Within weeks of 9/11, Japan dispatched ships to the Indian Ocean to provide fuel and other support to the Western forces waging the war in Afghanistan.

It was the first time since World War II that Japan sent forces abroad to support an overseas military conflict, although in a noncombat role. American policymakers hailed Japan as a loyal ally, willing to put "boots on the ground."

Come Nov. 1, however, the Japanese ships will be heading home.

American officials worry that, after taking steps to shed its postwar pacifism, Japan will now shirk its role as an ally in international security.

But these concerns are alarmist. The Japanese government, even its liberal opposition party, has shown a desire and commitment to contribute to global security.

A renewal of the law authorizing the mission in Afghanistan is now increasingly unlikely, since the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which opposes the measure, won a shocking victory in last summer's elections for the upper house of parliament. While the ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is still determined to reauthorize the military role, it faces significant public opposition and a tough road in the parliament.

Some American officials and experts have issued bellicose warnings that not renewing the mission would signal a dangerous retreat from Japan's responsibilities in the world and undermine the security alliance. Others accused DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro of being irresponsible, even "anti-American."

These remarks are clumsy and unfair. The possibility of Japan's return to a lesser security role is real enough, but its mission in Afghanistan is the wrong test of the country's reliability as an ally.

In reality, the maritime mission has become largely symbolic. As for Mr. Ozawa, if Americans would listen carefully to his arguments, they would find that he seeks to expand, not contract, Japan's global security role.

What the US sees as backtracking on global responsibility is actually something else --opposition, shared by Japan's liberal and conservative parties, to the American decision to invade Iraq. Once carefully buried behind the appearance of alliance solidarity, it is now surfacing.

Ozawa and his party have been unusually open in questioning the Iraq war, characterizing it as a war without clear international justification. According to reliable accounts, Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda Kazuo privately shares that view, as do others in the LDP.

US officials critical of the DPJ for avoiding a greater security role for Japan should remember that the party supported the antiterrorism law when it was passed in 2001. But they refused to support its renewal later after the Iraq war began. Over time, senior DPJ members say, the mission's original purpose got muddied with military operations in Iraq. Japanese and American officials deny that any diversion took place, but the Pentagon admits that ships engage in multiple missions and there is no way to segregate how fuel is used.

The new version of the law proposed by the LDP explicitly narrows the role of the Navy to supporting antiterrorist interdiction operations, a backhanded acknowledgment that there was no clear separation from the Iraq war.

Ozawa has long advocated a more visible security role for Japan outside its borders, calling on the government to send forces to aid the Gulf War in 1991 and pushing through legislation allowing Japanese participation in UN peacekeeping operations.

Japanese peacekeepers, however, are restricted to noncombat missions. Despite inching toward a larger security role, the government stands by an interpretation of Japan's American-authored antiwar clause in its Constitution that bars the use of force for anything other than to respond to an attack on themselves. But Ozawa has long contended that the constitutional bar should not extend to UN activities.

This month, Ozawa proposed that instead of the maritime force, Japan should send peacekeepers to Afghanistan under the auspices of the UN-authorized international security forces, and to Sudan as well.

Ironically, the ruling conservatives reject that as unconstitutional, arguing it would be an act of collective defense rather than self-defense.

"If Japan is to really be an ally of the US ..." Ozawa wrote, "it should hold its head up high and strive to give proper advice to the US." And in order to do that," he continued, "Japan had to be willing to put itself more on the line by sharing responsibility for peacekeeping, not just sending a few boats out of harm's way."

These are ideas that should be embraced, rather than denounced, by American officials.

Reprinted by permission by the Christian Science Monitor.

On October 11, the Stanford Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Shorenstein APARC's Director, Gi-Wook Shin, as the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies.

An endowment was established in 1999 through the donations of alumnus Jae-Hyun Hyun, the Korea Foundation, and KSA, to enable the university to recruit a social science scholar whose work focuses on Korea from the perspective of contemporary policy issues. In addition to broadening Stanford's teaching and research programs in Asian studies, the holder of this chair is expected to conduct research on the political economy of Korea, trade and finance, security relations, politics, or other topics of importance to understanding Korea in the context of today's world.

When Professor Shin left UCLA to come to Stanford, he left the largest Korean studies program in the nation. With true entrepreneurial spirit, he has built an impressive and dynamic Korean studies program. It hosts luncheon seminars, workshops, and conferences, and has sponsored many Korean scholars, government officials, and business leaders who spend time at Stanford as visiting scholars. It also supports an active research program. Stanford is steadily becoming a world-class center for contemporary Korean studies.
-- Coit D. Blacker, Director FSI

In 2005, Dr. Shin was appointed Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. Since becoming director of the center, Shin has been laying a strong and dynamic foundation for interdisciplinary research, training, and outreach, both through his leadership of the Korean Studies Program and his efforts to bring focus to the center's wide-ranging affiliation of Asia-related projects, programs, and initiatives.

About the Donors:

Jae-Hyun Hyun received his MBA from Stanford in 1981. He is the chairman of Tong Yang Group, a diversified business conglomerate of Korea. The Tong Yang Group, which originally built its foundation as a manufacturer of cement and confectionery goods, is a fully integrated financial services group that offers virtually every financial service available in Korea, such as securities, merchant banking, life insurance, mutual funds, credit cards, venture capital, and asset management. Prior to joining Tong Yang, Mr. Hyun served as a public prosecutor at the city of Pusan's Public Prosecutor's Office. He has four children; three have attended Stanford (Jenny '99, Richard '03 and Tina '05).

The Korea Foundation was established in 1991 to promote an understanding of Korea throughout the world and to enhance international goodwill and friendship through a multitude of international exchange programs. The foundation promotes interest in Korea by supporting Korean studies at universities, research institutions, and libraries. The foundation also provides Korean studies materials to individuals and organizations, and provides scholarships for foreign scholars, students, and experts.

The Korea Stanford Alumni (KSA) Association, a group of dedicated Stanford alumni who have returned to Korea, hosts various events for its more than 500 registered members.

Martha Crenshaw is a pioneer in terrorism studies, one of a handful of scholars worldwide who started investigating the subject long before Sept. 11, 2001.

Crenshaw, who joined CISAC this year as a senior fellow at FSI and a political science professor by courtesy, brings three decades of study to her current agenda of examining distinctions between so-called old and new terrorism, how terrorism ends, and why the United States is the target of terrorism.

"We are very fortunate to have Martha Crenshaw join CISAC as a senior fellow," said Scott Sagan, CISAC co-director. "Her detailed knowledge of the inside workings of terrorist organizations and her deep understanding of earlier counter-terrorist campaigns have brought much-needed historical perspective to contemporary policy debates after 9/11."

Associate professor of law Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who led the search that resulted in Crenshaw's hiring, said her "combination of attention to historical detail, interdisciplinary methods, and knowledge of institutional context has made her one of the nation's foremost scholars of terrorism. Her appointment is great news for CISAC and Stanford, where she will strengthen an already significant scholarly community working on homeland security and terrorism."

Coming to Stanford from Wesleyan University, where she was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and a government professor, Crenshaw said she found the opportunity to join an interdisciplinary research center a welcome change.

"CISAC's and my interests merged perfectly," she said, as the center was looking to build its research expertise in terrorism. She said she looks forward to teaching graduate students in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies as well as working with research colleagues at CISAC and across campus.

Crenshaw's terrorism studies began with a graduate seminar paper she wrote on actions by the FLN, or National Liberation Front, during Algeria's war for independence from France in the 1950s and 60s. She arrived at the topic the way many professors advise students to do--she noted in a study of Vietnam-era guerrilla warfare the comment that "no one has studied terrorism."

That seminar paper inspired her dissertation, which formed the basis of her 1978 book, Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-1962, a case study in the strategic use of terrorism by a revolutionary nationalist movement.

Having written numerous articles and edited four books on terrorism, Crenshaw is now editing a book tentatively titled The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Democracies. The Russell Sage Foundation supported the research, which Crenshaw said illuminates issues such as "the strength of executive power, effects of counterterrorism legislation on minorities, and unintended consequences of counterterrorism policies."

As a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence, Crenshaw is also researching why the United States is the target of terrorism, a study that could be especially useful in informing counterterrorism policy.

Crenshaw "trace[s] the evolution of anti-American terrorism over time--since the mid-1960s," she said, comparing groups that used terrorism to others with similar ideas that have not resorted to terrorism. Comparing case studies, she explained, allows her to "analyze incentives for the use of terrorism."

In "The Debate over 'New' versus 'Old' Terrorism," a paper Crenshaw presented at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in September--and which will be published as a chapter in an edited volume, she questions oft-heard claims that terrorism in recent years has taken on a new character to become more religious and lethal. She found the distinctions too hastily drawn and possibly dangerous.

"There is no fundamental difference between 'old' and 'new' terrorism," she said.

"Rejecting our accumulated knowledge of terrorism by dismissing it as 'obsolete'" would be a mistake that could lead to bad policy choices, she added. Before 9/ll, assumptions that "new" terrorism would forsake the "old" technique of hijacking and turn to weapons of mass destruction turned out to be wrong, she pointed out.

Crenshaw said researchers and policymakers should "ask why some groups cause large numbers of civilian casualties and others do not, rather than assuming that religious beliefs are the explanation for lethality."