Is Japan on a path towards assuming a greater military role internationally, or has the recent military normalisation ground to a halt since the premiership of Junichiro Koizumi? In this book, Christopher W. Hughes assesses developments in defence expenditure, civil-military relations, domestic and international military-industrial complexes, Japan's procurement of regional and global power-projection capabilities, the expansion of US-Japan cooperation, and attitudes towards nuclear weapons, constitutional revision and the use of military force.

In all of these areas, dynamic and long-term changes outweigh Japan's short-term political logjam over security policy. Hughes argues that many post-war constraints on Japan's military role are still eroding, and that Tokyo is moving towards a more assertive military role and strengthened US-Japan cooperation. Japan's remilitarisation will boost its international security role and the dominance of the US-Japan alliance in regional and global security affairs, but will need to be carefully managed if it is not to become a source of destabilising tensions.