Security Cooperation between the European Union and Japan after 1991

Despite being close allies of the US, security cooperation between Japan and the European Union is mostly developing on 'ad hoc' basis. Indeed, geographical distance, specific limitations in the military sphere and absence of systematic foreign policy consultations had created the reality, where the EU and Japan are unlikely to regard each other as security partners of the first choice. However, these countries had been cooperating in security sphere and proceeding from the similarities between the two actors, we can conclude that in certain circumstances their cooperation could be reinforced. First, both Japan and the EU practice 'civilian power' approach to military security, tend to focus on peacekeeping, post-conflict reconstruction and crisis management. Second, strong partnership with the USA and NATO brings foreign policy positions of Japan and the EU close to each other. This article focuses on the problem of actual interaction between the partners after 1991, concentrating on various aspects of security, except for non-traditional security areas such as cybersecurity, environmental and energy security etc. With this purpose in mind, the article is divided into two parts. The first part deals with concrete examples of cooperation in the course of regional conflicts and crisis development. The reasons for relatively weak security cooperation between Japan and the EU, as well as possible ways of their security dialogue strengthening, are analyzed in the second part. The main conclusion the author comes to is as follows: the factors, which prevent EU-Japan security dialogue from reinforcement, most probably won't stop influencing this relationship in the nearest future. However, in some spheres, such as peacekeeping, post-conflict reconstruction and crisis management, potential of EU-Japan cooperation might be fulfilled to a greater extent.