Abstract
While it has been argued that rearmament and security policy in Japan under the early Cold War regime were complementary in responding to common threats, there must have also been ideological and practical difficulties involved in implementing rearmament and security measures in an integrated manner. This article examines the conflict that arose over the dispatch of the National Police Reserve (NPR) in the hope of shedding more light on the actual interrelationship between the two.
From the end of 1950 to around March of 1951, immediately after the establishment of the NPR, bureaucrats at NPR Headquarters (NPRHQ) and the general police envisioned having the latter involved in the decision to mobilize the Reserve. This way of thinking was consistent with the concept of police “democratization”, in which the politically neutral general police assumed responsibility for security policy. However, during the latter half of 1951, the NPR became less and less likely of being so dispatched; and from 1952 onwards, the general police began preparations to organize its own security forces, thus marking a process of initial cooperation followed by segregation between the NPR and the general police.
On the other hand, since the legislation creating the NPR gave the prime minister the power over its command and supervision, it would have been impossible for the NPRHQ, NPR staff officers, or the general police to take complete control over its dispatch. In the process of enacting the National Safety Forces Act from January to May 1952, the NPRHQ bureaucrats were wary of political exploitation of the units newly established by the Law to replace the NPR, and thus raised, unsuccessfully, the need for the general police to be involved in the decision to dispatch.
After the US-Japan peace treaty came into effect, the Cabinet and the Liberal Party hoped to control dispatch of the NPR, while the NPR staff began its own preparations to take over immediate dispatch and also considered making room for the involvement of the general police in decision-making, first through non-institutional policies, then through directives.
Based on these developments, the author concludes that Japan’s re-armament and security policies of 1950-52 certainly had a complementary character at the level of legislation, but both coordination and segregation existed at the level of operation.
