Saori Katada and Kei Koga, Japan’s Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World. Oxford Studies in Grand Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026. Pp. xviii and 283. £99.
Reviewed by Jeremy Black
The concept of strategic culture focuses on individual states rather than other possible contexts and expressions for example sub-national including regional, or supra-national, including ‘regional’ at a different level. This emphasis on individual states makes the decision in this series to produce a number of such works, first on Japan and, forthcoming, on Sweden, Germany and South Korea, most welcome.
This is very much a book by IR specialists, rather than historians, and should be considered accordingly. There is not an archival focus nor scope but rather, in what is in world length quite modest, a theoretical interrogation of past and present and, in particular, of Japan’s changing positions between Asian and Western power, between developing and advanced economy, and between small, middle and major power. The chronological scope is that from the 1868 Meiji Restoration to the present, with this period divided between key strategic sub-periods, but without any comparable consideration of earlier centuries. The theoretical focus is on the interplay of agency and structure, with decision-makers seeking to manage both international and domestic constraints on its developing goals. Japanese agency is emphasised. The authors also seek to pursue continuities in purpose in order to clarify the reasons for changes in content, notably international and domestic pressures.
In part, the authors offer a useful guide to Japanese foreign policy but there are significant gaps. For example, the years 1942–5 are not really covered. It is as if war means the end of foreign policy, which is not the case. Instead, these are years in which foreign policy very much goes into overdrive, whether toward allies, opponents and neutrals. Thus, Japanese agency needs to be considered then. So also with the 1960s which receive inadequate attention. Instead, much of the discussion is on recent years which has the serious effect that it can appear somewhat presentist and, for that very reason, tentative in the face of the shocks of the present.
There is a more fundamental question about this book, namely whether the theoretical structure works adequately. Domestic and international are reified and counterpointed when, in practice, there is a far greater degree of overlap and interchange. Furthermore, the revelation that Japanese governments have agency will surprise few as it is readily apparent that blocs and great powers do not ‘direct’ and that, at every level, states have a degree of agency. This was particularly apparent after the debacle of 1944–5 in part thanks to the opportunities for manoeuvre created by the threats to American interests posed by Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and, the following year, the launching of the Korean War. Indeed, the Far Eastern Question was at the fore anew, with Japan playing a major role, now indirectly, but still with considerable consequence. Possibly, rather than the focus of this book being on Japanese policymaking, it should be on the Far Eastern Question, a subcontinental rivalry that helped put the agency of all participants within constraints, and that continues to do so.
