Japan’s National Security Council: Policy Coordination and Political Power

Abstract

In 2013, Japan established its first-ever National Security Council (NSC) as the leading edge of ambitious reforms to its foreign-policy-relevant institutions. Within weeks, Japan’s new national security tripod was firmly in place: the top-level, political NSC ‘control tower’ as well as Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy and National Security Secretariat. Ever since, the NSC has played a central role in every major aspect of the Japanese strategic trajectory that has attracted so much global attention (and controversy) in the ‘Abe era’. This study analyzes the motivations driving Japan’s decision to establish an NSC, the institution’s key characteristics and functioning, and offers a preliminary assessment of the current and likely future implications of this historic institutional reform. Beyond the NSC’s impact on policy, of potentially greater long-term significance is its effects on Japan’s foreign-policy decision-making processes: in particular, expanded Kantei-centered political leadership of national security affairs and more ‘whole-of-government’ approaches specifically designed to transcend the ‘vertical hurdles’ traditionally dividing Japan’s powerful bureaucracies. The goal of these reforms is as straightforward as it is ambitious: to transform Japan’s ability to flexibly and independently cope with a rapidly changing, increasingly complex, and ever more uncertain security environment in East Asia and beyond.