After Iraq: what does the future hold for Japan?

August 2003 Although the Japanese government has struggled to improve its economic system over the last ten years, there is one area it has managed to overhaul: defence. In response to the many international crises that have occured since the end of the Cold War, from the first and second Gulf Wars to the recurring conflicts in the Korean Peninsula, Japan has progressively modified its traditional stance preventing “self-defence forces” (the official name given to the Japanese armed forces) f..