Japan's Postwar Military and Civil Society: Contesting a Better Life by Tomoyuki Sasaki (review)

One of the curious legacies of the US Occupation of Japan following World War Two is the presence of a large military force inside a nominally pacifist nation. This pacifist principle is enshrined in Article Nine of Japan's constitution, which renounced war as a means of settling international disputes and disavowed the maintenance of military forces. This article, and the constitution as a whole, was written by US Occupation officials in the aftermath of the war, with the intent of preventing Japan from ever again becoming a menace to the world. As John Dower and others have shown, this pacifism, though an American imposition, resonated among a war-weary Japanese people and soon became central to their own national identity and postwar purpose. Yet as the Cold War in Asia ramped up, the United States perceived the need for a strong ally in the Pacific and took steps in the latter years of the Occupation to rearm Japan by establishing a military and policing force that would eventually become Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF). In the decades that followed, Japan built one of the world's largest military forces (by the measurement of expenditures), even while living under a "peace constitution" and while relegating the military to a far more peripheral role in the national imagination than is the case in other world powers.

Yet for those areas of Japan in which the nation's military forces are concentrated, the SDF has been far from peripheral. It is to those areas that Sasaki directs his attention. He narrows his focus specifically to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, where an outsized portion of SDF troops and bases were placed due to its strategic geographic position relative to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. His emphasis is on the relationship between the SDF and local society in Hokkaido during the first few decades following the war. He studies this relationship under the rubric of "militarization," a concept that scholars have used to describe the broad range of activities and connections through which civil society is transformed by the presence of military forces.

Sasaki's narrative account begins in the 1950s with efforts by the National Police Reserve (the forerunner to the SDF) to recruit volunteers—an effort that succeeded spectacularly at first, with over 300,000 applicants in the first few months. This success stemmed mainly from the devastating economic effects of the war, which left young men with few options for gainful employment. As Japan's economic fortunes improved, particularly after the stimulus to the economy provided by the Korean war, recruitment became a more difficult business, since many young men now had the viable option of fleeing the countryside to seek employment in Japan's booming urban centers. As has been the case in other societies, SDF recruitment efforts in Japan were most successful among those with the least certain employment prospects.

In addition to providing a valuable source of livelihood for those left behind by Japan's economic miracle, the SDF worked proactively to build a positive relationship with society in Hokkaido by becoming useful in ways beyond military defense. Beginning in the 1950s, the SDF conducted extensive civil engineering projects in Hokkaido, building and repairing roads, providing disaster relief, clearing land for construction projects, and—this being Hokkaido—plowing snow. The SDF also made an effort to contribute to the health of the local economy by encouraging its discharged servicemen to return to Hokkaido. It established close connections with local government offices and private companies in order to ensure that SDF servicemen would find jobs and become productive, responsible citizens after returning to civilian life. While these efforts were clearly in the interests of the SDF's image and its recruitment goals, they also provided a shot in the arm for a region plagued by depopulation and labor scarcity.

Sasaki is careful to show that despite the SDF's efforts...