TY - JOUR
T1 - NATO-Japan Relations
T2 - Projecting Strategic Narratives of “Natural Partnership” and Cooperative Security
AU - Bacon, Paul
AU - Burton, Joe
N1 - Funding Information:
Japan also provided significant support for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and for reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan, helping to mobilize international support for Afghanistan’s ongoing development by organizing the Tokyo Conference in July 2012, and itself pledging US$5 billion over a five-year period (2009–13).10 Japan has supported similar Trust Fund projects in other partner countries; it is supporting an ammunition stockpile-management project in Tajikistan, the destruction of pesticides in Moldova, and the clearance of an ammunition depot in Georgia. It also contributed to a project to clear contaminated land and safely dispose of unexploded ordnance in Azerbaijan.11 More recently, Japan’s Maritime Self Defence Force has assisted NATO ships with preventing pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden.12
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - The article uses Strategic Narrative Theory to explain how NATO has successfully communicated narratives of “natural partnership” and cooperative security to Japan. Japan strongly perceives NATO to be an embodiment and guarantor of global norms and international law. NATO and Japanese security commentators make a clear and consistent linkage between Russian and Chinese threats to international law respectively, as part of an extended deterrence strategy. We refer to this approach as one of “strategic parallelism.” Less positive dimensions of Japan–NATO relations are also considered: a significant majority of Japanese elite interviewees are critical of NATO’s handling of Russia and believe that this will have implications for the defense of the rule of law in the East and South China Seas. Japan has also reached out diplomatically to Russia, seeking a rapprochement that further undermines joint commitment to strategic parallelism.
AB - The article uses Strategic Narrative Theory to explain how NATO has successfully communicated narratives of “natural partnership” and cooperative security to Japan. Japan strongly perceives NATO to be an embodiment and guarantor of global norms and international law. NATO and Japanese security commentators make a clear and consistent linkage between Russian and Chinese threats to international law respectively, as part of an extended deterrence strategy. We refer to this approach as one of “strategic parallelism.” Less positive dimensions of Japan–NATO relations are also considered: a significant majority of Japanese elite interviewees are critical of NATO’s handling of Russia and believe that this will have implications for the defense of the rule of law in the East and South China Seas. Japan has also reached out diplomatically to Russia, seeking a rapprochement that further undermines joint commitment to strategic parallelism.
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U2 - 10.1080/14799855.2017.1361730
DO - 10.1080/14799855.2017.1361730
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85029521519
SN - 1479-9855
VL - 14
SP - 38
EP - 50
JO - Asian Security
JF - Asian Security
IS - 1
ER -