Dear Colleagues,

I don’t want to spam your distinguished lists with my own publication, especially since I haven’t
been active in online discussion since balancing fatherhood with academia. But in case you find
that the article below might be of interest to colleagues, the PDF is freely available via the link
for a limited time. I am happy AJIA and T&F managed to publish online just as we begin to digest
the results of the upper house election.

Best wishes from Seoul for your important work.

Sincerely, Leif

>
> Leif-Eric Easley, “How proactive? How pacifist? Charting Japan’s evolving defence posture,” Australian Journal of International Affairs, published online July 11, 2016; http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/U5KantDPyFYTnHVUGICA/full .
> After 60 years maintaining Self-Defense Forces rather than a normal military, Japan is moving towards exercising collective self-defence, long restricted by interpretations of its 1945 Peace Constitution. The merits of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s ‘proactive pacifism’ are intensely debated by those welcoming greater international contributions from Japan and others suspicious of Japanese ‘remilitarisation’. A nation’s defence posture can theoretically be hijacked by aggressive nationalists, shift to pacifist isolationism, or rely on non-military internationalism or multilateral security cooperation. This article assesses competing explanations about the post-war trajectory of Japan’s defence posture by charting variation in military doctrine and capabilities. The analysis finds that Tokyo has made incremental policy adjustments under domestic and international constraints, and is not aggressively remilitarising.

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Leif-Eric EASLEY (레이프 에릭 이슬리 / レイフ-エリック イーザリ / 李雷夫)
Assistant Professor, International Security and Political Economics
Division of International Studies, Ewha University
Research Fellow, Asan Institute for Policy Studies
11 Gyeonghuigung 1ga-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea 110-062
mailto:easley@post.harvard.edu ; [a:http://dis.ewha.ac.kr]dis.ewha.ac.kr; [a:http://en.asaninst.org]
en.asaninst.org