Japan's Expanding Security Role and Korea's Strategic Choices

초록

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his second cabinet of 2012, came up with a more resolute program to realize his grandfather’s unfulfilled dream − revision of the Peace Constitution. Intensifying Chinese territorial claims over the Senkaku Islands prompted Tokyo to publish a strategy paper by the newly installed National Security Council (NSC). Accordingly, the Ministry of Defense released their new National Defense Program Outline in 2013. Subsequently, in July 2014, Prime Minister Abe passed the decision on Japan’s right of exercising collective self-defense, signaling a significant shift from the old self-imposed restriction on the use of force as a means of dispute settlement. It was also an outcome of America's consistent demand for fair burden sharing. Amid the surfacing Japanese nationalism and strengthening U.S.-Japan military condominium, memories of devastation and the traditional "Galapagos syndrome" act as constraints on PM Abe’s determined drive for a genuinely sovereign Japan. The future of Japan's increasingly assertive security realism remains uncertain, being affected by multi-dimensional factors of propellants and constraints. South Korea’s response to a greater security role of Japan will partly influence its merit or demerit for the stability of the region. This paper introduces three different strategic options open to the Korean government: watchful observer; benign neglect; or proactive engagement for a safer Peninsula.