ABSTRACT
Japan deferred its responsibility for defense to the United States and concentrated on promoting economic development. As Japan's security management received support from the press and public opinion, a small defense industry and a slowly expanding Self-Defense Force still made it necessary for Japan to depend upon the United States for its national security even by 1988. Probably the best discussion of Japan's defense policy and how it meshed with the defense policy of the United States was made in early 1988 by James E. Auer, the special assistant for Japan in the office of the United States assistant secretary of defense. Auer concludes that by the mid-1990s Japan's defense capability conceivably might have a "first-class, high-technology air defense, anti-submarine and anti-invasion bulwark very close to the Soviet Union." Treasury Department has been heavily leaning on Japan to secure an adequate level of Japanese investments for US.
