Paper short abstract:

This paper sheds new light on the significance of Japan's indefinitely stationed JSDF facility in Djibouti in the context of institutional change and how this de facto overseas base is increasingly being primed to allow the potential use of enhanced military capabilities developed by Tokyo

Paper long abstract:

Substantial changes to Japan's contemporary foreign policy have arguably been most evident in the sphere of international security. Having passed successive legislation in the past two decades to expand its use of the Japan Self Defense Force (JSDF), Japan has emerged from its post-war 'pacifist' shackles to assume a range of security roles that are typically associated with so-called 'normal nations'. This paper addresses how these have been crystallised in the form of an indefinitely-termed overseas base on the Horn of Africa, in Djibouti, which has now become a military hub amid shifting regional rivalries around the Indian Ocean Rim.

Specifically, the paper sheds new light on how the base is increasingly being primed, as part of competing Sino-Japanese interests in Africa, facilitating the potential use of enhanced military capabilities in the context of Japan's institutional changes. Careful examination of pertaining Diet minutes, media discourse and government ministry papers suggests that the risks identified with this facility's realization and status have been fundamentally recalibrated, allowing its presence and operational diversification to go largely unnoticed and unopposed - both domestically and overseas - despite representing a seemingly radical departure from common sense interpretations of Japan's antimilitarist constitution.