An Inoffensive Rearmament

Colonel Frank Kowalski served as the Chief of Staff of the American military advisory group that helped establish the National Police Reserve, the predecessor to the Japan Self-Defense Forces, and provided daily guidance to it during its first two years of existence. In this book, Kowalski provides, with great care, a detailed account of the manning, logistics, and personalities involved in standing up, on short notice, of a force of approximately 75,000, while sharing insights about the diplomatic, political, legal, and constitutional challenges his headquarters and his Japanese counterparts faced in navigating this new course for Japan in the wake of the sudden outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula in June 1950. In light of these limitations, the path for rearmament had to be slow and “inoffensive" while psychologically and materially contributing to Japan's defense. His account is balanced, a blend of both criticism and praise, of all of those involved, including...