Interviews | Security | East Asia

Japan’s So-Called ‘Rising Militarism’ and Japan-US Relations

Insights from Kuni Miyake.

U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae to deliver remarks to Yokosuka Naval troops aboard the USS George Washington at Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan on Oct. 28, 2025.

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Kuni Miyake — special adviser and board member of The Canon Institute for Global Studies in Tokyo, president of the Foreign Policy Institute, visiting professor at Ritsumeikan University, and former senior diplomat in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs — is the 522nd in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.” 

Identify the key factors fueling Japan’s so-called “rising militarism.”

With the exception of a few pundits both in Japan and abroad – whom I refer to as “post-World War II utopian pacifists” – almost no one believes that Japan is “becoming militaristic.” At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, only one participant, whose government is non-democratic, spending almost five times more on military than Japan, and continuously threatening its neighbors, engaged in such “propaganda.” Japan’s Minister of Defense thoroughly refuted in response. 

The vast majority of the Japanese public, who have supported democratic civilian control over the armed forces for more than 80 years, would likely be perplexed by this kind of question itself.

Analyze Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s calculus in strengthening Japan’s Self-Defense Forces as a way to fortify the Japan-U.S. security alliance.

Fortifying the Japan-U.S. security alliance is not the “purpose” of Japan’s efforts to enhance its deterrence, but merely the “result” of it. Since World War II, and particularly after the Vietnam War, power balance among major countries in the Indo-Pacific region had relatively been well maintained. It was not until the 2010s that this regional balance of power began to break down. Since then, the military buildup by our huge neighbor, especially in maritime domains, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, has heightened concerns among nations in the Indo-Pacific region – including Japan and Southeast Asia  – that seek to maintain the status quo. 

It is only natural that recent Japanese administrations, including Ms. Takaichi’s, have worked to expand necessary deterrence capabilities of Japan in cooperation not only with the United States or Australia, our........

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