ABSTRACT
Security and economic issues that continue to fan controversy also offer some hints about where the alliance is headed. For example, young Japanese are shunning careers in a military whose primary mission seems increasingly vague. Even as Japan emerged as the world’s third-largest military spender, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces are still struggling to redefine themselves. The Persian Gulf crisis added a new dimension to Japan’s long trial over what role the Self-Defense Forces should play. Japan’s military, because of its history as the moving force behind the rightist government that plunged Japan into the invasions of China and Southeast Asia and ultimately into a disastrous war against the United States, has stayed out of virtually all political discourse since being reconstituted as the Self-Defense Forces in the 1950s. An important test will come as the United States slowly begins to reduce its military forces in the Pacific.
