In Defense of Japan provides the first complete, up-to-date, English-language account of the history, politics, and policy of Japan's strategic space development. The dual-use nature of space technologies, meaning that they cut across both market and military applications, has had two important consequences for Japan. First, Japan has developed space technologies for the market in its civilian space program that have yet to be commercially competitive. Second, faced with rising geopolitical uncertainties and in the interest of their own economics, the makers of such technologies have been critical players in the shift from the market to the military in Japan's space capabilities and policy. This book shows how the sum total of market-to-military moves across space launch vehicles, satellites and spacecraft, and emerging related technologies, already mark Japan as an advanced military space power.

The purpose of this book is to examine the security-related aspects behind Japan's emerging internationalism. Japan has for some time been projecting a higher international profile, which the Diet's approval to allow Japanese armed forces to operate abroad is but one manifestation. The book's scope is not limited to military issues; it embraces a spectrum of security-related topics such as constitutional amendment, international re-alignment and cooperation, defence industrialisation, Japan-US relations and technology leakage, and Japan's role in the new international order.

Michael Green explores the evolution of the kokusanka debate and the indigenous development and production of weapons of war, lucidly outlining the question of Japanese political and military autonomy in the postwar era.

Defence Industries in the 21st Century explores the transformation in the global defence industrial production through examining the interaction between international and domestic factors. With the global defence industry and arms market likely continue to expand and mature, the ways in which this progression could influence international politics remain obscure. In practice, as the contents of this book show, the defence industrial bases and arms export policies of emerging states display significant variance. This variance is the result of a unique balance between domestic and international factors that has shaped the defence industrialisation behaviour and policies of the less industrialised states. One of the most important conclusions of the book is that the interplay between domestic and international factors clearly influences the variation in the emerging states’ defence industrialisation policies, as well as their success or failure. While international factors create opportunities, they also limit the options available to emerging economies. Domestic factors also play an important role by shaping the policy choices of the states’ decision makers. Exploring the balance between international and domestic factors and the ways in which they influence defence industrialisation in emerging states, Defence Industries in the 21st Century will be of great interest to scholars of Defence Industries, Arms Manufacturing, and Defence, Strategic and Security Studies more generally. The chapters were originally published in Defence Studies, Comparative Strategy and All Azimuth.