"Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan

by Richard J. Samuels

Since World War II, Japan has become not only a model producer of high-tech consumer goods, but also-despite minimal spending on defense-a leader in innovative technology with both military and civilian uses. In the United States, nearly one in every three scientists and engineers was engaged in defense-related research and development at the end of the Cold War, but the relative strength of the American economy has declined in recent years. What is the relationship between what has happened in the two countries? And where did Japan's technological excellence come from? In an economic history that will arouse controversy on both sides of the Pacific, Richard J. Samuels finds a key to Japan's success in an ideology of technological development that advances national interests. From 1868 until 1945, the Japanese economy was fired by the development of technology to enhance national security; the rallying cry "Rich Nation, Strong Army" accompanied the expanded military spending and aggressive foreign policy that led to the disasters of the War in the Pacific. Postwar economic planners reversed the assumptions that had driven Japan's industrialization, Samuels shows, promoting instead the development of commercial technology and infrastructure. By valuing process improvements as much as product innovation, the modern Japanese system has built up the national capacity to innovate while ensuring that technological advances have been diffused broadly through industries such as aerospace that have both civilian and military applications. Struggling with the uncertainties of a post-Cold War economy, the United States has important lessons to learn from the way Japan has subordinated defense production yet emerged as one of the most technologically sophisticated nations in the world. The Japanese, like the Venetians and the Dutch before them, show us that butter is just as likely as guns to make a nation strong, but that nations cannot hope to be strong without an ideology of technological development that nourishes the entire national economy.

Genres: Japan

480 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1994

Reviews

[Yeast]

A decent analysis of the special characteristics of defense industry in Japan: the tendency of simultaneously aiming for technology transfer, private production, diffusion across large groups and small business, and cross-fertilization with commercial goods).

That being said, the book's mix of business history and political science, along with its often long-winded documentation of project history, limits its appeal. One problem for me is the author's insistence on the ideological legacy of fukoku kyōhei to postwar kokusanka while treating the later merely as a R&D strategy. I seriously want to read more about postwar debate on the nature of "koku" through the relationship between nationalism and consumerism in popular culture and media.

Surely there is "softer" nationalism compared to the "hard" (and somewhat depoliticized) policies the author focuses on. Without probing into the anxiety and ambivalences on the consumption side of the technomilitary story, what we have is just a celebratory account of Japan's success, however partial, in perpetuating the arms industry in new forms.

Perhaps this account is highly influenced by American perplexity over Japan's rising R&D and economic capabilities in the 1980s. Thirty years have passed since. We need a post-bubble re-examination on the issue of techno-nationalism.