This research project began as an effort to explore the potential security challenges that a Taiwan contingency would pose to Japan.
Research revealed, however, that focusing solely on a Taiwan contingency overlooks the critical evolution of Japan’s defense strategy since the turn of the century.
For over half a century, Japan focused its defense strategy on the country’s northern regions and the threat posed by the former Soviet Union.
Accordingly, Tokyo concentrated the Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) on Hokkaido to resist a possible Soviet invasion. However, following the collapse of the USSR, China’s decades-long military modernization,
as well as the unresolved territorial issues between Tokyo and Beijing, caused Japan to shift its strategic focus to the southwest and increasingly concentrate on the maritime domain.
The release of Japan’s National Defense Program Guidelines and the Mid-Term Defense Program on December 17, 2010, marks this strategic shift.
On February 24, 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine challenged the existing rules-based order in the Euro-Atlantic community.
At the same time, in the Indo-Pacific, Russia’s aggression brought existing security challenges into sharper focus. Across the region,
security concerns were heightened and acquired greater definition, particularly in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula.
Within Japan and across the alliance, defense planners have increasingly focused on a Taiwan contingency. In Tokyo, the government moved to enhance alliance-based deterrence and to strengthen its defense posture in the Southwest Islands.
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