This essay assesses UNMISS as a case study of Japan’s foreign policy which is being implemented in order to fulfill its strategic national interests. In order to trace these interests firstly, it analyzes UNMISS as Japan’s tool to attain the international power; secondly, as an economic strategy to secure its access to the oil and other critical natural resources in Africa; and thirdly as a political strategy to outweigh China’s strategic influence in the region….

The article aims to understand the practical relevance of Shinzo Abe’s recent security changes and their role in Abe’s general security strategy. It argues that although Shinzo Abe’s goal is a revision of Japan’s post-war security posture, there is still a plethora of legal, normative (popular) and practical constraints that prevent him from doing so. In order to illustrate these constraints, the article analyses the first practical implementation of the new security legislature: Japanese peacekeeping…

After the independence of South Sudan from Sudan on 9 July 2011, the Japanese government decided to dispatch its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to South Sudan under the auspices of the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). Despite the post-conflict military clashes in South Sudan, the Japanese government did not withdraw the SDF, but instead, the Abe administration assigned a new mission, the so-called ‘kaketsuke-keigo’ (‘rush and rescue’), to rescue staff of…

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