Japan’s Strategic Turn
Japan is undergoing a significant strategic shift in its defense policy due to economic stagnation and a deteriorating geopolitical environment in Asia. Faced with a rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea, the nation is moving away from its traditional postwar defense limitations.
Why it matters
Japan's pivot represents a major change in the regional security architecture of the Indo-Pacific, with significant implications for US foreign policy.
The country is taking once-unthinkable steps to ensure its own defense.
Kim Kyung-Hoon / Anadolu / Getty September 6, 2026, 6 AM ET Share Save When I first visited Japan more than 30 years ago, the Cold War had ended, China had not yet risen, and the country—although it was no longer the Japan as Number One of Ezra Vogel’s best-selling 1979 book—was formidable. Japan’s GDP was not very far behind that of the United States, was larger than that of most of the rest of Asia combined, and was seven times that of China.
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