Concept of threats and national defense in the Japanese ideology and doctrine

The concept of threat and defense concerns an individual, social group but also – in a wider understanding – policy of every state, which is emphasized by researchers of this issue. To be able to refer to the issue of threat and defense in both epistemological and ontological sense, one should identify a specified social group or state, i.e. create a sociological layer, which enables to distinct the characteristic, unique elements. This paper attempts to first shortly discuss the aspect of threat and defense of national interests using the example of Japan after the so-called Meiji Restoration and second prove that in the case of this country, as in no other, the question of defense as a reaction to threat, reaches far into social culture, maintaining historical continuity, enriched with elements derived from the Western culture. Starting point for these deliberations on the subject of Japanese specificity in relations to perceiving threat and defense is definition proposed by Juliusz Piwowarski, who indicated few important components, which altogether compose the concept of threat and defense.