From the day Japan surrendered to end World War II, its leaders have sought to rehabilitate the country and restore its prewar status as a leading power in the community of nations. Strategic alliance with the United States has been the chief means to that end.
The bilateral relationship has obscured a second tactic: membership in the United Nations and the quest for a permanent seat on its Security Council. Reinhardt Drifte, head of the Japanese studies program at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has focused on this in "Japan's Quest for a Permanent U.N. Security Council Seat."
Drifte's analysis is exhaustive; no facet of the Security Council bid goes untouched. (He admitted in an interview, however, that discussion of Japanese participation in peacekeeping operations had to be abbreviated. "It's a book in itself," he explained.) What emerges is a fascinating picture of Japanese foreign-policy making. His key arguments are: