The Confrontation over the Senkakus and the Transformation of Japan’s Security Strategy During the Abe and Suga Administrations

This paper focuses on Japan’s long-term military response to the new status quo of continuous, if often ritualized, confrontation around the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands between Japan and China. It argues that this new status quo of confrontation has had a large impact on Japan’s military strategy in the East China Sea, with broader implications for Japan’s overall security policy, and even domestic politics. It identifies an emerging Japanese A2/AD strategy over the Ryukyus and Senkaku islands designed to hold at risk any Chinese military and Coast Guard units operating in the vicinity of either. Japan is building an A2/AD bubble over the Ryukyus and Senkakus by deploying anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles to several islands in the Ryukyu chain, and by developing newer and more long-range missiles, including a new ground launched Hyper-Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP) missile for targeting ships and remote islands, with deployment expected as early as 2026. This paper also considers some of the challenges Japan faces in fully developing this A2/AD strategy, including limited land area and the difficulty of moving mobile missile units around populated areas.Article【論文／Articles】departmental bulletin pape

New directions in Japan's security: non-US centric evolution, introduction to a special issue

During the cold war the United States was overwhelmingly central in Japan's security policy. Japan hosted US bases and the Self-Defense Forces held joint exercises with the US military, even while shunning contacts with other militaries. Japan essentially refused even to discuss security with its neighbors. Special exceptions were made for the United States in otherwise sweeping policies, such as the exception for the United States in Tokyo's ban on weapons exports and co-development. Since the end of the cold war, Japan's security policy has undergone a little noticed transformation: it has steadily moved away from being centered on the United States as its sole security partner. Tokyo has initiated bilateral security dialogues with its Asian neighbors and assumed a leadership role in promoting regional multilateral security cooperation as a supplement to the US alliance. Japan has begun building bilateral security partnerships with a range of countries and actors, from Australia and India to the European Union. Paradoxically these changes have occurred even as the US–Japan alliance has strengthened. The articles in this special issue examine these new security ties with states and multilateral organizations, and other changes in policy that have made the United States less ‘special,’ such as by allowing arms exports to other actors.submittedVersionLocked until 10.07.2019 due to copyright restrictions. This is an Original Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Pacific Review on 10.01.2018, available at https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2017.141732

Conclusion

submittedVersionThis is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of a chapter published in [The Japanes Ground Self-Defense Force, Search for Legitimacy] Locked until 29.1.2020 due to copyright restrictions. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F978-1-137-55194-8_

The East China Sea: A Case of Ocean Geopolitics and Maritime Conflict

This article analyzes ECS maritime disputes through two lenses: as a globally comparable case study mediated through LOS and as a distinct regional case that differs in several respects from disputes outside East Asia. This study focuses on the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute but also examines broader EEZ and ADIZ disputes between China, Japan, and South Korea and the Ieodo dispute between China and South Korea. It finds that global dynamics are applicable to the ECS disputes, as countries depend on LOS rules even while attempting to interpret them for unilateral advantage whenever possible, and parties avoid formal arbitration, when possible, in favor of bilateral agreements. However, regional factors impact these dynamics. The sudden and sometimes violent transition from the Sino-Centric tributary system to the Westphalian system has undermined the legitimacy of LOS and western international law regionally. Finally, the presence of China as a party to almost all ECS disputes limits the application of LOS because China’s position as a near-peer competitor with the US gives it additional options to unilaterally impose its will. Unlike relatively weaker parties to these disputes, China may be less concerned about flouting LOS that it does not see as necessary for protecting its maritime claims.The East China Sea: A Case of Ocean Geopolitics and Maritime ConflictpublishedVersio

The Senkaku Islands and the Pivot in Japanese defence policy

This policy brief examines the three new national security documents that Japan issued at the end of 2022. It argues that the origins of the changes announced by these documents, including Japan’s plan to increase defense spending by 60% and its decision to acquire a modest counter-strike capability with long-range missiles is not rooted in recent geopolitical develops concerning Ukraine or Taiwan, but is in fact the culmination of a decade long effort to strengthen Japan’s territorial defense, especially of the Senkaku islands. In short, the changes announced in late 2022 represent a doubling down on territorial defense, not the emergence of a direct military role in regional security

The vertebrate taxonomy ontology: a framework for reasoning across model organism and species phenotypes

Background: A hierarchical taxonomy of organisms is a prerequisite for semantic integration of biodiversity data. Ideally, there would be a single, expansive, authoritative taxonomy that includes extinct and extant taxa, information on synonyms and common names, and monophyletic supraspecific taxa that reflect our current understanding of phylogenetic relationships. Description: As a step towards development of such a resource, and to enable large-scale integration of phenotypic data across vertebrates, we created the Vertebrate Taxonomy Ontology (VTO), a semantically defined taxonomic resource derived from the integration of existing taxonomic compilations, and freely distributed under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) public domain waiver. The VTO includes both extant and extinct vertebrates and currently contains 106,947 taxonomic terms, 22 taxonomic ranks, 104,736 synonyms, and 162,400 cross-references to other taxonomic resources. Key challenges in constructing the VTO included (1) extracting and merging names, synonyms, and identifiers from heterogeneous sources; (2) structuring hierarchies of terms based on evolutionary relationships and the principle of monophyly; and (3) automating this process as much as possible to accommodate updates in source taxonomies. Conclusions: The VTO is the primary source of taxonomic information used by the Phenoscape Knowledgebase (http://phenoscape.org/ webcite), which integrates genetic and evolutionary phenotype data across both model and non-model vertebrates. The VTO is useful for inferring phenotypic changes on the vertebrate tree of life, which enables queries for candidate genes for various episodes in vertebrate evolution. Keywords: Data integration; Evolutionary biology; Paleontology; Taxonomic ran

What are school leavers' priorities for festival preparation?

Published: 20 November 2013This paper reports on the findings from a qualitative research study that explored how young people prepared to minimise and/or avoid alcohol-related harm while attending a Schoolies Festival (SF). SFs are mass gatherings at which young people (schoolies) celebrate their graduation from high school. The attendance of schoolies, in various Australian communities, ranges between 10 000 and 30 000 individuals during the event. The literature suggests that schoolies are at higher than normal risk of harm at SF from misuse of alcohol, unsafe sex, aggressive behaviour, and other risk-taking factors. As a result of these concerns, SF organisers developed an infrastructure that treats alcohol-related harm, and provides on-site care (first aid stations) by St John Ambulance staff. This study used focus groups to identify strategies used by schoolies to avoid alcohol-related harm during SFs. Data revealed that schoolies did not actively seek health information before attending the event and did not display an interest in doing so. It is important to note that schoolies planned to use alcohol to celebrate and have a good time. Therefore a harm minimisation approach with a focus on providing the necessary infrastructure at SFs to minimise the dangers associated with excess alcohol use is important. Schoolies indicated that they had no desire for information about the hazards of alcohol ingestion. If any health messages were to be used by health authorities, it would be far more appropriate to promote the message of ‘take care of your mate’, to contribute to building a supportive environment at the event. This may be of more benefit to minimise harm at SFs than funding other health messages.Alison Hutton, Lynette Cusack, Lana Zannettino, Sarah J. M. Shaefer, Naomi Verdonk and Paul Arbo

Insights into the Ecology and Evolutionary Success of Crocodilians Revealed through Bite-Force and Tooth-Pressure Experimentation

BackgroundCrocodilians have dominated predatory niches at the water-land interface for over 85 million years. Like their ancestors, living species show substantial variation in their jaw proportions, dental form and body size. These differences are often assumed to reflect anatomical specialization related to feeding and niche occupation, but quantified data are scant. How these factors relate to biomechanical performance during feeding and their relevance to crocodilian evolutionary success are not known.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe measured adult bite forces and tooth pressures in all 23 extant crocodilian species and analyzed the results in ecological and phylogenetic contexts. We demonstrate that these reptiles generate the highest bite forces and tooth pressures known for any living animals. Bite forces strongly correlate with body size, and size changes are a major mechanism of feeding evolution in this group. Jaw shape demonstrates surprisingly little correlation to bite force and pressures. Bite forces can now be predicted in fossil crocodilians using the regression equations generated in this research.Conclusions/SignificanceCritical to crocodilian long-term success was the evolution of a high bite-force generating musculo-skeletal architecture. Once achieved, the relative force capacities of this system went essentially unmodified throughout subsequent diversification. Rampant changes in body size and concurrent changes in bite force served as a mechanism to allow access to differing prey types and sizes. Further access to the diversity of near-shore prey was gained primarily through changes in tooth pressure via the evolution of dental form and distributions of the teeth within the jaws. Rostral proportions changed substantially throughout crocodilian evolution, but not in correspondence with bite forces. The biomechanical and ecological ramifications of such changes need further examination

Decentering from the US in regional security multilateralism: Japan's 1991 pivot

This article poses the question of why, after having consistently pursued an isolationist strategy of avoiding security ties with partners other than the US, and having followed the US in opposing regional security multilateralism, did Japan suddenly reverse course and get out in front of the US with its first post-war regional security initiative. This article addresses this question by tracing the internal debates, policy process and motivations that drove Japan to reverse its position, a process that transformed Japan into the leading champion of regional security multilateralism in East Asia