IN DEFENSE OF JAPAN: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy

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IN DEFENSE OF JAPAN: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Saadia M. Pekkanen and Paul Kallender-Umezu, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2010, 377 pages, $55.00.

How Japan's defense policies have developed and where those policies are headed has been a frequent topic of discussion among Japan specialists for decades, with realists claiming it was only a matter of time before Japan converted a portion of its vast wealth into military power. Japan became the third wealthiest country in the world in 1968, behind only the United States and the Soviet Union, and it is third again this year. (China's GDP has edged past Japan's.)

As the decades rolled on and …