Japan's new dawn: Japan Country Briefing

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's new administration is undertaking a thorough review of Japan's alliance with the United States, which is bound to raise further concerns in Washington.

Hatoyama and his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) unseated the pro-US Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a House of Representatives election on 30 August, ending the LDP's near-perpetual one-party dominance since its creation in 1955.

With former communist nations becoming integrated with the modern capitalist world, the LDP had appeared to have finally completed its historical mission in the post-Cold War era – supporting Japan's military role as an anti-communist bastion of the US against China and Russia.

The US 'nuclear umbrella' has protected Japan against potential adversaries such as China, North Korea and Russia, while assuring other states in the region that had suffered from Japan's colonial rule and occupation that Tokyo would not return to its militaristic past.

Due to the US nuclear deterrent, Japan has enjoyed a generally stable strategic outlook, with its population usually risk-averse about any change and even 'military-allergic' since the end of the Second World War: the legacy of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Thus, the previous LDP governments mainly focused national interest and resources on economic growth.

The era of Japan's strong pacifism, as enshrined in the US-imposed 'peace constitution', determined the posture and structure of Japan's military forces to defend the nation and made the security alliance with the US the centrepiece of Japanese security policy in the postwar period.