Japan

Post-World War II

(to 2000s)

A - G

The best brief review of the current state of Japanese intelligence is contained in a "Review and Commentary" article by Robert D'A. Henderson, "Reforming Japanese Intelligence," IJI&C 10.2: "The Japanese government currently has three principal intelligence assessment agencies, two of which have intelligence gathering capabilities.... The principal agency for compiling intelligence assessments on foreign affairs and domestic threats for cabinet decisionmakers is the Cabinet Information Research Office ... [which has] no intelligence gathering capacity.... The second intelligence assessment organization is the Public Security Investigation Agency ... [which] is responsible for surveillance and countering of internal security threats.... The third element of Japan's intelligence community is the Japanese Defense Agency (JDA) which is responsible for military intelligence, SIGINT and electronic intelligence collection, and code deciphering." (pp. 233-235)

Allen, Lewis. "Japanese Intelligence Systems." Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 4 (Oct. 1987): 547-561.

Sexton calls this article "a balanced account of Japanese Intelligence organizations." The author's "discussion of the Owada Sigint unit is especially enlightening."

Deacon, Richard [Donald McCormick].

1. Kempai Tai: A History of the Japanese Secret Service. London: Muller, 1982. New York: Beaufort, 1983.

See below for revised and updated edition.

2. Kempai Tai: The Japanese Secret Service, Then and Now. Tokyo: Charles Tuttle, 1990.

Surveillant 1.2 notes that this is the revised and updated edition. Deacon sees Japanese intelligence as a "giant organization that efficiently sucks in staggering amounts of information."

For Oros, IJI&C 15.1, Deacon's work "provides good background material on the variety of Japanese intelligence activities through World War II, but falters badly in examining the postwar period."

DeLuca, John Vito. "Shedding Light on the Rising Sun." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 2, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 1- 20.

This article surveys Japanese domestic security organizations, the Japan Defense Agency, and the structure of the Japanese foreign policy and foreign intelligence bureaucracies.

Duggan, Patrice, and Gale Eisenstodt. "The New Face of Japanese Espionage." Forbes, 12 Nov. 1990, 96.

"Japan's extraordinary corporate intelligence networks date to the days immediately following World War II." In their period of copycat technology (1960s-1970s), the Japanese focused on U.S. patents and other technology. Today, "much Japanese intelligence work has come to look more like market research."

Glain, Steve, and Northiko Shirouzu. "Japan Asleep under U.S. Security Blanket." Wall Street Journal, 17 Mar. 1997, A12.

ProQuest: "Japan ... has allowed its intelligence and crisis-management capabilities to deteriorate to such a state that some experts say terrorists regard its corporate and public institutions overseas as soft targets." This analysis is made in connection with the hostage crisis at Japan's Embassy in Lima, Peru, that began in December 1996.

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