1. Japan Can Remain an Important U.S. Ally Despite Demographic Challenges
- Author:
- Mina Pollman
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- East-West Center
- Abstract:
- The world is aging. Some countries are not only aging, but their populations are shrinking as immigration fails to make up for rapidly falling birth rates. Many U.S. allies and security partners are among those beset by these trends. This raises questions about how decreasing fertility and increasing life expectancies will shape the future world order, and specifically the sustainability of U.S. alliances such as with Japan, whose aging and population decline will make it more difficult for the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to compete for the best Japanese talent as the Japanese labor pool shrinks ever smaller, and Japanese tax dollars with which to hire military personnel grow ever scarcer. Unless SDF recruitment trends change dramatically, Japan’s ability to participate in both technology-intensive and manpower-heavy alliance missions will decline over time. The fulfillment of manpower-intensive missions requires, of course, manpower, while even the fulfillment of technology-intensive missions will be affected by the JSDF’s inability to recruit technologically proficient talent. Ensuring the JSDF meets quantity and quality targets is imperative, but will require more government spending. But an aging and shrinking population will reduce the size of the working age population that pay taxes and increases the size of the retired population that depends on the state’s benefits for the elderly. While this will affect the JSDF’s ability to fulfill both technology-intensive and manpower-heavy missions with the United States in the future, the alliance will remain relevant to U.S. security in the Indo-Pacific because of the value of U.S. bases in Japan which forms the core of the alliance.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Immigration, Alliance, and Aging
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Asia, and United States of America