Recalibrating Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific: Security Statecraft in a Changing Geopolitical Environment.
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https://doi.org/10.66871/trf-j.v1i3.008##semicolon##
Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)##common.commaListSeparator## Official Security Assistance (OSA)##common.commaListSeparator## Neoclassical Realism##common.commaListSeparator## Tactical Hedging##article.abstract##
In an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific environment, Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP) holds major relevance with its framework linking a normative regional vision to concrete security practices. Existing scholarship has largely interpreted FOIP as a diplomatic and inclusive vision for regional order or as a strategic response to China’s rise and intensifying power competition. Yet, altogether, it seems not to fully explain how FOIP has evolved into a more operational framework of Japanese security statecraft. Drawing on neoclassical realism, the study argues that worsening geopolitical pressures have been filtered through domestic legal constraints, institutional, and alliance commitments, resulting in a gradual but significant recalibration of policy. Employing the concept of tactical hedging, it further explains how Japan has maintained FOIP’s inclusive and rules-based rhetoric while deepening practical security cooperation. It highlights the 2022 Three Security Documents, the introduction of Official Security Assistance (OSA), and the relaxation of defence export rules as key instruments through which FOIP has been operationalized. The study contributes to the literature by bridging the gap between FOIP as a normative character versus strategic intent and the concrete mechanisms through which Japan operationalizes its evolving regional posture. In doing so, it shows that contemporary FOIP is best understood as being operationalized through security instruments while retaining its normative and inclusive rhetoric.
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