Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, by Richard J. Samuels. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007, 320 pp., $29.95 (cloth)

The security debate is heating up in Japan, revealing more cleavages and anxieties than strategic thinking. Hence, this stimulating and insightful analysis of current strategic thinking among Japan's policy elites is timely. Richard Samuels clarifies the international and domestic factors that are shaping the options and choices facing Tokyo and the implications that an emerging strategic consensus in Japan carries for the U.S. alliance and relations in East Asia.

Samuels shows how international constraints and domestic politics have been interacting since the late 19th century, filtering and framing security policy choices. He argues that through all the fluctuations — and Samuels is a very astute guide through these zigs and zags — the search for prestige and autonomy have been the constants. He concludes that they are now within Japan's grasp.

In post-World War II Japan, the Yoshida Doctrine prevailed, involving Japan's cheap ride on defense by exchanging autonomy for the U.S. alliance and military bases. Despite pressure from Washington, Samuels writes, "Yoshida steered Japan brilliantly between Article 9 and the U.S. alliance, 'squeezing it between' (hasamiuchi) pacifism and traditional nationalism."