Introduction

Japan’s security policy has undergone important developments in many ways since the end of the Cold War. This can be seen in the enactment of the International Peace Cooperation Law in 1992, which enabled Tokyo to dispatch Self Defence Forces (SDF) to Cambodia as part of United Nations Peace Keeping Operations (UNPKO) in 1993, marking the first overseas deployment of SDF, and subsequently to Angola, Mozambique, East Timor and elsewhere. A major turning point in Japan’s international security role came again in 2003 when the National Diet passed the Iraq Reconstruction Assistance Special Measure Law, leading to the dispatch of ground troops in January 2004 for the first time since the end of World War II to a country in which fighting was still going on. While seeking to increase its military contribution to international security, since the mid-1990s, Japan also embarked on the strengthening of its defence cooperation with the USA, resulting in the issue of the Japan-US Joint Declaration on Security in 1996 and the new guidelines of the Japan-US defence cooperation in 1997. The revision of the guidelines, which explicitly expanded the scope of bilateral defence cooperation from defending Japan’s home islands to dealing with regional crises not involving direct attacks on Japan, signified Japan’s readiness to assume greater military responsibility for the stability of the Asia-Pacific region. The Japan-US defence cooperation has been further bolstered recently by the Japanese decision to deploy a Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) system in December 2003 and the issue of a joint statement at the meeting of the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee in February 2005, which expressed their intention to expand the scope of the bilateral security cooperation from the Asia-Pacific region to global areas.