Geography and Japan's strategic choices: from seclusion to internationalization

Abstract

"Geography, this author contends, is the indisputably unique feature of any country. Geography and Japan's Strategic Choices begins by explaining Japan's unique location and topography in comparison to other countries. Peter J. Woolley then examines the ways in which the country's political leaders in various eras understood and acted on those geographical limitations and advantages. Proceeding chronologically, he compares the Tokugawa era, the opening to the West, the Meiji Restoration, the long era of colonialization, industrialization and liberalization, the militarist reaction and World War II, the occupation, the Cold War, and finally the rudderless fin de siecle. Finally Woolley demonstrates how Japan's strategic situation in the twenty-first century is informed by past and present geostrategic calculations as well as by current domestic and international changes