ABSTRACT
The strategic style of modern Japan’s leadership is a legacy of premodern influences and the formative experience of the Meiji Restoration. The most important historical legacy in shaping the modern strategic culture was the long experience with feudalism which implanted the values of Realpolitik. In fact, the Tokugawa system was, in some sense, a microcosm of the international system and the competition among fiefs was analogous to that among nations. The kokueki, which is today translated ‘national interest,’ had its origins (like fukoku kyohei) in the competition among domains to keep up with the latest and most successful techniques and institutions. The Meiji leaders instinctively gave priority to the value of power and its symbols. The overriding concern in feudal society with the maximization of military power as a condition of survival meant that power and its symbols were the source of security and prestige. . . . They adapted swiftly to the institutions of informal imperialism – treaty ports, tariff control, extraterritoriality. They seemed instinctively to grasp the importance of adjusting to and using its norms.1
