While Japan's growing political activism has not been matched by any commensurate desire to play a larger regional security role, circumstances are bringing Japanese leaders face-to-face with a need either to revalidate or redefine the country's security posture. Basic issues for Japan include how to adjust to the collapse of Communism in the former U.S.S.R. and the related end of the Cold War, and the likelihood of a substantial reduction in the U.S. military role in the region. Additionally, in the face of a rapid erosion of the lines between civilian and military technology and heightened “technonationalism” in both the United States and Japan, the government must decide where to strike the balance between autonomy and co-operation with the United States in the production of major weapons systems. In dealing with these issues, Japanese policymakers will have to consider both domestic and international opposition to any indication of revived militarism.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the launching of Operation Desert Storm by the U.S.-led multinational forces greatly hastened this process, and provoked a major political crisis whose effects have not yet played themselves out. Amidst the tumult surrounding the Gulf crisis, there can be discerned a symbolic but significant gain for those who would bring Japan into the ranks of “normal” countries and legitimize the participation of its self-defence forces in internationally sanctioned peace-keeping activities.

Looking around Japan's perimeter, Tokyo's policymakers see a rapidly changing security situation. The Soviet threat is widely perceived as ended, kept alive in the public's mind principally by the continuing dispute over Moscow's retention of the Northern Territories, four northern islands seized from Japan at the end of World War II. Many judge that a settlement or shelving of this dispute — now seen as more likely as a consequence of the prostrate state of the Russian economy and central authority — would greatly enhance Japanese security.