Non-Nuclear Japan (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Toshiya Umehara | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

This study examines how Japan-the only nation to experience nuclear attack-has negotiated its complex relationship with nuclear weapons from the U.S. occupation to the present day. It asks how the country has balanced its moral opposition to nuclear weapons with reliance on U.S. deterrence.

Combining historical depth with constructivist international-relations theory, it traces two key prohibitive norms: the nuclear non-use norm ("nuclear taboo") and the nonproliferation norm. Drawing on extensive bilingual archival research, Diet debates, and diplomatic records, the work demonstrates that Japan has fully internalized the nonproliferation norm in both moral and regulatory terms, while embracing the nuclear taboo mainly as a symbolic identity marker. This asymmetry explains Japan's enduring dependence on extended deterrence despite its global advocacy of nuclear abolition.

Spanning eight decades-from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the war in Ukraine-this book integrates nuclear politics, Japanese political history, and international-relations theory. It will engage scholars and students of security, disarmament, and peace studies seeking to understand how moral norms and strategic necessity coexist in postwar Japan.