Description
In the second half of the 19th century, Meiji Japan embarked upon an unprecedented period of military-technological transformation. With the help of a series of Western military missions, the new Meiji state constructed a modern, technologically-advanced army and navy in the space of just a few short decades. Then as now, military assistance programmes envisage the transfer of military aid in return for particular political undertakings on the part of the recipient, propagating the donor’s model of martial expertise, praxis and technology in the process. Indeed, the case of Meiji Japan is touted as an exemplar in the diffusion of warfare. Yet, in Meiji Japan as in more recent experience, military assistance often produces partial or hybrid local military forms. Constructivist and STS approaches view such adaptive fusions as an inevitable consequence of relocating complex material and social systems. Meanwhile, rationalist scholars look to principal-agent theory, advocating for greater conditionality and coercion in military aid to manage interest asymmetries between recipient and donor. This paper examines the social, technical and political patterns of military diffusion in Meiji Japan, arguing that a market for military assistance undermined conditionality in the provision of military assistance, undermining both donor political leverage and the coherence recipient martial change. In so doing, it challenges some of the conclusions drawn from recent army-building endeavours in Iraq and Afghanistan, to question British visions of global ‘defence engagement’ as a tool for informal influence.
