Speaker: Professor Paul Midford, Director of the Japan Program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)

 https://www.ntnu.edu/employees/paul.midford

Title: Overcoming Security Isolationism: Japan’s Promotion of East Asian Security Multilateralism Since 1991

Time: 11 December 11:00-12:30

Venue: E2.02 (PAIS meeting room, on the 2^nd floor of the E block, Social Sciences Building)

 https://campus.warwick.ac.uk/?search=E2.02&slid=37858

Abstract:

Paul Midford will ask why Japan pursued regional security isolationism during the Cold War, and why it then suddenly ended this isolationism on the cusp of the Cold War’s end, embracing regional security multilateralism. This talk focuses on the July 1991 Nakayama proposal and the resulting legacy of more than a quarter century of Japanese leadership in promoting regional security multilateralism. Japan’s initial sudden burst of leadership played a crucial role in introducing regional security multilateralism in East Asia through the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the first regional multilateral security forum. Japan’s consistent leadership thereafter played a crucial role by building on the ARF to create other multilateral security institutions in East Asia, including Northeast Asian trilateral cooperation from 2003 (NEA 3), The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) in 2004, the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus Dialogue Partners (ADMM Plus) in 2010, and the East Asian Maritime Forum in 2012. This presentation identifies several challenges that Japan’s pivot from security isolationism toward security engagement and leadership in promoting regional security multilateralism was designed to address. First, to overcome Japan’s post war reputational problem as a military power the reassurance imperative is the most important factor explaining both Japan’s security isolationism during the Cold War and its subsequent active promotion of regional security multilateralism. This presentation also identifies two other motivations for promoting regional security multilateralism: to mitigate its alliance security dilemma of entrapment versus abandonment vis a vis the US, and to build new security utilities not provided by the US-Japan alliance in non-traditional security areas, including counter-piracy, counter-terrorism, and humanitarian and disaster relief operations (HaDR).