Remilitarization in Japan

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Security ◽  
Constitutional Constraints ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Substantial Change

This chapter revaluates the utility of militarization as a framework for comprehending Japan’s changing military stance, and to challenge many current analyses that portray Japan’s security trajectory as one of essential continuity. The concept of militarization assists in identifying those military components—institutional and ideological in nature—present in all societies, including Japan, which are subject to contestation and alteration and open the way to substantive change in military security policy. The first section of the chapter outlines Japan’s self-declared and self-imposed constraints on its military posture in the immediate postwar and Cold War periods to establish the baselines against which any shifts toward remilitarization can be evaluated. The sections thereafter systematically assess these baselines and the degree of subsequent shift in the post–Cold War and contemporary periods—in terms of legal and constitutional constraints on military power, procurement of new military capabilities, increases in defense budgets, civil-military relations, the export of military technologies, and external and alliance military commitments. The concluding section, in assessing the overall trajectory of Japan’s military posture, and arguing that there has been substantial change rather than continuity, then considers the interrelationship with and challenges for the quality of Japanese democracy.

Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
New Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grey Zone ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Asymmetric Warfare ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Civilian Leadership

This book explores contemporary civil-military relations in the United States. Much of the canonical literature on civil-military relations was either written during or references the Cold War, while other major research focuses on the post-Cold War era, or the first decade of the twenty-first century. A great deal has changed since then. This book considers the implications for civil-military relations of many of these changes. Specifically, it focuses on factors such as breakdowns in democratic and civil-military norms and conventions; intensifying partisanship and deepening political divisions in American society; as well as new technology and the evolving character of armed conflict. Chapters are organized around the principal actors in civil-military relations, and the book includes sections on the military, civilian leadership, and the public. It explores the roles and obligations of each. The book also examines how changes in contemporary armed conflict influence civil-military relations. Chapters in this section examine the cyber domain, grey zone operations, asymmetric warfare and emerging technology. The book thus brings the study of civil-military relations into the contemporary era, in which new geopolitical realities and the changing character of armed conflict combine with domestic political tensions to test, if not potentially redefine, those relations.

Strachan on Clausewitz: Setting Standards for Research and Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-574
Author(s):  
Sibylle Scheipers
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Publication History ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Strategic Studies

This article provides an appraisal of Hew Strachan’s impact on Clausewitz research since the early 2000s. It highlights that owing to the complexity of Clausewitz’s oeuvre and its publication history, scholarship on Clausewitz has to live up to demanding standards in order to be compelling. Strachan’s research on Clausewitz provides not only a revisionist reinterpretation that usher our understanding of the Prussian general into the post-Cold War era. It also sets out the relevant standards and exemplifies how particular challenges can be overcome. Conversely, Strachan has also used his understanding of Clausewitz as a framework to sketch an understanding of strategic studies as an interdisciplinary field that is founded in history and that takes Clausewitz’s trinity as a starting point for a more meaningful debate on civil-military relations.

Albania: Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Cold War Era

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerassimos Karabelias
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Communist State ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Military Relations

Albania’s peaceful exit from the communist world, the adoption of NATO-guided changes in its military institution, the establishment of closer ties with the European Union in conjunction with the strong presence of political leaders in the country’s domestic and internal affairs and its latest economic growth offer the impression of a successful transformation of a former Communist state to a Western-type democratic political model and civil-military relations. However, what is often overlooked is that the country’s political elites, emerging from a lengthy, deeply rooted tradition of clan and tribal power structures, have dominated Albanian politics and its civil-military relations, whether under a monarchical or a communist regime. By combining a pro-Western civilianization profile with an efficient control over Albania’s sociopolitical culture and economic development, these traditional elites permitted the officer corps to take the Western-prescribed necessary steps, during the post–Cold War period, as long as their interests were not deeply affected. The small size of the officer corps, the absence of semiautonomous economic power, as well as of corporate unity in conjunction with the existence of a servile political culture and ideology toward the domestic political elites have forced the country’s civil-military relations to resemble the Western ones only in appearance. The inability/unwillingness of these elites to take some steps towards the country’s social, economic and political advancement raises the question of whether both domestic and external forces are truly committed to democracy or are going to be totally satisfied with only the process of putting “old wine in new bottles.”

Mutiny in Africa, 1950–2018

2020 ◽  
pp. 073889422093488
Author(s):  
Rebecca Schiel ◽  
Jonathan Powell ◽  
Christopher Faulkner
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
True Condition ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Coups D'etat ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Data Collection Effort

The majority of literature on civil–military relations has focused on coups d’état. Yet, studying lesser forms of military insubordination can offer valuable insight into the true condition of states’ civil–military relations. This paper introduces a data collection effort on mutinies across Africa from 1950 to 2018, revealing several interesting trends. First, most African countries have experienced mutinies, with these events increasing in frequency in the post-Cold War period. Second, while mutinies rarely escalate into coups, they are associated with an increased likelihood of coups in the future. This dataset provides a useful tool to explore the complexity of states’ civil–military relations.

Civil-Naval Politics in World War I

1955 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 572-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warner R. Schilling
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
National Values ◽  
Military Security ◽  
Complicating Factors ◽  
The Government ◽  
Military Relations

The determination of military policy can be generally conceived as a matter of answering, in order, two questions: for what purposes is military power required, and how much is required? Unfortunately, these questions are more easily asked than answered. The first—military power for what and against whom?—is complicated by the fact that the government is usually confronted with a variety of foreign policy contingencies, many of which seem to call for different kinds of military establishments. The second question—how much military power?—is complicated by the fact that the government must usually allocate its resources among many national values, of which military security is only one. These complicating factors, one a condition of international politics and the other a condition of domestic politics, appear to be as inescapable as the two questions themselves. Consequently, some insight into present and future problems of civil-military relations may be gained by examining the influence of these conditions in the past.

Constructing the Limits of State Violence in Central America: Towards a New Research Agenda

1996 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 435-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Holden
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Central America ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Independent Research ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Us Military ◽  
New Research ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
High Level

AbstractThis analysis of the historically high level of state-sponsored violence in Central America, typically explained in terms of ‘authoritarianism’ or ‘civil-military relations’, argues for according it a more independent research status. Three historic dimensions of state-sponsored violence – the mechanisms by which caudillo violence was displaced upward in the late 19th century, the level of subaltern collaboration with the agents of state violence as a function of clientelist politics, and the intrusion of US military power after 1940 – are proposed. The implications for the utility of political culture theory and for a reevaluation of the literature on civil-military relations are developed.

Continuity and Change in British Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Croft
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Constant Argument

For almost fifty years there has been constant argument between those who have supported the development and possession of nuclear weapons by Britain and those opposed to those policies. This article argues that there has been a continuity in the arguments made by policy-makers and their critics, both operating within an unchanging series of linked assumptions forming a paradigm or mind-set. This article sets out the character of the assumptions of the orthodox and alternative thinkers, as they are termed in the article, examining their coherence and differences, particularly during the cold war. It concludes by attempting to draw out some implications for the British security policy debate in the post-cold war period.

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