Japan and Germany in International Relations, 1950-2000: Parallels and Differences

266 THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEFENSE ANALYSIS Japan and Germany in International Relations, 1950-2000: Parallels and Differences Hanns W. Maul1 Japan and Germany show remarkable similarities in their postwar foreign policies. Both have relied on security guarantees by the United States, and have thus accepted dependence on others, rather than trying to assert their autonomy. The new, distinctive approach to foreign policy built around the central element of security interdependence-imposed by the US, but also accepted by the elites and the peoples of Japan and Germany-was highly successful. Now with the end of the Cold War there are question marks about whether the two countries should and could pursue their postwar policies as “civilian powers.” Those questions turn around (a) the desirability of a continuation of the “civilian power” approach by Japan and Germany, which is often perceived as “free riding,” (b) the willingness of elites and the public to stick with the postwar foreign policy consensus, and (c) the ability of the two countries to continue their distinctive foreign policy approach under new, possibly less favorable international circumstances. The author concludes that the civilian power approach basically still seems to provide the best possible course for both countries, but also that Germany and in particular Japan need to do more to keep this approach viable. HANNS W. MAULL 177 Japan and Germany in International Relations, 1950-2000: Parallels and Differences Hanns W. Maul1 Japan and Germany as “Civilian Powers”: 1950-1 990 Divided by the vast land mass of Eurasia, two countries at the periphery of this huge continent have since the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a remarkably similar history. Both were latecomers to the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century imperial- ism, both engaged on a trajectory of state-led modernization at home and military expansionism abroad. Both sought to rise to great-power status and secure their own colonial empires, emulating the older European powers. Both ultimately failed in this effort, bringing down a mayhem of destruction on their neighbors, as well as on themselves. At the end of World War 11, both countries were exhausted, defeated and had to face occupation and reeducation. The parallels in Japan’s and Germany’s history continued after the end of the occupation. Again, the similarities in the postwar foreign policy experiences of Germany and Japan are probably more important than the many differences. In particular, both countries share a particular, and unusual, foreign policy orientation-something that we might define as a distinctive foreign policy culture for which I propose the term “civilian power.” An earlier version of this article was presented at a symposium of Japanese and German international relations specialists in Kyoto in September 1995. The author would like to thank participants at that meeting for helpful comments and suggestions. 178 THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEFENSE ANALYSIS Constraints on Sovereignty The first and most fundamental parallel between the two countries in their postwar history has been their willingness to accept dependence on others to ensure that most important objective of any state: national security. To be sure, smaller states have long had to look to others (and hope for a favorable international environment) for their national security, but for actors of the size and importance of Japan and Germany, this has been a major innovation. It seems highly doubtful whether it would have been possible to sustain an open and rules-based international economy and the degree of tension, but also of cohesion and order that US-Soviet rivalry imposed on world politics had Germany and Japan regained their old, prewar status as independent great powers. They did not, and they could not, take such a path. Whether this was by force or by design (and as we shall see, in reality it was both), it made a very important difference to post-war world politics. They could and did not do so for at least four major reasons, which were essentially the same for both countries, though with important differences in detail: America’s Strategy of Double Containment In the first instance, neither Japan nor Germany had a choice: America pushed them. As the Cold War contours of the post-war world began to take shape, Washington needed to have both Germany and Japan firmly on the Western side in the global competition between the two blocs. But it also had to make sure that neither would ever again mount a challenge to the new status quo. The strategy that elegantly ensured both objectives simultaneously has been felicitously labeled “double containment”’-it aimed at containing the Soviet Union through a worldwide alliance system anchored (after the fall of China) on Japan in East Asia and Germany in Europe, yet also at containing any resurgence of military expansionism and nationalism through tying both Japan and Germany so closely into this US-led alliance system that their margin for independent action was closely circumscribed. 1 Wolfram Hanrieder, Germany, America, Europe, Forty Years of German Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale UP, 1989). HANNS W. MAULL 179 Its status as the dominant occupation power allowed America to put in place important building blocks of this strategy, such first steps as the rearmament of Japan and international security arrangements pro- tecting and constraining both countries (the US-Japan Security Treaty in the case of Japan, German membership in NATO in the case of Germany). Although America’s strategy of double containment reflected necessities, it was not only a product of realpolitik. It also incorporated America’s profound belief in the possibility to shape a new international order around democratic principles-both in the sense of a “democratic peace” between free and representative governments first discussed by Immanuel Kant, and through the organization of international relations along the lines of democratic norms. Basically, America believed that both Japan and Germany could be turned into solidly democratic countries, and that this in itself would ensure that they would no longer represent any threat to American interests, but rather become natural allies. In the case of Germany, of course, this strategy had to be im- plemented in the Western half of a country divided by the vicissitudes of the ideological confrontation between the blocs, while in Japan it could be applied for an undivided country. This was a very important difference. Another consisted in the fact that even in the Western parts of Germany, America had to share responsibility for the occupation with two other countries, Britain and France, while in Japan MacArthur and his masters in Washington practically ruled alone (neither the eleven- nation Far Eastern Commission nor the Allied Council for Japan had any real influence over occupation policies in Japan).* A third major difference of great importance was that the strategy of double containment was a purely bilateral affair between Washington and Tokyo, while Germany became both subject and object of what were in fact two closely intertwined yet separate tracks of “double containment,” both multilateral in nature. The first was the transatlantic track centered around Washington and embodied by NATO, the second was the Euro- pean effort fundamentally to transform relations between the West 2 Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace, MacArthur, Yoshida, and Postwar Japan, (Berkeley: 1992), 102f, 151ff. 180 THE KOREAN JOURNAL OF DEFENSE ANALYSIS European states through European integration. This track ultimately centered around the Franco-German relationship, and although its security dimension ostensibly fell away with the demise of the European Defense Community in 1954, European integration continued to address both the objectives for which “double containment” was designed: strengthening Western resistance against communist pressures, and tying German power down. Learning from Defeat, Coping with a Hideous Past Germany’s and Japan’s fundamental postwar foreign policy choices were thus imposed by the United States. But those choices were accepted by leaders of the two countries not only as necessities, but also as opportunities. The key players, Shigeru Yoshida in Japan and Konrad Adenauer in Germany, shared many of the American assumptions behind its policies of double containment, and they were determined to anchor their countries firmly in the Western camp. Their assessments were based on the lessons they drew from the disastrous experiences of Germany and Japan with fascism and militarism. Their people by and large drew very similar conclusions. Eventually, both leaders were therefore able to build strong domestic support for their policies. Elites in both countries also sought rapid reintegration in their respective regions. For various reasons, however, including the particular patterns of Cold War confrontation in the two regions (bipolar and clear-cut in Europe, complex in Asia) and the characteristics of respective regional environments (greater proximity, greater political, eco- nomic and cultural affinity, several states of similar size in Europe, huge differences in Asia), but also because of policies pursued (atoning for the past, policies of deep integration in the case of Germany; reluctance to confront the past, policies of shallow integration in the case of Japan), the return to East Asia turned out to be much more difficult for Japan than was the integration

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