ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the relationship linking military power to national security to show the strategic logic underpinning Japanese maritime power and capabilities. By bringing the question of strategy back into the assessment of Japanese military power, this chapter tests the Japanese pursuit of military ‘means’ against specific security ‘ends’, not against supposed standards of normality. Within this context, it argues that the specific composition of Japanese military power is the product of a maritime strategy intended to address the impact of the archipelago’s geography and dependence on international sea-lanes identified by analysts and historians.