Video On Demand

Book Event with Sheila A. Smith: Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power

June 10, 2019 • 5:00 – 6:00 pm EDT

Book Event 
With
Sheila A. Smith, Senior Fellow for Japan Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

Moderated by

Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS; Chair in Modern and Contemporary Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy, Georgetown University

Sheila Smith will discuss her new book, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power . Japan’s postwar constitution renounced the use of offensive military force and the constraints of this pledge still bind Japan’s military activities today. As Smith shows, the realities of East Asian geopolitics have the Japanese rethinking that commitment. Japan has increasingly flexed its muscles—deploying troops under UN auspices, participating in coercive sanctions, and raising defense budgets. Japan is not only responding to increasing threats from North Korean missiles and Chinese maritime activities but also reevaluating its dependence on its increasingly unpredictable ally, the United States.

Sheila A. Smith, an expert on Japanese politics and foreign policy, is senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). In addition to this new publication, she is author of Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China (Columbia University Press, 2015), which was released in Japanese as 日中 親愛なる宿敵: 変容する日本政治と対中政策 (Tokyo University Press, 2018), and Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance (Council on Foreign Relations, June 2014). She is also the author of the interactive guide, “Constitutional Change in Japan,” on CFR.org. Smith is vice chair of the U.S. advisors to the U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), a bi-national advisory panel of government officials and private sector members. She also serves on the advisory committee for the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future program of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. She teaches as an adjunct professor at the Asian Studies Department of Georgetown University and serves on the board of its Journal of Asian Affairs. She earned her MA and PhD degrees from the department of political science at Columbia University.

This event is made possible through general support to CSIS.

Sheila A. Smith

Senior Fellow for Japan Studies Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)