Snap elections are often a sign of political upheaval – not so for Japan. When Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved parliament in January and set the stage for elections on February 8, it wasn’t, as in France, a sign of paralysis or weakness.
Rather, it’s a sign of political stability — Takaichi’s popularity is poised to give her center-right LDP party, which was on the verge of collapse before she took over, a landslide, and so continues her honeymoon with the electorate four months after taking office.
As many traditional US allies, most obviously in Europe, grapple with the rebalancing of the relationship with the US, Japan observes the drama with a clear-eyed pragmatism. During the latest tensions with Europe over US ambitions to take sovereignty over Greenland, I was in Tokyo. There I met many officials, experts, journalists, and industry representatives, all of them following unfolding events closely.
There is a collective understanding among Japanese foreign policy and national security thinkers that what happens in Europe, and especially with Russia’s war in Ukraine, will have profound and long-lasting implications for the Indo-Pacific.
Japan is a frontline state facing an increasingly dangerous security environment as it eyes an increasingly militarized China, with its growing willingness to use economic coercion. North Korea, another near-neighbor, behaves as a nuclear state and now acts as a Russian military subcontractor, sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine to satisfy the Kremlin’s needs. Meanwhile, increasingly aggressive moves from Russia and China have included joint military incursions into Japan’s air and maritime domain. Japan is transforming its once-pacifist strategic approach to defense and security in order to adapt and prepare for the future. Defense spending is rising fast from a low level.
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