How to Interpret the Security Situation in East Asia: Four New Books to Assist Our Understanding - Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy and The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States and Japanese Society and the Politics of the North Korean Threat and Intimate Rivals: Japanese Domestic Politics and a Rising China

The security situation in East Asia has been tense during the last two decades. The media keep reporting about North Korea's continued development of nuclear weapons and test firing of various new missiles. The murder of Kim Jong-un's half-brother in Kuala Lumpur recently is just the latest bizarre report on how the leader is treating his family. We are fed news about increased tension between China and Japan and how South Korea and Japan never seem to be able to settle their historical accounts. In Japan, paragraph 9 of the Constitution has been reinterpreted so that the Self-Defense Forces can participate in collective defense. Prime Minister Abe is portrayed as a hawk and his country as becoming more militaristic. This seems like a scary situation, but the big question is how to interpret all this news. To help, luckily enough, we now have four new books by scholars who have...