Chinese salami-slicing makes Japan lashout and their impacts inevitable – bolstering deterrence key
Green & Hornung 18 (Michael, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and Jeffrey, political scientist at the nonprofit RAND Corporation, War on the Rocks, “IS JAPAN’S NEW DEFENSE PLAN AMBITIOUS ENOUGH?” published December 6th, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/12/is-japans-new-defense-plan-ambitious-enough/, accessed 7/17/19, JME.)
Despite Abe’s successful recalibration of Japanese strategy since 2013, the security environment continues to deteriorate around Japan. From Japan’s perspective, the primary concern remains China’s rapid military build-up. Coupled with its constant gray-zone provocations, mostly in the maritime realm but increasingly in other realms as well, Beijing increasingly looks willing to employ coercive measures to advance its interests, change the status quo, and gradually shift the strategic playing field in its favor. Additionally, despite the flurry of diplomacy, Japan remains concerned about North Korea. North Korea’s growing arsenal of medium- to long-range missiles, to include intercontintental ballistic missiles, ensure that all of Japan remains in range of attack. And with a demonstrated nuclear capability, as well as an unknown arsenal of other weapons of mass destruction, Japan fears that any onset of provocations on the peninsula could lead to destruction in Japan on a level not seen since August 1945. While Russia is still seen as a major global actor, Japan does not view Russia as a primary security threat, although it finds it necessary to observe its activities in the Russian Far East.
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