debates have in driving foreign policy decision-making. that's here in the united states but also, obviously, in china and japan and korea, in other countries in asia as well. and in many significant ways, i would offer that perhaps -- there's no better example of the role that domestic political factors and domestic political debates can have in shaping foreign policy and national security decision-making than -- than in japan. and that's not just function i should underscore of the past couple of years under the dpj or even a question having to do with what letter a couple of thousands of meters of concrete get poured into in okinawa. it's a much bigger set of questions having to do with a much deeper set of issues with japanese political culture, bureaucratic politics, the influence of individual

decision-makers. and the fact that electoral politics are now having in japanese foreign policy decision-making as japan starts to feel it's way towards a genuine two party political system. so i think this -- the discussion that we have lined up for this morning should be very, very interesting and very, very worthwhile. and i would offer that from my permanent perspective, the main incentive for drawing me here was the opportunity to avail myself of the wisdom and insight of three people, and dick and sheila whose wisdom i always seek and value and so as chair, my main purpose is actually going to be sitting at the end of the table and taking notes furiously and copiously as they offer their thoughts. so with that, let me turn things over to dick and michishita and

for sheila's comments to follow. thank you. >> thanks very much, mike. and i want to thank henry and deepa for organizing this project which has been of enormous interest and it's engaged both michishita and myself in ways that we're delighted to report out to you. there is -- can you hear in the back now 'cause you were having earlier? it's okay? yeah, it may seem odd -- it struck me that it may seem odd to some folks that we're talking about -- we're including japan on a project on rising powers. i mean, this is not the 1920s. [laughter] >> the last time i checked. [laughter] >> and it's not the 1980s when we were all agog about japan as

a rising power. but it's including because at least potentially japan is a great power. it has many of the -- many of the pieces to be a great power again. and, of course, after the catastrophes of 3/11 there's the possibility that japan may be reborn yet again, or at least reinvented yet again and so it deserves some closer analysis. that said i guess i start in a very japanese fashion with an apology which is that this paper was written before, for the most part, before 3/11 and before we do the revisions we will have to incorporate and i hope some of the discussions, maybe sheila's comments, michishita's comments may get to what 3/11 may mean for a reborn, revitalized japan, or not. so what we've done here is write about what we call hugging and

hedging. and while this chart here is not in the paper, it is from a book that i did a few years ago and there's no exam. you're not going to be quizzed on this. i know you're happy -- but there's a point to this chart and it's an important point which is to say that debates about japanese national strategy, ground strategy, national security are not new. they're not unique to the 21st century. they weren't unique to the 20th century, but have been around for a long time and, in fact, importantly, i think, in fact, connect over time. and i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this just to say that there were in the past three moments of real consensus on what japanese national strategy should be, consensus on getting rich and being strong. the strong army consensus of the late 19th, early 20th century. that led to the forced march of -- to rationalized the forced

march to industrialization. that was very successful. the second being after a time of real debate and real disorder as well as discourse between liberals and militarists here. another moment of great consensus, the central -- you know, japan -- the greater east asia prosperity sphere which led to the destruction of most asia and really japan which broke out into another debate that was rectified in a sense through the dominant grand strategy of japan that still is more or less in place is a matter of debate which is the o-oshita doctrine, the riding of on cheap american strategies. hence, the ribbons flailing at the bottom and heading toward

what is still a question mark for michishita and for myself. but the way we map this discourse -- and this is what, i think, david was referring to in his kind remarks in the first session is that there are -- there is -- there are two axis on which the debates proceed. one is the horizontal axis which is a proxy, you know, in an international relations 101 or alliance 101 if you get too close to the alliances you get too tangled in their own wars or if you're too danger you run the danger of isolated. this question of how close you hug versus how much distance you put from the united states has been a central element in japan's security discourse for a very long time. the second the vertical dimension has to do with the extent to which japan -- the statute of limitations for

japan's bad behavior in the middle part of the last century has expired or not. that is could japan, in fact, again use force as a means of settling international disputes. could japan revise its constitution and allow for this? now, as some of you work -- i've been arguing that japan has been slowly and deliberately and consistently salami slicing at the pacifists -- i'm a metaphorically challenged slight at the pacificist slow baked salami baked is what's been going on. this creates four spaces for the debate. the pacifists in this lower -- this southwestern quadrant -- each one of these have a different view of what japan should be and where japan should be and what it's identity should be. one is the view that japan should be seeking peace and one is that japan should be seeking

prosperity. and one that japan should be seeking equality with its alliance partner in the northeast. and those who would simply say, you know, it's time to do it ourselves. they seek sovereignty. these are what we call the neoautonomous. this debate is joined. it's represented in -- to embassy picker's answer earlier. this is what we try to get at in the paper as well. what's interesting about this array of views, we think, is that there's been a lot of movement. so if you believe the oshita doctrinites or the doctrineairs if they were really dominating the discourse through a tacit agreement with the pacifists to keep the revisionists at arm's length, to really not just hug the united states but hug

article 9 of the constitution, they gave way to the consolidation of power within their own party to revisionists, that represented most recently by prime minister kouzumi and his allies in the party so i have here recent ldp governments. had consolidated power had embraced the notion of normal nationalism, saying, look, it is time to be normal and to be normal for some in a very tony blair-like way. that's what i would submit and michishita and i would write in the paper there's on him one way to be normal there's a way to be normal indian style and the canadians and the germans thought about normality when it came to mesh's most recent adventures. the point is in september, twi, in the late summer, when the bpj

took power, with an unprecedented majority, a super majority in the national diet, there was a shift. it was the beginning of a shift that mike schiffer alluded to. domestic politics mattered. the world hadn't yet changed much but the posture of japanese national security thinking and the discourse had changed. the first -- by dpj1 i'm referring to the hammia administration thanks in part to the serial misbehavior of the north korea you can always count on them but what david was talking about and mike was talking about sort of the surprising assertiveness of the chinese in the spring of last year, in the fall of last year, the government gave way to a kahn government which is more amenable to the status quo, not

completely but more willing to hug the united states. and so efforts that had been made to reduce host nation support were abandoned. and so forth. it's in the paper and i hope you'll have a look at it. but what michishita and i thought would be particularly important was to change this -- this array slightly. it seemed to us that it would be useful to redimension the debate in china. that somehow finding the right distance not just from the united states but finding the right distance from china was something that was the most important strategic choice of facing japan today. getting it right, not just with the united states but getting it right with china as well was requiring -- would require both military and economic readjustments that we tried to -- we tried to get at. and we redimensioned a bit at

the last third of the paper. and given the relative power shift that's taking place between the united states and china, the maintaining the distance with the united states while closing it with china seems to make grand strategic sense for japan. these policies and these efforts as we've already seen have not been particularly well coordinated, however. most u.s. and japanese policymakers -- the alliance managers continue to appreciate and elevate really the importance of the bilateral alliance at exactly the moment when china, as i said, has become a little more assertive diplomatically and that alliance drift was halted and then again after the 3/11 crises, it looks like the relationship was further reinforced. the jury is still out on what 3/11 will mean and that's what i'll spend the next year

deciding when i'm in japan. this creates four spaces in a very active national security discourse. i'll just flick at each one of them and then i'll stop. but this -- these structural policies are in a revised model. some are familiar to us. if we look at the southwest again, as in the original model, there are those who distrust foreign entanglements. they are not just on the right. they're on the left as well. they prefer a japan that would acquire and sustain an independent military capability or if you're on the far left, no military capability at all. they see no reason to hedge their bets on the rise of china or on the decline, relative, of the united states. so in their view, japan should regain full sovereignty and provide for itself in a self-help world so it becomes a self-hedge in a way. we talk about internal

balancing. this group, as i say pacifists as well as the preference for autonomy in japan is independent of a preference for the use of force. that's why we readjusted the model. second, there are those who in the northwest here who advocate a china/japan economic condominium. they prefer a strategy of what we call bandwagoning. bandwagoning economically with the chinese. they discount -- they're apt to discount china as a military threat. and they emphasize the benefits from a robust bilateral economic relationship. the main risk they face, of course, is betrayal by china but they discount that. they imagine that china will be a generally responsible stakeholder in regional stability and they don't want to miss the china bus. one hears that often from the group. the third group are balancers. these are the groups in the

southeast. they're much more attentive to military threats from beijing, much less enamored with the benefits of economic cooperation with china. and if those who bandwagon would hedge by integrating with china economically, those who would balance china would hedge by balancing -- would hedge militarily. maintaining the robust relationship with the united states in the police chief that china is going to be more assertive and that that -- those assertions should be met with both containment and/or