1 Japan’s Past Performance Within the Narrow Version of International Peace Cooperation

With the ironclad restrictions, the original PKO Act very narrowly defined the possible scope of the SDF’s activities only to logistical support, such as engineering, transportation, and medical care (see Chap. 2), while also permitting Japan to dispatch individual unarmed military observers. On the ground, however, these rigorous constraints would cause serious gaps between the Japanese legal system and UNPKO practices. Here, we will review Japan’s participation not only in the UNPKOs but also in related activities, because the PKO Act permits a wider range of activities under the framework of International Peace Cooperation (IPC). For this reason, the GoJ usually refers to the statute as the IPC Act, rather than the PKO Act. In addition to the narrow version of IPC, solely resting on the PKO Act, there is also a broader version that is based not only on the IPC Act but also on other laws. In this section, we will outline both the narrow and the broader version of IPC.

The term “IPC” is a peculiar piece of jargon coined by the GoJ . Simply put, IPC denotes a set of Japanese efforts to support international peace, especially in conflict-prone states. In the narrow sense, the concept of IPC covers the activities resting on the PKO Act, mainly under the jurisdiction of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters (IPCH) in the Cabinet Office. Meanwhile, Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) also uses the term in a broader sense beyond the scope of the PKO Act. In this book, we will pay more attention to the narrower version of IPC because it is a more conventional understanding of the concept that keeps the UNPKOs at its core. In this chapter, we will also briefly look at the broader version, as it is also relevant to some extent in our examination of Japan’s participation in the UNPKOs .

1.1 Past Performance Under the Narrow Version of the IPC Concept

To start, let us review in more detail the narrow version of IPC, which rests on the PKO Act (Cabinet Office, n.d.-c) (Table 3.1).Footnote 1 The IPCH , as well as Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), adheres to the narrow version (Cabinet Office, n.d.-b; MoFA, 2013). First , the statute allows both personnel and material contributions. The former is divided into three categories: UNPKOs and related others, international humanitarian assistance activities, and international electoral monitoring. (In the 2015 amendment to the PKO Act, the internationally coordinated operations for peace and security were added as the fourth category of narrow IPC but here we will focus on the three categories before 2015.) The first two are mainly carried out by SDF personnel, while the third is basically carried out as a short-term civilian mission. Uniformed civilians, such as the police and the coast guard, can also participate in narrow IPC-related duties. In other words, although civilian personnel can act as Japanese peacekeepers under the PKO Act, this book will focus on the SDF peacekeepers unless otherwise specified (Cabinet Office, n.d.-a, n.d.-d, n.d.-f).

Table 3.1 Classification of the narrow and broader versions of IPC
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Under the narrow definition of IPC, potential military contribution had been confined either to the category of a UNPKO or to very limited cases that were categorized as “international humanitarian assistance.” Under this related category, so far there has been one case of deployment of SDF ground forces in 1994 to Zaire, now called the DRC (see below for more details). However, there have been four additional cases of SDF deployment under the same “international humanitarian assistance” category, all involving the ASDF . In these four cases, the ASDF delivered humanitarian supplies to refugees in East Timor, Afghanistan, and twice in Iraq. So, in practice, we can regard the narrow version of IPC as similar or nearly identical in type to SDF deployment to a UNPKO.

In September 1992, three months after the enactment of the PKO Act, the first personnel contribution was made when three civilian electoral observers were dispatched to the United Nations Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II). Since then, civilian electoral observers have been dispatched twelve times so far under the categories of UNPKOs and international electoral monitoring assistance (the latter was added to the PKO Act in the amendment in 1998; see Appendix A). Later in the same month, a large-scale Japanese delegation represented by a 600-man JEG battalion joined UNTAC (see Chap. 5).

Following UNTAC , the GoJ continued to dispatch military personnel to the other UN missions in rapid sequence. From May 1993 to January 1995, SDF peacekeepers were sent to the United Nations Mission in Mozambique (ONUMOZ). A 50-man team was engaged in transportation duties and a few staff officers were sent to the field headquarters of the UN mission. It was the first time that Japan had contributed staff to the field headquarters of a UNPKO, since there was no staff contribution to UNTAC (see Chap. 5). From September to December 1994, the GoJ dispatched an SDF team of approximately 200 people to the former Zaire to distribute emergency relief to Rwandan refugees in response to a request from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR ). The SDF team engaged in medical care, epidemic prevention, and water supply in the city of Goma, located at the border with Rwanda.

From February 1996, the GoJ dispatched a 40-staff transportation unit, as well as a few staff officers, to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights in Syria. UNDOF was established during the Cold War in 1974 and was assigned a classic cease-fire monitoring mandate between Syria and Israel. The SDF’s dispatch to UNDOF lasted 17 years, marking the longest duration in the history of Japanese peacekeeping. The longer-term participation in UNDOF served as a “PKO School” (Nishida, 2020), providing a useful opportunity for SDF members to get used to working as peacekeepers. Their deployment was maintained until January 2013, when local security was rapidly undermined due to the outbreak of internal conflict in Syria. From 2002 to 2004, the GoJ dispatched another large-scale JEG of some 600 SDF members and a few staff officers to support the independence of East Timor (see Chap. 6).

In the second half of the 2000s, greater emphasis was placed on a broader conception of IPC (see next section) while no additional deployment was made to a UNPKO. In the first half of the 2010s, the GoJ resumed new SDF deployments to the UNPKOs in Haiti and South Sudan. From 2010 to 2013, the SDF were sent to Haiti after the great earthquake, both as part of a Japan Disaster Relief (JDR) team and as peacekeepers (see Chap. 7). In January 2012, the GoJ deployed the SDF to UNMISS to support the newly independent South Sudan. However, the GoJ suddenly withdrew the JEG from South Sudan in the spring of 2017 while leaving a small number of staff officers in place (see Chap. 8).

1.2 Past Performance Under the Broader Version of the IPC Concept

In this section, we will summarize the GoJ’s activities based on the broader definition of IPC. Because the MoD represents this view, as seen earlier, the broader version of IPC focuses solely on the SDF’s activities (MoD , n.d.) (Table 3.2). It allows for a much wider range of activities than the narrower definition, resting not only on the PKO Act but also on other legal statutes (Fig. 3.1). The broader version of IPC is composed of four categories: first, UNPKOs and the other related activities, such as international humanitarian assistance; second, any operations under temporary special measure laws (temporary statutes), such as humanitarian assistance in postwar Iraq or a 2001 refueling mission in support of the US-led War on Terror in Afghanistan; third, international emergency assistance based on the Act Concerning Dispatch of the Japan Disaster Relief Team (hereafter, the JDR Act); and, fourth, anti-piracy operations off the shores of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

Table 3.2 The broader version of IPC
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Fig. 3.1
figure 1

Classification of the narrow and broader versions of IPC. *“PKO” refers to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, “Humanitarian operations” to international humanitarian relief operations, “Election monitoring” to international election observation operations, and “Internationally coordinated operations” to internationally coordinated operations for peace and security, “JDR” to international disaster relief activities, “Anti-piracy operations” to anti-piracy activities off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. (Source: Cabinet Office, n.d.-c, MoD, n.d., Authors’ creation)

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Here we will mainly focus on the second, third, and fourth categories, since the first category (UNPKO deployment) already overlaps with the scope of narrow IPCs. Let us begin with the second category. During the 2010s, the GoJ considerably expanded the scope for a broader version of IPC by enacting a set of special legal measures to assist the US-led multinational force. First, in November 2001, the GoJ decided to dispatch MSDF fueling vessels to the Indian Ocean to support the US-led War on Terror in Afghanistan (Hasegawa, 2018a). Japan previously had no law for this purpose, but Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed the adoption of the Act on Special Measures Against Terrorism through the legislature just a month after the 9/11 attacks. Amazingly, there was little criticism either from the opposition or from the public, even though the law allowed the SDF to assist in combat-oriented operations, albeit from a remote area. This activity was maintained for nearly ten years, until the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had come to power the previous year, discontinued it in January 2010 (for more details, see below).

Following the US attack on Iraq in March 2003, Koizumi enacted another temporary statute, the Law Concerning the Special Measures on Humanitarian and Reconstruction Assistance in Iraq, in August of the same year, to deploy SDF personnel to Iraq. The dispatch to Iraq provoked controversy in Japan regarding the dubious legitimacy of the US preemptive strike logic and increasing insecurity in postwar Iraq (Hasegawa, 2018b).

In particular, the latter point was a political hot potato, not only because practical danger existed for the SDF personnel but also because there was concern about violating the ban on exercising the right of “collective defense.” Simply put, this right allows a state to use force to aid an ally under Article 51 of the UN Charter, but it has been a very controversial problem in Japan (see Chap. 4; Shinoda, 2016). The GoJ upheld an awkward position concerning Japan’s exercise of the collective defense right: it argued that this was outlawed in the Constitution, even though Article 51 of the UN Charter prescribes collective defense as a state’s inherent right (UN Charter art. 51).

Given the GoJ’s self-imposed constraint, serious doubt was cast from the anti-military opposition parties as well as from part of civil society as to whether the SDF’s humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq violated the ban on the exercise of collective defense (Commission on the Constitution: The House of Representatives, 2004). The skeptics arose because the SDF’s activity in Iraq was carried out as part of a US-led military operation and it was ambiguous whether fighting was truly over even after the US announcement of the end of combat situation in May 2003. To avoid constituting the situation of “collective self-defense,” Koizumi devised the delicate rhetorical logic of differentiating a “combat zone” from a “non-combat zone,” although it seemed unrealistic to make such a distinction from the field in post-2003 Iraq (“Koizumi-shi,” 2018).

In the end, Koizumi resolutely deployed the GSDF to Iraq from January 2004 to July 2006 (Hasegawa, 2018b). Once deployed, the GSDF was mostly engaged in the reconstruction of infrastructure, but also provided medical care and water supplies. Because the deployment was completed without any fatalities, public opinion turned in favor of the SDF’s mission in Iraq (“Jiei-tai-tettai no,” 2004; “Iraku-hitojichi-jiken,” 2004). In sum, this “temporary law” category, exemplified by the deployments to the Indian Ocean and Iraq, has been regarded as the centerpiece of the broader version of IPC. Nonetheless, it was not an easy policy option because additional legislation was required for every deployment until the so-called general law, or the International Peace Support Law, was enacted in 2015 as a part of the larger Peace and Security Legislation (see Chap. 4). The “general law” here means a statute to deploy the SDF to take part in multinational military operations outside of the UN framework. Previously, the GoJ had to enact a temporary law each time deployment was necessary.

Emergency disaster relief represents another important component in the broader IPC. The JDR Act allows the GoJ to dispatch an emergency disaster relief team at times of natural and other disasters abroad. When originally established in 1987, the law was applied only to civilian agencies, such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and to nongovernmental civilians, such as medical personnel and other experts (see Chap. 7; Nakauchi, 2011). In 1992, concomitant with the enactment of the PKO Act, the JDR Act was amended to include the SDF as part of JDR Teams (Nakauchi, 2011, p. 5). Since its first dispatch to Honduras, which was hit by a great hurricane in 1998, the SDF has participated in JDR Teams a total of 20 times until 2020 (see Appendix B). Since Japan has historically suffered from various types of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and typhoons, the SDF has accumulated much experience in disaster relief and regards its expertise as a unique strength. Besides, military dispatch for disaster relief is much less controversial than deployment to conflict-affected countries.

In the late 2000s, an anti-piracy operation to protect commercial ships and oil tankers off the shore of Somalia and around the Gulf of Aden was also added as a part of the broader IPC. This deployment was initially based on the SDF Act, but later rested on the Anti-Piracy Law established in September 2009. In 2011, the GoJ constructed an SDF base in Djibouti to station transportation aircraft (P-3s). This was the first ever overseas military base for postwar Japan.

2 Japan’s Efforts to Catch Up with the International Trends of “Robustness” and “Integration”

2.1 Moves Toward “Robustness”

The stringent constraints on the range of authorized activities often forced SDF members to exceed the stipulations of the PKO Act without permission to do so, which actually happened in Cambodia, East Timor, and elsewhere. In the former Zaire in 1994, for instance, the GSDF transportation team unexpectedly rescued Japanese NGO workers who were under attack (“Jiei-tai, hatsu-no,” 1994). This was justified under the name of a “transportation” mission but invoked criticism. It looked especially problematic because, before the incident, a senior executive of the Japan Defense Agency, which would be remodeled into the MoD in 2007, professed that the SDF were not assigned to rescue NGO personnel in a distant place (“NGO-kankei-sha,” 1994). Excessively narrow restrictions also caused confusion and misunderstanding between the Japanese and UN sides. The accumulation of such experiences gradually motivated the GoJ to relax requirements on the use of weapons in particular and loosening the suspension of the PKF’s main duties, albeit to a limited extent and also very slowly.

Examples of excessively strict restrictions were seen not only in the requirements on the use of weapons, but also in the equipment allowed for the SDF peacekeepers. In the first military dispatch to the UNPKO in Cambodia, the JEG personnel were only equipped with pistols and rifles, whereas the Khmer Rouge was armed with heavy weapons (see Chap. 5). Fortunately, limited armaments did not cause any casualties in the SDF component in Cambodia or later in Mozambique. In the former Zaire in 1994, however, this caused a heated debate as to whether or not deployed SDF personnel should be equipped with machine guns. Eventually, the GoJ decided in favor of doing so due to serious insecurity on site (“Ruwanda-nammin-kyusai,” 1994).Footnote 2 Thereafter, it became common for the SDF peacekeepers to carry machine guns alongside pistols and rifles when dispatched as a unit on the ground. This reduced debates over equipment, but the problem of excessive constraints on the use of weapons still remained, as we will see below.

2.2 Limited Relaxation of the Requirements for the Use of Weapons

In Japan’s peacekeeping policy, the limits on “robustness” were mostly related to the fifth of the original Five Principles: SDF personnel are permitted to use weapons only to the minimum extent necessary to protect themselves or for self-preservation (see Chap. 2; GoJ, 1992). Problematically, the Japanese terminology of “self-preservation” very narrowly defined the scope solely to the protection of SDF personnel themselves (each specific individual and his/her colleagues at the same scene; see Chap. 2). On the other hand, the concept of self-defense in the UNPKOs extends to the protection of fellow peacekeepers, even those contributed from other countries, as well as other relevant personnel even if located in a distant place (see Chap. 2; The Security Experts Panel, 2008, p. 12) or what is referred to as the “coming-to-aid” duty in Japanese usage. In this way, understandings of the range of “self-defense” in the global UNPKO standard, which naturally covers the “coming-to-aid” duty, are much wider than the scope of “self-preservation.”

Nonetheless, the Japanese legal system concluded that the “coming-to-aid” duty would too far exceed the scope of self-preservation and therefore would not allow this duty to be performed by SDF peacekeepers. As a result, deployed Japanese military personnel had to employ subterfuge, such as in the example of de facto patrols in Cambodia being recategorized as “information gathering” when Japanese civilians needed immediate security provision by SDF personnel (see Chap. 5). The difference between the Japanese legal system and the UN standard of interpretation regarding the use of arms was highly problematic, partly because the gap perplexed the SDF peacekeepers in practice and partly because it confused the UN side and fellow peacekeepers from other countries.

In 1998 and 2001, therefore, the GoJ slightly relaxed the scope of self-preservation to loosen the requirements on the use of weapons for SDF peacekeepers, while not revising the Five Principles themselves. First, the 1998 amendment of the PKO Act changed the evaluative criteria for the use of weapons (Cabinet Office, n.d.-d).Footnote 3 In the original PKO Act, established in 1992, each individual SDF peacekeeper was supposed to fire at his/her discretion because the SDF member who fired would personally bear responsibility. This contradicted ordinary military regulations for firing weapons and would be impossible for the SDF peacekeepers to implement in practice. For this reason, the 1998 amendment centralized the authority to fire a weapon by authorization dependent on a commander’s explicit order. But this was a very minor change and the scope of self-preservation itself remained unchanged in the 1998 amendment.

The 2001 amendment attained a more substantial change. It expanded the scope of self-preservation to allow SDF peacekeepers to use “weapons only for the protection of oneself and others”, namely, oneself, SDF members who are at the same scene as oneself, or those under the supervision of oneself (Cabinet Office, n.d.-e; MoD, 2019, p. 256).Footnote 4 This amendment would allow the SDF peacekeepers to extend their rescue mission to non-SDF personnel, such as NGO staff, as long as they were in the same location. This added mission was justified under the category of “self-preservation”: If the SDF personnel left somebody in the same place under an attack, it was very likely that danger would pose a direct threat to the SDF personnel themselves. In the meantime, “coming-to-aid” duty was not yet allowed, since it was still difficult for the GoJ to place them within the scope of self-preservation. Even if somebody in a remote location was facing an imminent threat, it would not directly threaten the safety of the SDF personnel, and therefore, according to the government’s interpretation, this would not be a matter of self-preservation. Although the 2001 amendment slightly relaxed the allowed range for the use of weapons for the purpose of self-preservation, this still did not reach the global standard of self-defense, which naturally covered the “coming-to-aid” duty. (The 2001 amendment also removed the “freeze” on the PKF main duties, but we will examine this later in this section.)

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the range of authorizations for Japanese peacekeepers’ use of weapons was expanded to some extent, as seen above, but the revisions were made only within the scope of self-preservation. Around the same time, on the other hand, the Brahimi Report in 2000 endorsed the UN shift toward “robustness” (see Chap. 1). As a result, the UN expanded the authorized scope of peacekeepers’ use of force not only for self-defense, but also for the defense of the mandate (see Chap. 1). If a UN peacekeeper is tasked with the PoC mandate, for example, s/he would be allowed to use force beyond the scope of self-defense if necessary to defend the given mandate.

Consequently, the gap between Japan’s requirements for the use of weapons, which was strictly restricted to self-preservation purposes, and those found in the UNPKOs still remained, or had even grown larger. The shifts toward “robustness” in UNPKOs had considerably enlarged to authorize the use of force by UN peacekeepers beyond the range of self-defense to also cover the “defense of the mandate.” In other words, Japan’s efforts to relax the range for the use of weapons did not exactly match the robust turn at the international level. While the UNPKO’s standard for the use of force had already transcended the self-defense purpose and reached the range of defense of the mandate, the Japanese standard had not yet reached even the extent of self-defense at the global standard.

2.3 Removing the “Freeze” on the PKF’s Main Duties

The other obstacle against the trend toward “robustness” was related to the PKF’s main duties. The 2001 amendment finally lifted the “freeze” on the PKF’s main duties since the 9/11 attacks and generated the possibility of setting up a UNPKO in Afghanistan, although this was not realized after all (see Chap. 6). Even after the removal of this “freeze,” however, the GoJ has never dispatched infantry forces mandated with the PKF’s main duties in practice.

Behind this hesitation lay the outdated nature of the original PKO Act. The statute defined the PKF’s main duties in line with the classic truce supervision duties, such as disarmament monitoring, patrol in a buffer zone, and arms disposal (see Chap. 2; MoD, 2002). However, by the time the suspension of these PKF main duties was removed in 2001, the trend of UNPKOs had already evolved toward “robustness” (see Chaps. 1 and 2). This made it very difficult for the GoJ to assign SDF peacekeepers with PKF main duties even after the removal of the “freeze.” Moreover, the deployment for the PKF main duties requires advance approval from the Diet, which would be extremely challenging for the GoJ . In this way, Japan was further left behind in the international trend of “robustness ,” which paid more attention to the defense of the mandate (see Chap. 4).

2.4 The Recommendations on the Relaxation of the Requirements for the Use of Weapons

In the late 1990s, with rising scrutiny concerns about China and North Korea, Japanese eyes were increasingly diverted toward the issues of regional security and the alliance relationship with the US (see Appendix C), while the political slogans of “International Contribution” gradually declined. Unexpectedly, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 drew Japan’s attention back to peacekeeping, or more broadly, to IPC issues (Fujishige, 2021).

Boosted by renewed attention to the policy field, as seen earlier, Prime Minister Koizumi achieved the partial relaxation of the restriction on the use of weapons in 2001. He commissioned the Experts Panel for International Peace Cooperation (hereafter, the IPC Panel) in June 2002, under the chairmanship of Yasushi Akashi, the former SRSG of UNTAC (see Chap. 5). Its examination was concluded at the end of 2002, yielding the policy paper as an outcome (The IPC Panel, 2002).

The panel released its policy recommendations about six months later (The IPC Panel, 2002). With heightened attention to the problems of fragile states around that time, the policy paper mostly emphasized issues related to statebuilding and peacebuilding,Footnote 5 which was in line with the trend of “integration,” However, it also included recommendations concerning “robustness,” albeit to a lesser extent. The IPC Panel called for the further expansion of the permitted range of the use of weapons for SDF peacekeepers with an eye toward further closing gaps between Japanese law and relevant international standards. This demand was echoed by the Experts Panel on Reconstruction of Legal Basis for Security (hereafter, the Security Experts Panel), which was established in April 2007 during the first Abe administration (Cabinet Secretariat, 2007). Eventually, however, the growing demands for “robustness” would be realized only after the return of Prime Minister Abe at the end of 2012 (see in Chap. 4).

2.5 Moves Toward “Integration”

Here we will see Japan’s shift toward “integration.” In Cambodia, the JEG in Cambodia had already embarked on the prototype of the “All Japan” approach, for example, by providing direct support to the local population and leaving behind all used materials upon departure (Honda, 2017; see Chap. 5). It was only after the late 1990s, however, that attention to “integration” became more noticeable in Japan. An increasing interest in the nexus between peacebuilding and development at the international level gave the GoJ the momentum to pursue Japan’s version of “integration.” The development aid actor took an initiative.

In 1999, a JICA report titled The Implementation Situation of ODA Mid-term Policy indicated an emerging interest in peacebuilding as part of the international development agenda (MoFA, 2000). In the same year, JICA and the UNHCR agreed to develop a partnership, especially to assist people in war-torn nations (UNHCR, 2019). Two years later, JICA published a more detailed policy paper, Research Study on Peacebuilding (JICA, 2001), which encouraged the connection of Japan’s development aid with peacebuilding. Later in the same year, the 9/11 terrorist attacks unexpectedly encouraged JICA’s involvement in peacebuilding, or more broadly, in the IPC policy. This restored the GoJ’s motivation to support conflict-affected nations, such as Afghanistan and East Timor, because the anarchic situation of Afghanistan was serving as a hotbed for Al Qaeda.

The report presented a comprehensive view of IPC, putting greater emphasis on peacebuilding rather than peacekeeping (The IPC Panel, 2002). The paper urged utilization of Japan’s ODA as part of peacebuilding efforts. It also encouraged a “seamless” approach, encompassing everything from conflict prevention, peace consolidation, and statebuilding to post-conflict reconstruction and development assistance. In doing so, it was also strongly recommended that IPCH developed a wide range of collaborations with civilian actors, such as JICA , various NGOs, and private businesses . In the 1990s, IPC had been almost equivalent to Japan’s military contribution, but this concept gradually broadened from the 2000s onward, overlapping with the international trend of “integration.” The JICA side also supported this move, especially under the leadership of Sadako Ogata, who had been the former head of the UNHCR before becoming the head of JICA in 2013 (MoFA, 2002, 2014).

In parallel, the partnership between the ODA and the JEG was developed in Iraq and in East Timor, gradually shaping the “All Japan” approach (Honda & Uesugi, 2016, p. 162; Kawaguchi & Sakaemura, 2016). Once established in the first half of the 2000s, this approach was eagerly promoted by the GoJ , partly because it was an easier policy option with less risk of involvement in fighting, and partly because it was more suitable to utilize Japan’s strength in engineering capability. From 2010 to 2012, the DPJ administration began contributing the JEG to the two UNPKOs , namely, Haiti and South Sudan, where the “All Japan” approach was carried out as the central piece in the activities of Japanese delegation. The second Abe administration , which returned to power at the end of 2012, would succeed the “All Japan” approach, especially in South Sudan (Hanatani & Urakami, 2016). We will trace this development in the next chapter.

3 The Decline of Anti-militarism in the Political Scene and Public Opinion

We will briefly discuss here how anti-military constraints had declined following peacekeeping participation during the period under review in this chapter. To this end, we will present two points: the changing political environment and the shift in the public opinion.

The early 1990s, when the first Japanese peacekeepers were sent to Cambodia, were also a time of tremendous domestic political turmoil in Japan. In August 1993, immediately before the return of the JEG from Cambodia, the LDP’s single party dominance (known as the 1955 System) was finally terminated. Surprisingly, the following year, the LDP returned to power with a previously unimaginable political partnership with the anti-military JSP . The JSP’s participation in the 1994 coalition government ironically led to the fatal decline of anti-militarism. Under the 1955 System, the JSP had been the largest opposition party representing the anti-military camp. After joining the coalition government in 1994, the party’s size continued to shrink, even after it had left the governing coalition in 1998. The JSP was renamed the Social Democratic Party (SDP ) in 1996, but this name change did not halt the party’s steady marginalization in Japanese politics (Fujishige, 2021).

Meanwhile, the DPJ was founded in 1998 and rapidly grew to become the largest opposition. As a farrago of politicians with a wide range of backgrounds, from the left to the right, the DPJ took a more flexible stance toward the military issue. Although the DPJ sometimes opposed the SDF’s activities abroad, as seen in the cases of the Indian Ocean and Iraq, these were more or less tactical objections. While in power from 2009 to 2012, the DPJ basically projected an overall positive attitude toward Japanese involvement in UNPKOs , as long as it occurred within the UN framework. Their willingness was illustrated by DPJ decisions to dispatch Japanese personnel, including the SDF , to the UNPKOs in Haiti and South Sudan in 2010 and 2012 (see Chaps. 7 and 8).

The shift in public opinion also accelerated the decline of anti-militarism, especially concerning IPC-related activities. According to the Cabinet Office’s public opinion poll on the SDF and defense issues in 1994, for example, 22.3 percent of respondents answered that the SDF should put more emphasis on IPC-related works, while only 6.5 percent positively evaluated the SDF’s actual performance in IPC (Cabinet Office, 1994) (Fig. 3.2). Considering the timing of this survey, one year after the completion of UNTAC , it seems likely that this experience of SDF deployment gradually changed public opinion favorably toward IPC-related activities. In early 2012, a few months before Abe’s return to power, a similar survey showed that 43.5 percent of the respondents agreed that the SDF should place more emphasis on IPC-related works, while 48.8 percent gave a high opinion of the SDF’s actual performance in the field. This comparison clearly illustrates that anti-military public resistance considerably declined regarding SDF participation in UNPKOs and other IPC works (Cabinet Office, 2012).

Fig. 3.2
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Public opinion poll on the SDF’s activities. (Cabinet Office, 1994, 2012, Authors’ creation)

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Two elements drove this relatively rapid change in public opinion. First, the deployment to Cambodia significantly increased the SDF’s media exposure. The image of hardworking and friendly SDF troops operating in an unstable Cambodia was widely reported by Japanese media, providing an opportunity for the SDF to regain the spotlight after a long period in the shadows. Second, anti-military oppositions argued that the SDF’s overseas deployment would deteriorate relations with Japan’s Asian neighbors. In reality, however, the SDF was more often welcomed by neighboring countries, which effectively undermined the validity of anti-military arguments (Fujishige, 2021; see Appendices C and D).

4 Summary of Chap. 3

This chapter traced the historical course of Japan’s peacekeeping policy from 1992, when the PKO Act was established and the first SDF contingent was dispatched to Cambodia, to 2012, immediately before the return of Prime Minister Abe . After providing an overview of the evolution of the narrow and broader versions of IPC policy, we examined how the GoJ reacted to the trends of “robustness” and “integration.” As regards “robustness,” the strict constraint on the SDF peacekeepers’ use of weapons became a focus for controversy because the gap between the Japanese national caveats and the UN standard was gradually understood through firsthand experience in Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor, and elsewhere. For this reason, the PKO Act was amended twice, in 1998 and 2001, but the revision remained to the minimal extent and the “coming-to-aid” duty was still excluded. Meanwhile, the trend of “integration” fit well with Japan’s strength in engineering capacity, leading to the formation of civil-military cooperation called the “All Japan” approach. With this historical development over two decades, the traditional anti-militarism slowly but steadily declined.