PYEONGTAEK, SOUTH KOREA ¨C Last week, Japan played host to a meeting of the foreign ministers from Japan, Australia, India and the United States. The purpose of the ¡°Quad¡± meeting was to assess how to reinforce the rules-based international order and move jointly towards securing a ¡°free and open Indo-Pacific.¡± Per the norm following any of these sorts of Quad-related meetings, a debate emerged surrounding the utility of such a security relationship. Is it futile for Japan to be pursuing this? Could the world be seeing the underpinnings of a new NATO-like alliance in Asia? What can Japan¡¯s role even be in such a security arrangement?
Those are all valid questions related to the Quad and indeed all of Japan¡¯s prospective security relationships as the country seeks to find its place in global security during the Reiwa Era. Those questions are not easy to answer either, especially given the country¡¯s unique constitutional provisions that limit just how far it can cooperate with any prospective ally. The questions are, however, possible to answer if one understands how to examine Japan¡¯s security relationships in the first place.
The first step is to recognize Japan¡¯s limitations as a security partner. The government¡¯s Article 9-related policies prohibit the Self-Defense Force from joining combined military commands (like NATO), limit the geographic reach and legal employability of the nation¡¯s military capabilities, and restrict the scope of its ability to exercise collective self defense. The lattermost condition means that Japan is unable to enter a mutual defense pact that so commonly underwrites alliance relationships.
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