Image credit: Toru Hanai / AFP

June 22, 2023

Japan’s Role in Advancing a Networked Regional Security Architecture

By Lisa Curtis

Japan’s recent release of its National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS)—along with its announcement to increase defense spending to 2 percent of GDP by 2027—heralds a new era of defense prioritization for Tokyo. A reflection of its growing concern about the evolving security landscape in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s new defense policies will allow it to contribute to a networked security architecture that will enhance deterrence and help maintain a peaceful, ruled-based order in the Indo-Pacific.

In the end, networked deterrence is not about militarization; it is about being prepared and preventing aggression and conflict.

In its new security documents, Japan is clear about the need to protect Taiwan from intensifying military intimidation and coercion. The NSS says Japan will “prevent the emergence of a situation in which any one state can unilaterally change the status quo,” while the NDS highlights the five ballistic missiles that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone on August 4, 2022, during China’s four-day military exercises in the Taiwan Strait following former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. This situation brought home to Japan that China’s intensifying coercive military activities against Taiwan will directly impact Japan’s own security. The NSS asserts that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international peace and security, connecting the future of Taiwan directly with global stability.

Read the full article from CSIS.

  • Commentary
    • Foreign Policy
    • September 20, 2023
    Domestic Politics Threaten Hard-Won Success in East Asia

    As momentous and historic as the Camp David agreements were, this trilateral grouping is innately and structurally fragile...

    By Dr. Duyeon Kim

  • Commentary
    • The Wall Street Journal
    • September 19, 2023
    Why Aren’t the Presidential Candidates Debating China?

    Underestimating the China risk is a longstanding American strategic error....

    By David Feith & Gabriel Scheinmann

  • Reports
    • September 13, 2023
    Strengthening the Shield

    In December 2022, Japan’s government released three major strategic documents: the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program. ...

    By Jacob Stokes, Lisa Curtis, Joshua Fitt, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph I. Grimm & Rebecca Wittner

  • Video
    • September 13, 2023
    Dr. Duyeon Kim and the Kim Jong Un-Putin summit

    Dr. Duyeon Kim joins BBC News to discuss Kim Jong Un's visit to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin, and the summit's implications for South Korean security. Watch the full in...

    By Dr. Duyeon Kim

View All Reports View All Articles & Multimedia