ABSTRACT
In 1989, when the Cold War abruptly ended, Japan faced a harsh dilemma. Without an active threat from Asian communism, the United States was likely to conclude that it was no longer necessary to keep such massive forces deployed around the region. Without the protective umbrella of the United States, Japan would suddenly be alone, pitted against a potentially hostile China, nuclear-armed rogue states in the Russian Far East, and an easily predictable increase in tensions among traditional rivals in Southeast Asia. In 1994, a government commission chaired by Higuchi Hirotaro, chairman of Asahi Breweries, proposed that Japan should revise its defense policy around the principle of collective security, allowing Japan to participate in the defense of its allies as well as in peacekeeping operations. In 2000 and 2001, new parliamentary commissions and new prime ministers were still haggling over the terms of this new regime and how to adapt Article Nine to broader standards of international security.
