Minister is the head of the Headquarters office, SDF units

Kimberley Marten Zisk, art. cit., p. 28.

Edward C. Luck, UN Security Council: practice and promise, London/New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 36.

146 L. William Heinrich Jr, Akiho Shibata and Yoshihide Soeya, op. cit., p. 35.

144 145

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participating in peacekeeping operations remain under the direction and supervision in the field of the Director-General of the Defense Agency.

And this led to an important contradiction common to countries applying a mixed-security doctrine.147 The Japanese government has persistently denied that the UN would keep the final word and the ultimate authority on the command and control over SDF personnel. Therefore, although the law acknowledges that operations must be conducted under control of the UN, “the command and control over the operations of troops would rest with Japan”.148 Dispositions of this kind are obviously at odds with the established practice of the UN as it became clear with the publication of the official position paper of the Japanese government submitted to the Diet on November 27, 1991 which argues that military members are no “international civil servants” and “could not possibly come under the command of the UN Secretary-General”.149 The bill clearly established and enumerated the activities that qualify as “International Peace Cooperation Assignments” in the following list: a) monitoring of cease-fires, stationing in and patrolling of buffer zones, inspection, collection, storage and disposal of weapons, supervision and management of elections, provision of medical services, rescue of people affected by conflicts, advising in administrative matters, distribution of food and other materials, installation of facilities in areas damaged by conflicts, repair or maintenance of facilities, restoration of natural environment, transportation, communication and construction assignments, and other tasks only if prescribed by Cabinet ordinance.150 Although the list shows already an important number of tasks in which Japanese involvement was unprecedentedly varied, in avoiding tasks and activities related to the use of force, they left out many other crucial activities that the development of peacekeeping operations after the end of the Cold War will confirm as primordial. For example, only two days after the passage of the bill, the then UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali presented his report An Agenda for Peace suggesting an expansion of peacekeeping towards peace enforcement missions much more related, although indirectly, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Not surprisingly, the response of Japan was utterly negative. The Japanese Foreign Minister when addressing the UN General Assembly in September 1992 mentioned: “Japan believes that the principles and practices of peacekeeping operations upheld by the UN for more than 40 years are still both appropriate and valid today and will continue to be so in the future”.151 In fact, the type of peacekeeping activities Japan was allowed to perform corresponded to a specific category Marrack

Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some States participate…”, art. cit., p. 175.

Akiho Shibata, art. cit., p. 319.

149 Ibid., p. 320.

150 Ibid., p. 318.

151 Milton Leitenberg, op. cit., p. 13.

147 148

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Goulding, former UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, calls the third category namely the whole spectrum of activities related to the implementation of negotiating agreements.152 Indeed, thereafter the approval of the law Japan departed significantly from their previous policies and started to adopt a more active role in UNPKOs activities. Nonetheless, Japan went through a process of adaptation to this new security doctrine in its restrictive UNPKOs policies also partially motivated by the international evolution of peacekeeping itself from its minimal conceptualization to peace-enforcing functions and, simultaneously, by pressures steaming from the international context demanding Japan to growingly adopt policies accordingly with its place in the international community and its newly reinforced foreign policy aspirations. Rather silently, another indication of change was in motion: a subtle but important transformation in Japanese civil-military relations.

4. Japanese civil-military relations on the road of transformation Although the SDF took the back seat during the drafting process of the UNPKOs law and initially asked not to be given any role at all in the Cambodian and eventually in the subsequent operations, its role began to become more assertive over time vis a vis the civil authorities. Without radically changing the civil-military pattern of interaction, it gradually started to fit Sotomayor´s description of the semi-integrated model. As we would see in this and the following chapter, the Japanese military started to face, as Sotomayor describes, unclear orientations and unclear civilian control.

Thus, a model of weak integration and communication between defense and foreign policies started to develop and new compromises between military generals and diplomats started to be placed on track. Further, although the participation of the army in UNPKOs increased and that the SDF started to become a more self-assured actor demanding a greater understanding and support for its peacekeeping role, Japanese military generals, still aware and jealous of their domestic duties, resisted committing too many troops to UNPKOs in order not to jeopardize the former. The pattern, as expected by the theory, determined the new policy of partial and moderate commitment of Japan to peacekeeping operations.

One of the very first indications of this semi-integrated pattern evolving in Japanese-civil military relations combining both the international and internal uses of the military, was the publication in 1993 of the report The Modality of the Security and Defence Capability of Japan: the outlook for the 21st Century by the Hosokawa government. The report perfectly stresses the new direction Japan’s security and foreign policy was about to take when arguing: “The increased importance of the UN in the post Cold War world it ought to be re-emphasized that contributing actively to the strengthening of the UN´s functions for world peace, including increasingly improved PKO´s is one of the important pillars of Japan’s security policy. In addition, Japan’s concrete

The other categories dealing with preventive deployment, “painting a country blue” to establish order and peace enforcement were, at that time, completely unacceptable for Japan (Takashi Inoguchi, art. cit., p. 335).

152

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commitment to international trends in dealing with security issues is important in the sense that it is an appropriate role for Japan’s international position. Nevertheless, the SDF, whose most important task is ensuring Japan’s national security, must not be excluded from this duty”.153

In 1996, the Security Consultative Committee, principal coordinating agency in the field, was reconstituted to include not only the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other officials but also the director general of the Japanese Defense Agency.154 This organ is also responsible for the coordination of policies within the US-Japan alliance since the Cold War and therefore, in a 2+2 formula, the JDA obtained parity with MOFA in security negotiations with the US and eventually other countries and international organizations.155 Although the bureaucratic control of the civilians was not completely challenged, some subtle changes encouraged the military to adopt a more assertive role and actively participate in policy making. For instance, in 1997 Primer Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto decided to derogate the 1952 National Safety Agency order, something enabling officers to provide direct and immediate advice to the Prime Minister’s Office and the cabinet.156 In the same year, the government established the Information Headquarters within the Defense Agency and another taboo was eroded. For the first time in Japanese history, a military general was appointed as director and its internal bureau was composed with an equal number of military and civilian officials “working side by side”.157 Further, the pattern evolving in the nineties seems to fit Sotomayor´s category of semi-integrated policies also in the sense that, as Peter Katzenstein comments, in spite of the growth in its bureaucratic intergovernmental power, the Defense Agency remained “politically colonized” by other ministries -political appointees presiding the so-called internal bureaus of the Agency and the civilian prominence in the Joint Staff Council-, lacking a strong organizational identity and still subordinating the military to the economic and political aspects of security policy.158 But, even in that context, the military has improved its position in the decision making process of security policy and particularly in the evolution of UNPKOS policies. The military, for example, had been very active in demanding legal and policy changes to dispositions hampering it from a “normal” participation as a troop-lending country. For instance, senior JDA officers asked for “clearer criteria on the use of weapons”. In contrast with what happened with the 1992 law, during the reform process of 1998, the Defense Agency and the SDF itself actively participated in the process. In fact, MOFA officials together with the SDF and the JDA, for the first time in modern Japanese history, implemented an intensive lobbying with both the Diet and the powerful Cabinet Legislation Bureau

Hugo Dobson, op. cit., pp. 147-148.

Takahiro Shinyo, “An Agenda for UN Peacekeeping and Japan’s engagement, in Bert Edström (ed), op. cit., p. 33.

155 Christopher W. Hughes, Japan´s remilitarization, London, Routledge, 2009, p. 55.

156 Ibid., p. 56.

157 Takao Sebata, op. cit., p. 210.

158 Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan´s security policy: political, economic, and military dimensions”, art. cit., p. 65.

153 154

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arguing, for example, that a provision of the UNKO law establishing the self-defense principle in the use of weapons put Japanese troops in danger, since they neither had the information nor the experience allowing them to decide when to use their weapons.159 Indeed, and paradoxically at odds with the theory, in Japan the road to a semi-integration pattern of policies had to do with increasing the power of the army vis a vis the civil authorities and not, like in democratizing countries, with increasing the power of the civilians vis a vis the military in the security and foreign policy decisionmaking process.

5. First UNPKOS experiences and their problems: the adaptation to a new security doctrine Only a few days after the approval of the UNPKOS bill, Japan dispatched 1,200 SDF personnel and an important number of civilians and police members to the UNTAC mission in Cambodia.

The mission, although fulfilled without major problems except for some non-military casualties, gave way to several problems regarding the application of the law and the gap between the so-called five principles and the daily needs of peacekeeping missions. The impossibility of anticipating all duties the SDF members were asked to perform, obviously going beyond the very restrictive Operating procedures approved, originated a deep frustration among the UN personnel, the SDF delegation and even the Cambodian population. Not only the SDF commanders were requesting approval from the Defense Agency in Tokyo every time they were asked to undertake tasks even if only slightly different from those in the implementation plan but the ceasefire was actually under attack by one of the parties and the fourth principle was not respected since the Japanese government didn’t withdraw the SDF contingent.160 Moreover, the SDF members had to face the humiliation of, for example, being unable to participate in the arrest of individuals violating the election process and accusations of being not up to the challenge. For example, after the first casualties, six Japanese police officers abandoned their posts and fled to Thailand.

But the presence of Japan in UNTAC, and soon in other missions, was a matter of national pride after the Gulf War events and the Government never thought seriously on the possibility of a withdraw, in spite of the problems originated by the lack of flexibility in their Operating procedures and the restrictive laws that didn’t allow for a blank cheque approach.161 According to Yasushi Akashi, head of the UNTAC:

Kimberley Marten Zisk, art. cit., p.31.

Frank A. Stengel, art. cit., p. 44.

161 Shinsuke Yoshimura, “To die for high principles?”, in Ronald Dore, Japan, Internationalism and the United Nations, London, Rouledge-Nissan Institute, 1997, p. 157.

159 160

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“If Japan had withdrawn from UNTAC when a Japanese member died, Japan would have been mocked.

Japanese politicians and citizens would know that, for example, the French battalion implemented their missions despite the fact that the French had more than 50 UN fatalities.”162

Further, the government also learned that it was almost impossible to force the SDF forces to always abide by the legislation even at the cost of reducing the relevancy of its role. According to a testimony of a Japanese researcher in UNTAC, the morale of Japanese troops was, as never before, gathering momentum even when conducting activities not necessarily established in the restrictive Operating procedures. Indeed, Japanese troops in UNTAC, extended their original missions several times in order to, for example, engage in activities like patrolling, securing election monitoring and transporting ballot boxes. According to a testimony: “While I was researching UNTAC, I came across the scene many times where the SDF were patrolling and guarding and where they were saying I am a member of the Japanese army. Their missions were camouflaged in the name of “information gathering”… It was doubtful whether the tremendous amount of debates, pledges and amendments to the new PKO law in the Diet were meaningful”.163

Japan sent troops as well to Mozambique (ONUMOZ) in December 1992, Zaire and Tanzania as part of the Rwanda Missions (UNAMIR) in 1994 and the Golan Heights (UNDOF) in 1996, but denied sending them to UNPROFOR to Macedonia and Serbia (1993-1994) under the argument, held by a the majority of the Diet, that there was no ceasefire in place.164 To Mozambique, Japan dispatched more than a hundred soldiers from the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces for transport operations and five SDF high officers for joining the headquarters staff. To Zaire and Tanzania, Japan dispatched a contingent of 260 specialists to conduct medical, preventive and water supply operations and 115 air transport personnel conducting the transport of goods and personnel. 165 However, contradictions and shortcomings continued to considerably limit this participation. In the context of UNAMIR, Japanese troops were not deployed in Rwanda but in the neighboring countries due to the fact the Government argued the inexistence of a cease-fire and therefore an eventual breach of the Five Principles. But probably a worse shortcoming was the fact that the PKO bill did not allowed the use of force except for the own protection of the Japanese forces, neither for the protection of other contingents nor for the fulfillment of other tasks. In UNAMIR, the Japanese forces were severely criticized since they refused to look for missing international staff

Gary D. Rawnsley, art. cit., p. 92.

Katsumi Ishizuka, “Japan and UN Peace Operations”, art. cit., p. 148.

164 Gary D. Rawnsley, art. cit., p. 93. Japan also participated in the United Nations Observation Mission (ONUSAL) in El Salvador in 1994 and in the United Nations Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II).

However, the nature of the missions excluded the participation of SDF staff and required only the participation of electoral observers (Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 128).

165 Matake Kamiya, “Pacifism and the Japanese attitude toward the United Nations”, in Philippe Régnier and Daniel Warner (eds), Japan and Multilateral Diplomacy, Burlington, Ashgate, 2001, p. 182.

162 163

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from the UN headquarters because of the domestic legal restrictions not allowing them to do so.166 Although the former Prime Minister Kaifu stated once in 1991 that the use of arms to protect other States´ personnel against an armed attack constitute basically a “humanitarian measure in situations of necessity”167, both the Defense Agency and the Cabinet would hold a different view. In fact, they would argue that collective self-defense might not be necessary, as contingents are deployed in separate, designated areas, making unlikely an attack on other State’s personnel in Japan’s designated area. Of course, this didn’t take into account that peacekeeping operations themselves were changing and that, overtime, contingents would work together and help one another on a regular basis.168 Neither they were taking into account the UN´s General Guidelines for Peacekeeping Operations according to which, “the peacekeeper’s right to self-defense does not end with the defense of his/her own life. It includes defending one’s comrades and any persons entrusted in one’s care as well as defending one’s post, convoy, vehicle, or rifle”.169 All these shortcomings and particularities of Japan’s UNPKOs participation stir severe criticism about Japan leaving the more dangerous parts of missions to other countries -while concentrating almost exclusively in transport, infrastructure and humanitarian functions-, in being not up to the challenge of assisting other UNPKOs units in danger and, in general, of being a “very difficult contributor”.170 Moreover, within Japan the idea that a limited PKO contribution hampered Japan from becoming a relevant player in PKO consultations and decision-making gained momentum.

In the light of these experiences, the Director General of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters suggested a review of the PKO bill and in 1998 the law was actually changed for the first time “to join more global peacekeeping missions”.171 This position was already defended by an advisory group of the Prime Minister in 1994. The report explained that taking both into account the adaptation of the UN peacekeeping operations to “the new environment”, and the fact that Japan’s security policy “is to contribute positively to the strengthening of the UN functions for international peace”, “it is necessary to take such measures as improvement of the law system, including revision of the SDF law to add participation in peacekeeping operations to the primary duties of the SDF and organizational improvements”.172

Katsumi Ishizuka, art. cit., p. 147.

Akiho Shibata, “Japanese peacekeeping legislation…”, art. cit., p. 331.

168 Ibid., p. 332.

169 Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., p. 92; According to the official Guidelines of Peacekeeping Operations, the selfdefense extends to cover every person, contingent or facility comprising the “defence of the mandate” (United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, Principles and Guidelines, approved on January 2008, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, New York, 2008, p. 34).

170 This was literally the expression used by a senior officer of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the nineties when asked about Japan (Ibid., p. 93).

171 Milton Leitenberg, op. cit., p. 15.

172 Ibid., p. 17.

166 167

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Three important, although moderate reforms, had the purpose of adding some flexibility to the legal framework of 1992.

Firstly, the SDF was allowed to participate in election-monitoring

activities not only conducted by the UN but also by other regional organizations. Secondly, the first of the five principles was dropped in the occurrence of humanitarian missions and finally the law established a new rule for the use of force and self-defense stating that the decision on whether self-defense was justified rested no more on an individual’s judgment but on the consideration of the commanding field officers. These changes, although moderate, would result in a significant improvement in overcoming some of the practical problems of SDF personnel in UN missions as would be seen during its participation in the East Timor peacekeeping operation. Most importantly, would show a changing notion of the role Japan, already the country number 44 in the rank of UNPKOs contributors173, could play in the new, multidimensional peacekeeping operations and therefore an indication that the country was starting to further transform and adapt its security doctrine. As Singh comments, the peacekeeping policy was a catalyst for the SDF transformation “from forces strictly devoted to Japan’s own defense within the US-Japan security Treaty to ones that could share the tasks of assuring international security”.174 Moreover, according to Yuko Kurashina, through peacekeeping participation, the SDF are engaging in a transformation process of their public image building a favorable professional identity. This means also slowly overcoming what he calls “the institutional stigmatization of the military in Japanese culture” which helped to perpetuate their isolation in national defense and foreign policies.175 At the same time, it has also been useful to gradually vanish a popular sociological and psychological association of the SDF, when acting in international missions, with abstract concepts like violence, aggression, hostilities and war.176 In a nutshell, the certainties of the Cold War’s distribution of power and nature of threats transformed into a set of uncertainties which distorted the security concerns and policies of Japan.

When the country was asked to assume a greater role in the security environment of the post-Cold War era, Japan decided to embrace with a renewed strength its bid for a permanent membership at the Security Council and, as a result, to slowly transform its security doctrine and segregation of policies pattern previously impeding to participate in UNPKOs. In the following chapter I will explore recent developments that I argue have been consolidating the mixed doctrine/semiintegrated policies model of Japan’s UNPKOs policies.

Reinhard Drifte, op. cit., p. 91.

Bhubhindar Singh, art. cit., p. 15.

175 Yuko Kurashina, Peacekeeping participation and identity changes in the Japan Self-Defence Forces: military service as dirty work, doctoral thesis, University of Maryland, 2005, p. 245.

176 Sabine Frühstück and Eyal Ben-Ari, “Now we show it all, normalization and the management of violence in Japan’s Armed Forces”, Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 28, no. 1 (Winter, 2002), p. 7.

173 174

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CHAPTER IV THE CONSOLIDATION OF JAPAN’S MIXED/SEMI-INTEGRATED MODEL (2001-2007): CHANGE AND CONTINUITY

1. The 9/ 11 events and their implications for Japans’ UNPKOs policies: the revised peacekeeping law and East Timor Further changes in both the security doctrine and civil -military relations influencing Japan’s UNPKOs policies were about to be seen as the result of new international developments and a new impulse to Japan’s candidacy to the Security Council. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 led Japan to a more hawkish policy and to new pressures for Japan to increase and to some extent redefine its security role in both the Asian region and internationally. According to Japanese governmental rhetoric, the terrorist attacks “changed everything” including the foundations of Japanese support to the United States, the role of Japan in the international security realm and ultimately configuring a “crisis event”, as Katzenstein portrays it, forcing Japan to show material support to the US and to gradually “expand the scope of operations” of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.177 Again the conceptualization of security uncertainties is adequate to depict Japan’s and international reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. An uncertainty about the nature of the threats once the prior traditional threat pattern disappeared shows well, in Goldman’s framework, the measures Japan undertook. According to Goldman, States face uncertainty as the result of traumatic events changing the security atmosphere and these forces them to anticipate the future security environment, develop new principles and legislation and resolve dilemmas involving the use of military force.178 In different ways, the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the Gulf crisis created a similar situation for Japan not only in the sense those leaders embarrassed by Japan’s slow response and performance in the Gulf War found an opportunity to make up for the past. Most importantly, American and international gaiatsu or pressure for Japanese active support in both crises were instrumental in the decision of the Japanese government to dispatch troops, revise the law governing this issue, launch ambitious changes in the decision-making structure of defense policy and, ultimately, a further adaptation of its security doctrine towards a less reluctant and more flexible “burden-sharing” policy.179

Peter J. Katzenstein, “Same war-different views: Germany, Japan and counterterrorism”, in Peter J. Katzenstein, Rethinking Japanese Security: Internal and external dimensions, London, Routledge, 2008, p. 218.

178 Emily O. Goldman, art. cit., p. 45.

179 Paul Midford, “Japan´s response to terror: dispatching the SDF to the Arabian Sea”, Asian Survey, vol. 43, No. 2 (March - April 2003), p. 335.

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Furthermore, other security threats for Japan -the rise of China and the North Korean nuclear issue- have also been playing an important role in the root of the emergence of this new security doctrine.180According to Katzenstein, for the first time since 1945, Japan played a regional security role in support of the US thus consolidating a mixed security doctrine emphasizing the role of Japan in the event of regional crises, broadening the scope of its military in international missions within and outside the UN but also maintaining some limits established by the Constitution and the old antimilitarist consensus still important in Japanese domestic politics to an unrestrained peacekeeping participation. This situation eventually led to a more flexible policy but still of partial commitment to UNPKOs. After the attacks, the US not only encouraged a rapid and active contribution but also a contribution “showing the flag”.181 As a consequence, the primer minister Koizumi ordered the cabinet members to evaluate mechanisms for dispatch the SDF abroad in counter-terrorist activities. Not surprisingly, a link was drawn between counterterrorism operations and Japan’s UNPKOs policies. The secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party declared, already indicating that important legal changes were about to be seen: “It is against the national interest not to use the SDF for counterterrorism measures. It is possible under the current PKO law for the SDF to conduct humanitarian activities even in non-peacekeeping areas under UN resolutions, as long as international organizations actually ask Japan to do so”.182 As soon as 23 September, the government reached a consensus with the Diet on the approval of the new law allowing the SDF to join counter-terrorism operations.

Probably afraid of repeating the frustrating process during the 1991 Gulf War, the SDF Antiterrorism Bill was passed after unprecedentedly fast deliberations in the Diet. The law, enabling the SDF to be deployed to the Indian Ocean and “surrounding areas” of Japan for the provision of rear-area logistical military support against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, was as relevant for Japan’s new security and defense definitions and for its peacekeeping role “in so far as it transcended the provisions of the PKO law and thus opened up a window for its revision”.183 The Anti-terrorism Bill, for example, expanded the definition of self-defense to include not only the soldiers individually considered like the PKO law, “but also those accompanying them or those who have come under their control in the course of conducting duties”.184 The law covered activities as providing supplies and services, the provision of medical treatment to US forces and

Yongwook Ryu, “The Road to Japan´s “Normalization”: Japan´s Foreign Policy Orientation since the 1990´s”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. 19, no. 2 (2007), p. 83.

181 Declarations of tDeputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 143).

182 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration between Japan and Australia”, art. cit., p. 151.

183 Frank A. Stengel, art. cit., p. 46.

184 Ibid., p. 47.

180

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their allies, it legalized rescue and search activities, humanitarian relief tasks to refugees overseas and to undertake logistic missions but now also in “volatile areas”. But the Anti-Terrorism law was also an important part of an entire revision of the rules of engagement of Japan with the UN.185 The Japanese government was extremely careful when legally justifying the compatibility of the Constitution, concretely the wording of its Preamble, with the UN resolution 1368 without giving the impression of sidestepping the self-defense principle of Article 9.186 Almost simultaneously, the Japanese government decided to celebrate an initial meeting for discussing sending SDF members to the UN peacekeeping operation in East Timor (UNTAET), decided to actively seek the support of other countries favoring UN reform and Japan’s participation in the Security Council and started a comprehensive discussion of the reforms needed for the PKO law in order to expand its scope and maintain coherence with the anti-terrorism Bill through a reassessment of the so-called Five Principles in the 1992 law.187 According to the then Director General of the Japanese Defense Agency, Japan had to reconsider the Five Principles in light of the “new international climate” in which the country’s participation was becoming “something of a burden”.188 In December 2001, an amendment of the UNPKOs law was passed in the Diet supported by the three ruling parties, which brought important changes. Firstly, it lifted the so-called “freeze” on certain peacekeeping activities in which the use of force is mandatory such as patrolling demilitarized zones, transporting weapons, collecting and disposing them, monitoring ceasefires and law enforcement missions. Secondly, it expanded the self-defense notion that prevailed in the previous version of the law. Like the Antiterrorism Bill, the revised PKO law allowed for the SDF personnel the use of force to protect not only themselves but also “people under their control” like for example members of other countries troops, refugees, civil population and weapons stores.

Thirdly, as recognition of the anarchic and intrastate nature of post-cold war conflicts, the new law does not require anymore the fulfillment of the cease-fire principle in the case of participation of Japanese personnel in humanitarian operations.

According to experts, in these and other provisions the new legal framework took into account the Brahimi Report requiring a more robust framework to carry out mandates without strict restrictions and acting under amore flexible scheme. Together with this counterterrorism legislation, the Diet approved, in June 2003, a package of three bills intended to face an eventual attack on the Japanese home islands -as a response of a whole range of security threats from North Korea to terrorism-

Also the numerous mentions and clear references to UN operations in the law (Hugo Dobson, op. cit., pp.

152-153).

186 Peter J. Katzenstein, “Same war-different views: Germany, Japan and counterterrorism”, in Peter J. Katzenstein, op. cit., p. 237.

187 Florian Coulmas, “Japan´s Bid for a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council”, ASIEN: German Journal for Politics, Economics and Culture, vol. 100 (July 2006), p. 18.

188 Hugo Dobson, op. cit., p. 152.

185

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again without touching Article 9 and under a very generous interpretation of the Preamble of the Constitution. A month before, the Diet approved the Law Concerning Special Measures on Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance authorizing the dispatch of about 600 SDF ground force members to Iraq in activities of humanitarian purposes, actually the first time Japan acted providing military support to a mission outside the UN framework.189 As Amitav Acharya argues the new threat of terrorism ended justifying a greater involvement of Japan, just as of many other Asian countries, in UNPKOs.190 In this context, Japan decided to dispatch one of its biggest military delegations to the UNPKO in East Timor. Both in the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and then in its replacement, the UN Mission in East Timor (UNMISET) in 2002 Japan actively participated. However, the effect of the newly approved reform to the UNPKOs Bill and other measures intended to consolidate Japan’s new security doctrine was self-evident in the gap between the country’s level of commitment with UNTAET and UNMISET. In UNTAET, Japan participated with the dispatch of a C-130 airplane and around thirty SDF members to assist in the transport of humanitarian items.

In addition and as a consequence of its previous policy, Japan granted an important financial sum, almost half to the estimated costs of the operations, to the UN trust fund for East Timor. In contrast, in April 2002, as East Timor approached its independence and the UN replace the UNTAET operation for UNMISET, Japan decided to send 680 SDF personnel to replace Bangladeshi peacekeepers and conduct a wide range of logistic, transport and reconstruction activities in border areas, considered of high risk. This contribution constituted the first since the law was revised in December 2001 and, not surprisingly then, the largest dispatch of SDF personnel in its history. It was also different in the sense the Japanese peacekeepers were dispatched to four different locations (Covalima, Bobonaro, Oecusse and the capital Dili) instead of just concentrating them in one base. Further, while the first mission was of no particular relevance, the second earned the Japanese troops a popularity and reputation for its professionalism and high degree skills among the Timorese public transcending borders.191 As a recognition for this unprecedented deployment, in May 2004, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed a Japanese UN senior diplomat, Sukehiro Hasegawa, as his Special Representative of the UNMISET.192 However, problems were not completely absent. During the operation, a battalion was deployed close to the border of West Timor and the insecure environment proved that they were “mostly

Bhubhindar Singh, art. cit., p. 317; Gary D. Rawnsley, art. cit., p. 95.

Amitav Acharya, “Asian Norms and Practices in UN peace operations”, in Mely Caballero-Anthony and Amitav Acharya, UN Peace Operations and Asian Security, London, Routledge, 2005, p. 122.

191 Katzumi Ishizuka, Japan and UN Peace Operations, art. cit., p. 148.

192 Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration between Japan and Australia”, art. cit., p. 157.

189 190

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unarmed and unprepared for combat”. In fact, they had for their safety on the protection provided by troops from Portugal, South Korea and New Zealand.193 Undoubtedly, Japan’s mixed- security doctrine was consolidating as the result of these changes but also due to a new strengthened campaign for a permanent seat at the Security Council. However, an unexpected defeat in this crusade for permanent membership in the UN reform context might have caused a slowdown in the pace of the adaptation process.

2. The bid for the Security Council and Japan’s UNPKOs new activism The campaign launched by Prime Minister Koizumi in 2001 lobbying to obtain support for Japan’s bid achieved moderately successful results in the short term. In September 2004, for example, it obtained probably the most important statements of support after the US with the sympathizing speeches of both the British and French Foreign Ministers during the opening session of the UN General Assembly. Both expressions of support were instrumental for the formation of the G-4 coalition composed by Brazil, Germany, Japan and India supporting each other’s bid for a permanent seat after committing themselves to a high level strategic dialogue on this matter.194 In May 2005, Japan’s strategy changed from lobbying to a direct negotiation when the G-4 circulated a draft resolution in the UNGA proposing the expansion of the Security Council to 25 members and permanent seats for the four of them plus two African countries, a measure giving them the support of a large number of African countries. Further, as part of the negotiation strategy the G-4 proposed a 15-years freeze on the veto power to new permanent members in order not to loose the support of those opposing the extension of the veto powers.

On the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the UN and in the framework of the High-Level Plenary Meeting in September 2005, Japan and the G-4 strengthen its campaign for the UN Security Council reform. In so doing, Japan referred to the contribution of the Self-Defense Forces to the maintenance of international peace and security in the global fight against terrorism but particularly in the eight UN peacekeeping operations in which the country had participated so far.

It also noted it was the second largest contributor to the UN regular budgets, the first donor country in the world and the fact by itself bears one-fifth of the costs of UN peacekeeping operations.195

Frank A. Stengel, art. cit., p. 48.

Jose E. Guzzardi and Mark J. Mullenbach, “The politics of seeking a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council: an analysis of the case of Japan”, Midsouth Political Science Review, vol. 9 (2008), p. 48.

195 Reform of the United Nations Security Council: Why Japan should become permanent member, Information dossier, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, March 2005, available at (http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/reform/pamph0503.pdf).

193 194

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Although Japan hadn’t retired its candidature, the failure of the UN reform process driven by Chinese, Russian and American opposition, negatively affected Tokyo’s strategy within the G-4 and, as a consequence, the country’s incremental commitment with UNPKOs. In March 2005, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura argued that the Japanese public would demand a reduction to contributions to the UN if the country did not obtain a permanent seat.196 Even if Japan easily won a non-permanent seat for the period 2005-2006, a change of attitude in the previously enthusiastic participation in UNPKOs of the Japanese government was noticeable.

A few months later, Japan turned down a UN request to participate in the UN Mission in Sudan alleging the high risk of the mission. Later, in December 2007, decided to decline requests by the Burundi government to provide airlift support for its troops dispatched in the African Union/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur under a completely outdated argument: the inexistence of a ceasefire between the conflicting parties. Under the same argument, Tokyo rejected a similar request by the Tanzanian government in Darfur. Although the ceasefire principle was no more an active disposition in the legal rules governing Japan’s SDF participation in UNPKOs after the approval of the revised UNPKOs law, the fact the government invoked it was an indication of this new but short-term reluctance.

In fact, although Japan seemed to be particularly hesitant with some missions, it did not abandon its policy of partial commitment overall. In October 2004, Japan raised its contribution to the UNMISET in such a way that the combined number of male and female SDF members dispatched to both operations in Timor-Leste reached an impressive figure: 2300 soldiers.197 In January 2006, Japan decided to dispatch additional groups of well-trained SDF personnel to the UN disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), this time with the mandate of supporting what I would call a robust peacekeeping operation involving ceasefire monitoring in the Golan Heights.198 Similarly, in October, a group of JDA officers were recruited to take part in the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) and November, the government announced the dispatch of six SDF members to the peacekeeping operation in Nepal (UNMIN), also to take part in ceasefire monitoring activities.199 According to official calculations, Japan consolidated its position in 2005 as one of the top troop contributors to UN Peacekeeping Operations accumulatively appointing, since 1992, more than 4,500 SDF members to six operations.200 Of course this figure does not take into account other

Jose E. Guzzardi and Mark J. Mullenbach, art. cit., p. 49.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Japan´s Diplomatic Blue Book, Tokyo, 2005, pp. 149-150.

198 After a new numerous deployment of troops in November 2008, the Ministry of Defense announced that the number of SDF members sent to the Golan Heights mission was close to 1,000 (Yongwook Ryu, art. cit., p. 72).

199 Aya Takagi, Japan´s constitutionally constrained international cooperation: the case of UN Peacekeeping operations, Institute of Policy and Cultural Studies, University of Tokyo, 2006, pp. 28-29.

200 See table on page 33.

196 197

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dispatches in International Humanitarian Operations and International election monitoring activities, which account for a considerable lower number of personnel dispatched vis a vis UNPKOs.201 This policy of moderate participation and commitment to UNPKOs was further consolidated by another phenomenon. Both the new character of multidimensional peacekeeping operations already acknowledged by the Brahimi Report and the relevant contribution Tokyo started to make to several missions, gave Japan an important opportunity to indirectly show commitment, maintain its reputation as troop-lending country, and reduce the number of critiques to its policy of partial commitment, without necessarily dispatch more soldiers in “sweating missions” like Ishizuka calls them. Moreover, according to Ryu, PKOs provided Japan an easy return to international activities involving its SDF personnel and a constructive path for Japan’s “international rehabilitation” through activities lessening the fear of its neighbor about remilitarism and, at the same time, improving its international image.202 Hence, Japan decided to serve as chair for the Security Council Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations since January 2005 and, in so doing, to send the message that it would join discussions for further improvement of these operations. Further, this position serve to the purpose of communicating an important message on peacekeeping as not only a matter of troop levels, but as something that should be obtained “not only through military might but through social and economic stability, both at the national level and at the level of individual communities”.203 The emphasis on transparency and accountability, the stress on reconstruction, demobilization and development and many other activities related to nation-building efforts would start to characterize Japan’s position on this matter undoubtedly reflecting the limits and restrictions for Japan’s security doctrine to deploy large number of troops in robust peacekeeping operations and a political culture averse to draw a direct relation between the SDF and violence of any kind.204

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, op. cit., p. 150.

Yongwook Ryu, “The Road to Japan´s “Normalization”: Japan´s Foreign Policy Orientation since the 1990´s”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. 19, no. 2 (2007), p.73.

203 Key-note speech by Ichiro Aisawa, Senior ViceMinister for Foreign Affairs, during the Seminar “United Nations as Peacekeeper and Nation-Builder: Continuity and Change, UNITAR-Institute of Policy Studies of Singapore, March 28-29, Hiroshima, 2005, available at http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/un/pko/speech0503.html 204 Indeed, for several scholars, the SDF has practically covered all the spectrum of traditional peacekeeping but have stayed away from multi-dimensional peacekeeping operations for example in the wake of civil wars, peace enforcement operations under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and stabilization operations broadly speaking (Rosalie Arcala Hall, “Redefining the Japanese Self Defense Forces: lessons in forging a global identity”, in The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows, Malaysian Asian Public Intellectual Fellowships, 2005, available at http://www.apimal.org/blogcms/media/13/File/Hall.pdf; Tomonori Yoshizaki, “The Role of the Military in Peace-Building: A Japanese Perspective”, in Memoires of the Eleventh Symposium on Security Affairs The Role of the Military in Peacebuilding: a new approach to conflict resolution in the Twenty-First Century, The National Institute for Defense Studies, Tokyo, February 3, 2009, p. 108).

201 202

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In 2004, new Defense guidelines emphasized SDF overseas dispatch and particularly UNPKOs as main tasks together with their national security obligations.205 Further, a governmental panel produced its final report on defense issues on 24 June 2008. The panel concluded that Japan’s use of force in support of military personnel from other states involved in UNPKOs operations “should not be seen as a violation of Article 9´s renunciation of the use of force for settling international disputes, as these missions were not traditional wars but UN-mandated operations for the restoration and maintenance of international peace”.206 However, and although it recommended to participate in UNPKOs it also made suggestions to do it “closely into line with international norms on the use of force” and “selectively as its national interest dictated” and that it might be better to “not yet engage in full combat duties under UN auspices”.207 This doctrine, which Japan embodied since the early nineties, it was to be consolidated and strengthened also by further changes in civil-military relations towards the mixed pattern determining a limited level of commitment towards UNPKOs.

3. Changing civil-military relations and UNPKOs: further consolidating the mixed-semi integrated pattern According to Christopher W. Hughes, the post-Cold War period has seen the Ministry of Foreign Affairs progressively loosing power and facing stronger challenges to its leadership from the military. The whole process started with the Anti-terrorism Bill, which, together with other amendments to the Cabinet Law, increased the influence of the Japanese Defense Agency in a foreign policy perspective.208 In January 2007, the consolidation of this trend took place when the Japan Defense Agency became the Ministry of Defense, finally obtaining equal ministerial status to the MOFA and a leading role in Japan’s participation in UNPKOs. The elevation of the SDF forces to first-class status within the government is the end of an era according to Steven Vogel. Although the change did not affect Article 9 of the Constitution, in the opinion of Vogel, did reflect the “military’s current direction of increasing its defense capabilities at home while playing a larger international role in peacekeeping missions”.209 According to the first Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, the change clearly involves a new mixed security doctrine combining both domestic and international uses and elements of the army when arguing: “By shifting to a ministry and making such activities as international peacekeeping a primary missions we can clearly indicate that our nation will actively be involved in national defense

Japan Defense Agency, National Defense Guidelines of Japan 2004, available at http://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/d_policy/pdf/national_guidelines.pdf 206 Christopher W. Hughes, op. cit., p. 125.

207 Idem.

208 David Wright-Neville, Japan and the War on Terror, in Brad Williams and Andrew Newman (eds), Japan, Australia and Asia-Pacific Security, New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 133.

209 Chiyomi Sumida and Teri Weaver, “Japan´s Defense Agency now a ministry”, Stars and Stripes, January 11, 2007, available at http://www.stripes.com/news/japan-s-defense-agency-now-a-ministry-1.58980 205

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and international peace”.210 Starting from that moment, the dispatch of SDF members to peacekeeping missions is a joint responsibility of both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense which must obtain the approval of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister and then, in the vast majority of cases, of the majority of the Diet members. For the first time in history, the direct Ministerial representation of the SDF started to participate in important diplomatic meetings with, for example, UN officers and to conduct on a 2+2 basis Joint Foreign and Defense Ministerial Consultation meetings with countries such as Australia and South Korea. As an indication of the new relevancy of the Japanese Ministry of Defense in peacekeeping operations, during a Japan- Australia meeting held in June 2007, both parties referred to dialogue and share experiences on UNPKOs as part of Defense Cooperation in the Joint Statement. 211 But before this extraordinary step, some small-scale changes took place in terms of relaxing the previously inflexible mechanisms of civilian control and military subordination. First, some changes were about to be seen in terms of eroding excessive civilian control within the JDA. For example, the Defense of Japan White Paper of 2003 includes several measures intended to diminish the influence of middle-ranking civilian officers in advising the JDA director general and to open up a direct route for SDF officials to provide advice and participate in the formulation of defense policy.

Secondly, in May 2003, the 1955 agreement under which military attachés were under total control of the Foreign Ministry and not allowed to directly communicate with the Defense Agency was terminated and therefore military attaches could directly report to and consult with the JDA although they closely cooperate with MOFA officials in their respective diplomatic appointments.212 Thirdly, other changes have taken place, since new legislation was approved in February 2005, to enable the JDA to mobilize the SDF only with the approval of the Prime Minister in urgent cases where there is no time to a full consultation with the different organs involved including the Diet.

Fourthly, important changes took place in the decision-making deploying SDF members in UNPKOs endeavors. In contrast, with the practice immediately after the approval of the 1992 law, the Ministry of Defense has important responsibilities going from participating in the design of the Implementation Plan and Guidelines and then issuing the Order for operation of the SDF concerning the mission.213 Finally, since July 2007 there is an ongoing process steaming from the recommendations of the final report of the Ministry of Defense Reform Council, which according to experts will end transforming civil-military relations leaving behind the extreme segregation of the military. The report stated that there are no grounds to fear a renewal of authoritarian

Idem.

Japan-Australia Joint Foreign and Defence Ministerial Consultations, Joint Statement 2007, June 6, 2007 (http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/australia/joint0706.html); See also Katzumi Ishizuka, “Perspectives on UN peacekeeping collaboration”, art. cit. pp. 154-160.

212 Takao Sebata, art. cit., p.210.

213 Idem.

210 211

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militarism in Japan and that the aim of these changes is the improvement of the effectiveness of Japan’s military operations. Consequently, the report made several recommendations. Among them, the establishment of a ministerial meeting on the build-up of defense capabilities, the inclusion in the Prime Minister’s Office of military experts and the establishment of a Defense Council within the Ministry of Defense completely abolishing the sanjikan system of civil colonization in the previous JDA. But most importantly, it proposed a restructuration of the Defense Policy Bureau in order to fully integrate non-uniformed and uniformed officials alike, working equally alongside each other, in a system modeled on that of the United Kingdom.214 With measures like this, Japan made a step forward towards abandoning or at least moderating their longstanding doctrines of “selfdefense only” military policy and non-overseas military deployment posture. 215 Table 2. Top Forty Contributors to UN Operations (2002-2005)216

Country

Number of Troops

Country

Number of Troops

1. Bangladesh

33175

21. Ireland

2671

2. Pakistan

30690

22. Austria

2662

3. Nigeria

18790

23. Fiji

2649

4. India

18381

24. Slovakia

2618

5. Ghana

13553

25. UK

2568

6. Kenya

10123

26. Thailand

2548

7. Jordan

10016

27. Brazil

2452

8. Nepal

8692

28. France

2100

9. Uruguay

8326

29. New Zealand

1970

10. Ethiopia

6037

30. China

1931

11. Ukraine

5882

31. Philippines

1886

12. South Africa

5358

32. Republic of Korea

1778

13. Australia

5284

33. Namibia

1695

14. Morocco

4938

34. Tunisia

1640

15. Poland

4533

35. Canada

1554

16. Senegal

4208

36. Finland

1465

17. Zambia

4103

37. Japan

1362

18. Argentina

3475

38. Russian Federation

1186

19. Portugal

3325

39. Italy

1088

20. Guinea

2688

40. Sri Lanka

1013

Christopher W. Hughes, op. cit., pp. 60-61.

Sabine Frühstück and Eyal Ben-Ari, art. cit., p. 8.

216 Source: Arturo Sotomayor, “Why Some states participate in UN Peace Missions”, p. 167. Although there is a disagreement between UN and Japanese government figures on the total number of troops dispatched to East Timor (most likely regarding the military character of some engineering units) even taking the more modest UN figures, Japan ranks in the number 37. Cfr. Secretariat of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters Cabinet Office website: http://www.pko.go.jp/PKO_E/result/e_timor/e_timor07.html 214 215

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CONCLUSION

On December 17, 2010 the Japanese Cabinet approved the National Defense Program Guidelines, the main policy document based on Japan’s estimation of the current security global environment and the country’s role in that regard. Although the document still highlights the domestic use of the military, the “exclusively defense-oriented policy” and questions of national security related to the defense of Japan’s offshore islands and air space, it also emphasizes the international role of the SDF forces, unlike previous policy documents. The document estimates that a global shift in the balance of power has been produced by the rise of emerging powers and the relative diminution of US influence. It mentions North Korea’s and China military modernization as a destabilizing factor in Japan’s national security and it stresses that “Japan will participate in international peace cooperation activities in a more efficient and effective manner”.217 Furthermore, a new concept called “multi-layered security cooperation with the international community”, with at its core a policy of strengthening capabilities for international peace cooperation activities”, emerged in these Guidelines. Both these military developments and the recent participation of Japan in UNPKO activities were absolutely unthinkable in the late eighties.

The numbers speak for themselves. As of January 2011, Japan had approximately 380 military members working in different peacekeeping missions such as the MINUSTAH in Haiti, UNMIN in Nepal, UNDOF in the Golan Heights and UNMIS in Sudan. Moreover, Japanese peacekeeping instructors are currently teaching in training institutes in Mali, Egypt, Ghana and Malaysia. Also, the Japanese government has announced several times to be studying new ways to increase its peacekeeping military contributions.218 In fact, Japan is consistently present in the top 48 of UN troop contributors.219 A certain number of military units of the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) and contingents of police officers have already participated in missions in Cambodia, the Golan Heights, and Timor-Leste, to name only a few missions. Furthermore, other efforts in peacekeeping and humanitarian support have been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Palestine and other areas in both regional operations and those under the United Nations mandate. In addition, the linkage between its participation in UNPKOs and its bid to permanent membership at the UNSC is openly acknowledged as crucial elements of the same continuum on the quest of

Summary of the National Defense Program Guidelines for 2011 and beyond, approved by the Japanese Cabinet on December 17, 2010, English translation, available at the official website of the Japanese prime minister office and cabinet: http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kakugikettei/2010/summary_ndpg_e.pdf 218 Naoto Kan, “Japanese diplomacy at a historic watershed”, Kyodo News, 24 January 2011.

219 That conclusion is the result of my own calculations from the analysis of the rankings archive of peacekeeping troop contributors in the United Nations peacekeeping department webpage: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml 217

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expanding the presence of Japan in multilateral organizations and seeking “legitimate great power status” once it has started to be perceived as able to fulfill its international responsibilities.220 This policy would have been unfeasible without a major transformation of both Japan’s security doctrine and civil-military relations, as predicted by Sotomayor´s theoretical framework. During the postwar period, Japan implemented a security doctrine avoiding practically any possible international entanglement of the army and was extremely cautious of not breaching the constitutional and political restrictions to any collective or multilateral security endeavor going beyond the scope of the US-Japan Security Treaty. This attitude was reinforced by a civil-military pattern of extreme segregation of the military from the rest of the governmental ministries in the foreign policy and international security decision-making processes. However, contradicting Sotomayor´s theory, Japan’s national security doctrine didn’t emerge from a situation where political instability or authoritarianism demanded the army to play a role in maintaining the existing domestic order. The root of this policy is to be found in the antimilitarist building nation project after the war, the political consensus against any international military undertaking and the restrictions originated in both the international system of the Cold War and the security guarantee of the United States. The combined effect of these elements led to a policy of rhetorical and financial commitment to UNPKO and hampered the country to actively seek great power status in the UNSC, an old idea eschewed by its potential divisiveness under the context of the then valid internally oriented security doctrine.

Due to the transformation in the international system at the end of the Cold War, new security uncertainties and pressures from the international community forced Japan to reassess its role in the multilateral arena and convinced it of the benefits of launching its bid towards permanent membership at the UNSC. As a consequence, both its security doctrine and civil-military relations started a process of change and adaptation towards a model, which I argue, mirrors well the mixed doctrine/semi-integrated civil military relations outlined in Sotomayor´s work. Indeed, his model supposed a policy of partial commitment towards UNPKOs, as seen through the UNPKO law of 1992 and further legal and policy developments, which consolidated after the 9/11 events.

In my view, the main findings of this thesis support and refine Sotomayor´s theory in various ways.

Firstly, it is clear that the theory is able to explain the way both security doctrines and civil military relations determine certain policies regarding the provision of troops on UN peacekeeping operations. When providing the State’s defense strategy and framework of norms, security doctrines determine the attitude towards international peacekeeping missions involving the military.

Furthermore, the status of civil-military relations also determines the extent of commitment since the degree of coordination, cooperation and mutual involvement of both diplomats and generals

Shogo Suzuki, “Seeking Legitimate Great Power Status in Post-Cold War International Society: China’s and Japan’s participation in UNPKO”, International Relations, vol. 22 (2008), p. 53.

220

59

matters in the decision-making process. The contrast between Japan’s UNPKO policies before and after the end of the Cold War is stark and the role of both variables in determining and mutually reinforcing the acute differences in the outcomes observed in those two historical moments is rather compelling.

Secondly, it is also noteworthy to point to the dynamics of change of security doctrines and civilmilitary relations as a plausible mechanism filling an empty space in Sotomayor´s model. Indeed, the international transformation entailing security uncertainties for Japan and exerting pressure to reassess its role in the multilateral arena, on the one hand, and the decision to launch a bid for obtaining permanent membership at the UNSC, on the other hand, were instrumental in triggering a comprehensive transformation of Japan’s security doctrine and civil-military relations towards a mixed/semi-integrated model considerable more open, although yet limited, to UNPKOs. In my opinion, the integration of these two additional variables -generally portrayed as security uncertainties and changing foreign policy preferences steaming from a severe transformation of the international context- into Sotomayor´s framework, will add explanatory power to the theory.

Particularly in terms of accounting for the way security doctrines and civil military relations change over time.

Thirdly, it is important to bear in mind that a salient feature of Japan’s mixed security doctrine is precisely the persistence of important obstacles to a more systematic, numerous and less restricted deployment of troops. In this sense, the theory allows to explain better this middle-way transitional stadium in which Japan peacekeeping commitment currently situates. However, this does not mean that Japan will necessarily move towards and externally oriented doctrine. In fact, our findings seem to contradict this possibility at least in the short run.

Finally, I would suggest some directions for future research. On the one hand, it would be important to further strengthen this framework through some counterfactual analysis. In this regard, it would be useful to ask us whether a national security doctrine is feasible not only when external threats are not considerable as the theory states, but also especially when an external security guarantee is not in place. This would help to identify whether is one condition or the other what truly accounts for a State unwillingness to participate in UNPKOs. Although the case of Japan seems to conform to the latter hypothesis it would be a good idea to test this hypothesis in a larger pool of countries in a similar context. On the other hand, to strengthen the conclusions of the present research on Japan it might be interest also to investigate, probably in a counterfactual research as well, whether Tokyo would have changed its UNPKO policies even if the bid for the Security Council had not taken place. This should be helpful to assess the relative weight of the security uncertainties vis--vis the foreign policy actions resulting from a transformation of the international context. Moreover, this research would benefit from a larger test taking into account other national experiences when reassessing their role in the multilateral arena, particularly regarding peacekeeping troop commitment, during a context of global change and adaptation.

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