Japan’s Intelligence Awakening: Can a New Intelligence Agency Fix Japan’s Security Deficit?

Japan’s new intelligence agency signals a decisive break from postwar restraint, but its strategic gains may come at the cost of domestic freedoms and heightened Indo-Pacific tensions—a classic case of opening Pandora’s box.

Japan’s Intelligence Initiative

Japan is making a bold move to create a national intelligence agency for the first time since World War II, and it is seeking assistance from its western partners in this regard. According to the media, intelligence officials from the United States, Japan’s main security ally, have offered input on cyber defense systems and methods of countering industrial espionage. It should be mentioned that the government under PM Takaichi succeeded in adopting a resolution on establishing a national intelligence agency in both the upper and lower houses. There are two establishments created in this piece of legislation: the first one is called the National Intelligence Council, which acts as a central command of the intelligence process, and the other one is for the operational part.

Historical Perspective

Richard J. Samuels once noted, “Japan’s postwar security institutions were designed as much to restrain state power as to defend the state.” During the Second World War, Japan did not have any single unified intelligence command; rather, it comprised several disintegrated units that performed the very functions of espionage and........

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