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Creating Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force : a sword well made
\"This work is the first of its kind to offer, in English, an institutional and organizational history focused on the GSDF [Ground Self-Defense Force] for the first 70 years of its existence. It takes on issues of policy and challenges the accepted history of the origin of Article 9. It is the first study to focus on the GSDF's creation of its own personal identity, and the first history to trace depictions, and the lack of depictions, of soldiers in Japan's postwar popular culture. As well, the history highlights understandings of and challenges to Japan's defense policy and defense identity in popular culture. The history of the creation of the Ground Self-Defense Force is complex, involving policymakers from two nations, a public that comes to desire a defense force that does not seem military, and most importantly, a military that wants to serve the public. The story begins with defeat, but is ultimately a story of victory; the victory of a dedicated group of soldiers and other public servants who, working through the difficulties enumerated in this study, manage to craft a professional, well-respected ground force that is committed to serving the nation of Japan and contributing to international security abroad and still seeks a consistently positive and active presence in their country's imagination\"--Page 23.
Book
Creating Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945-2015
Creating Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, 1945–2015 is a timely contribution to postwar Japan security studies. It is the first comprehensive account of Japan’s post-1945 army, including a comprehensive institutional history, together with the evolution of roles and missions and the adoption of successive professional identities. The organizational history is embedded within a thorough examination of Japan’s own defense policy, as well as of America’s policy of alliance with Japan. The book examines and challenges assumptions about the drafting and adoption of the War Renunciation clause of Japan’s postwar Peace Constitution, Article 9, which uniquely not only renounces war, but the arms to wage war. Thus Japan’s army is not called an army, but the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The work also examines the place of an army and soldiers in the formation of Japan’s national identity after its last devastating war, and explores the impact of constitutional, legal and policy restrictions, as well as the power of the legacy of the still-largely vilified Imperial Japanese Army on GSDF members who seek to serve because “there are people we want to protect.” The study is rounded by an examination of the place of soldiers in Japan’s popular culture, focused on movies, manga and anime, assessing the impact on the GSDF of a public imagination that most often ignores or villainizes soldiers, though ending with a note that some positive images of soldiers and of the GSDF members themselves have started to appear in the last few years. The book’s author, a retired U.S. Army soldier who spent more than twenty years working, studying and training with the GSDF, offers a broad-ranging exploration of a unique organization. This work is extensively researched, using English and Japanese sources, and will appeal to anyone interested in Japanese security studies, alliance studies, and military imagery in Japanese pop culture, as well as to students of military history, international security, international relations, and cultural identity.
eBook