ABSTRACT
Few people discuss Japanese foreign policy in "strategic" terms. Indeed, most observers characterize Japan's postwar policies as "passive," "reactive," excessively "deferential" to the United States, and lacking any articulation of "Japanese" interests—all characterizations that connote the absence of any strategic logic or rationale. This impression has been heightened recently by Western media attention to Japanese voices urging Japan to "say no," as well as by well-publicized criticisms of the Japanese government by former Japanese hostages in Kuwait and Iraq as lacking an "independent" policy. Indications of a Japanese search for expanded roles in world politics more broadly have reinforced the general characterization.
