"Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan.

By Richard J. Samuels. Ithaca (New York): Cornell University Press. 1994. xii, 455 pp. (Photos.) US$35.00, cloth. ISBN 0-8014-2705-3.

THE AUTHOR argues that the ideology of technonationalism underlies Japanese technological advances and economic successes. He uses a wide range of evidence to underscore his thesis and hopes that his study will offer "a practical lesson for the United States" (p. 3). In exploring an underresearched terrain of Japanese political economy, this book is requisite reading for scholars and policy makers interested in Japanese technology and defense policy.

Samuels's conception of technonationalist ideology has three components. First, the state should endeavor to indigenize technology and seek its autonomous development. Second, it should seek to diffuse technological advances throughout the country. Finally, the state should nurture and sustain technological development. Especially in the postwar period, `Japanese strategic beliefs have converged on a national commitment to indigenize technology, to diffuse it throughout the economy, and to nurture firms that could benefit" (p. 55). Furthermore, the Japanese ideology dictates that not only is technology crucial for national security but that there is no fundamental distinction between military and commercial technology and production.

In articulating his main thesis, Samuels weaves together disparate strands of intellectual and institutional history, replete with comparative evidence. He suggests, for example, that an alternative ideological and institutional basis of a relationship among the state, the defense industry, and technological development exists in the classical writings on political economy. The bulk of the book, however, offers a capsule historical overview of the Japanese state's effort to achieve the status of a "rich nation, strong army" since the Meiji Restoration, focusing especially on the defense sector. In particular, Samuels' extended and well-crafted case study of the aircraft industry that spans the prewar and postwar periods is illuminating and instructive.

As study of the aircraft industry suggests, there was a major turning point in 1945. Yet, according to Samuels, the war's end brought not only a change in strategy but a basic continuity in the ideology of technonationalism. Rather than the militarist version of technonationalism, the postwar version defined national security more as "technological and commercial competence as it is a matter of force deployment and arms manufacture" (p. 270). He is careful to stress, however, that the Japanese state's commitment to defense research and production continued unabated throughout the postwar period and that the defense industry constitutes a much larger part of the Japanese economy than is commonly acknowledged.

Samuel suggests that interdependence of the military industry and the civilian economy characterizes the postwar period. He uses the concept of "spin-on" to note that, rather than the military industry being autonomous and generating civilian applications, there is no distinction between military and civilian uses of technology.

The book is full of interesting information and insights. It is, as I stated, an excellent contribution to the fast-expanding literature on contemporary Japanese political economy. Nonetheless, despite its considerable merits, I have some reservations about the larger argument. In attempting to trace the continuities in the Japanese ideology of technonationalism, Samuels faces pitfalls. On the one hand, he cannot make sense of the significant shift that occurred after Japan's defeat in 1945. Although he makes a distinction between "ideology" (continuous) and "strategy" (discontinuous), I am not sure why he does not draw a distinction between the prewar "rich nation, strong army" ideology with the postwar "rich nation, strong economy" one. Although institutional and personnel continuities cannot be gainsaid, the expunction (or, at least, the temporary discarding) of prewar militarism is absolutely crucial. This raises a related question about the diversity of Japanese conceptions of technonationalism. The prewar era, for example, witnessed both the nativist variant that privileged the Japanese spirit over "Western" technology as well as a proto-environmentalist challenge represented, for example, by Minakata Kumakusu and Tanaka Shozo.

On the other hand, I remain skeptical about Samuels's "lesson" for the United States. If ideology is perforce important, then how well will the United States, presumably with its own indigenous traditions of technonationalist ideology, adapt to the Japanese way?