It is said that the controversy surrounding the question of the Japan's participation in the United Nations Peace-keeping operations in the 1960s was largely responsible for the establishment of the so called Yoshida Doctrine as Japanese ground strategy in the post war period. This paper will examine the question of the Japanese government's handling of this issue using document by evidence. It will investigate various problems related to Japan's PKO participation through the lenses of Japan's war renouncing constitution and the security alliance with the United States. They form the cornerstone of the Yoshida Doctrine.
These problems became especially salient during the establishment of Sato Eisaku. The administration sought to use Japanese participation in PKO as a means to accomplishment two diplomatic objects. First, such participation was seen as means of actions with in the framework of the US-Japan security system to alleviate some of America's Asian security burdens and create an environment conducive to the return of Okinawa to Japanese administration. Second, it was seen as a means to growing diplomatic autonomy in the United Nations and South East Asia. Therefore Ministry of Foreign Affairs drew up a “United Nations Cooperation Bill” in 1966. Policymakers planned to send Self Defense Forces on PKO using this bill. Even though this plan ended in failure because the climate of public opinion was strongly influenced by postwar pacifism and there was widespread and vehement opposition to the dispatch of military personnel abroad, the Sato administration sought a way to interpret the constitution in a manner that would allow Self Defense Forces participation in PKO.
Afterward, with the end of the Cold War system and the outbreak of regional conflicts, most conspicuously the Gulf War, the international community and especially the United States expressing their exasperation with Japan's continuing reluctance to participate international peacekeeping. However, by that time, due to its actions during the Sato administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had long since devised a method to reconcile PKO participation with the post war constitution and thus allow Japan's adaptation to the new international solution within the framework of the Yoshida Doctrine. As a result, Japan could dispatch not only civilians but also SDF personnel to PKO in Cambodia in time. Japan could reinforce the Japanese commitment to the Cambodian peace process, cooperation with the U. S., and U. N. diplomacy which were, after all the very purposes of Japanese PKO policy.

抄録全体を表示