The Senkaku Islands Confrontation and the Transformation of Japan's Defense

YCAPS is delighted to announce next event in the Community Conversations seminar series in the Yokosuka community! This event will feature Dr. Paul Midford, Professor of Political Science at Meiji Gakuin University.

This book talk argues that the transformation of Japan’s defense since 2012 has been triggered by the emergence of the first threat to Japan’s territorial integrity since 1945, namely China’s continual challenging of Japan’s control of the Senkaku Islands. It shows how this threat led to Japan building its own version of an A2/AD strategy and contributed to the demise of the prohibition on not procuring long-range missiles. It argues that the new security documents of 2022 that mandate increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP, is the culmination of this Senkaku-driven post-2012 defense transformation. Nonetheless, Japan’s defense transformation faces significant challenges, including geographic and demographic, base-community relations, and limited SDF capacity.

Dr. Midford analyzes the implications of Japan’s defense transformation for its involvement in a military conflict over Taiwan between China and the USA. His book argues that the attitudinal defensive realism of the Japanese public and many elites explain why the confrontation over the small and remote Senkaku islands led to a transformation of Japanese defense, and why this transformation has been limited to territorial defense and is not leading Japan to play a military role beyond its borders.

Registration: Optional via this Google Form.

Schedule:

• 18:15-19:00 Refreshments & Networking (food & drinks)
• 19:00-20:15 Presentation and Q&A
• 20:15-20:30 Post Event Conversing

Location: *Please take note: We are in a new location for this event! New location listed here:

Yokosuka City Industrial Exchange Plaza Salon Room

〒238-0041 Kanagawa, Yokosuka, Honchō, 3-chōme−27 メルキュールホテル横須賀
https://www.yokosuka-sanpla.jp/

Google Map

Speaker:

Dr. Paul Midford is a Professor of PoliticalScience at Meiji Gakuin University in Yokohama Japan. He specializes in
Japanese foreign and security policies, renewable energy politics and policy, and East Asian regional politics and security. Midford has published in InternationalOrganization, International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies,The Pacific Review, Asian Survey, and Japan Forum. He isauthor of Rethinking Japanese PublicOpinion and Security: From Pacifism to Realism? (Stanford University Press,2011); OvercomingIsolationism: Japan’s Leadership in East Asian Security Multilateralism (StanfordUniversity Press, 2020); and The Senkaku Island Confrontation and the Transformationof Japan’s Defense (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). He is co-editor with Wilhelm Vosse of New Directions in Japan´sSecurity: Non-U.S. Centric Evolution (Routledge, 2020), co-editor withEspen Moe of NewChallenges and Solutions for Renewable Energy: Japan, East Asia and Northern Europe(Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), and co-editor of EastAsian Maritime Conflicts: The Role of Technology, UNCLOS, and Regional Cooperation (Palgrave Macmillan 2024).Midford received his doctorate in Political Sciencefrom Columbia University in 2001, and previously taught at Kanazawa University, Lafayette College, Kwansei Gakuin University, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

Format: This event will be off-the-record.

Registration: Optional via this Google Form
Moderators: Jeff Mazziotta

Co-Sponsor: None
Seminar Cost: Free of charge