was a Japanese diplomat and political scientist who was engaged in

international politics International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

and

strategic studies Strategic studies is an interdisciplinary academic field centered on the study of peace and conflict strategies, often devoting special attention to the relationship between military history, international politics, geostrategy, international ...

. He was president and CEO of the Japan Forum on International Relations (JFIR) since it was founded in 1987, and served as chairman of the Global Forum of Japan (GFJ), chairman of the Council on East Asian Community (CEAC), and vice president of the Worldwide Support for Development (WSD). He was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

Aoyama Gakuin University is a private Christian university in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Originally established in 1874 by missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church, it was reconfigured in its current form in 1949 as tertiary component of the Aoyama Gakuin. The u ...

and held an Honorary Doctorate from the

University of Cambodia The University of Cambodia (UC; , Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: , Romanization of Khmer#ALA-LC Romanization Tables, ALA-LC: ) is a private university located on North bridge Road in Sen Sok District, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Foun ...

Life

Itō was born in Tokyo in 1938. He graduated from

Hitotsubashi University , formerly known as , is a national university, national research university in Tokyo, Japan. Often regarded as Japan’s foremost institution for the study of the social sciences, particularly commerce, economics, law, political science, sociolog ...

Law School in 1960. He joined the Japanese

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

(MOFA) in 1960. After studying at the

Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences The Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is the largest of the twelve graduate schools of Harvard University, when measured by the number of degree-seeking students. Formed in 1872, GSAS is responsible for most o ...

, he served as third to first Secretaries in the Japanese Embassies in Moscow, Manila, and Washington, D.C., and as director of the First Southeast Asian Division until he left MOFA in 1977. After MOFA, while teaching

(1980–2006), he concurrently held many other positions such as the Tokyo representative of the

Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. From its founding in 1962 until 1987, it was an affiliate of Georgetown University, initially named the Center for Strategic and Inte ...

(CSIS) (1980–1987). He was also founder-president of such international-relations-based non-profit

think tanks A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-gov ...

, as the Japan Forum on International Relations, the Global Forum of Japan, and the Council on East Asian Community. He was the author of roughly twenty books, which include: ''Kokka to Senryaku'' (State and Strategy), ''Taikoku to Senryaku'' (Great Powers and Strategy), ''Futatsu no Shogeki to Nihon'' (Japan's Response to the Two Shocks), ''Chiheisen wo Koete'' (Beyond the Horizon), and ''Cho-kindai no Shogeki'' (The Impact of Postmodern Civilization), and ''Shin Senso-ron'' (The Advent of the No-War Era). Itō died from pneumonia on 14 March 2022, at the age of 84.

Thought

Itō's thoughts on war and

peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

are systematically developed in his books such as ''State and Strategy'' (1985) and ''Advent of Non-War Era'' (2007). Itō posits that there is an origin to the

concept A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, ...

of "war," suggesting that "war" is a social

phenomenon A phenomenon ( phenomena), sometimes spelled phaenomenon, is an observable Event (philosophy), event. The term came into its modern Philosophy, philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which ''cannot'' be ...

, that occurs only when certain social conditions are met in a similar manner as they occur in other social phenomena, such as migration and/or

business cycles Business cycles are intervals of general expansion followed by recession in economic performance. The changes in economic activity that characterize business cycles have important implications for the welfare of the general population, governmen ...

. Therefore, he believed the

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

that "war" could be subjected to

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controlling ...

by managing the social conditions that surround

human society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soc ...

. Itō said that war, rather than being a genetically embedded,

physiological Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

phenomenon, is a social phenomenon that arose about 10,000 years ago when a number of social changes took place. Itō said that at that time, this change was caused by the development of human society from an unsettled

hunter Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, ...

economy (

Old Stone Age The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

) to a settled farmer economy (

New Stone Age The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide- ...

). At this stage, prototype states referred to by Itō as "independent political units (IPU)" evolved from hunting kin groups into cultivating territorial groups, resulting in the conversion of the nature of the relations among IPU from the absence of international relations to the presence of such relations. According to Itō, this is the origin of war as a social phenomenon. He said that there was a "Pre-War Era" that extended up to the end of the Old Stone Age. This was followed by "War Era" that lasted until the end of the World War II, followed by a "No-War Era" from then up to the present and into the future. Paraphrasing a proposition by Joseph Frankel, international political scientist, that "an international system exists only as a point between a political unity and a complete absence of such a unity," and another by Nakayama Ichiro, economist, that "

general equilibrium In economics, general equilibrium theory attempts to explain the behavior of supply, demand, and prices in a whole economy with several or many interacting markets, by seeking to prove that the interaction of demand and supply will result in an ov ...

is an ultimate state of interdependent economic phenomena having moved inevitably from absence of unity to unity," Itō presents a concluding theory that "any

political systems In political science, a political system means the form of Political organisation, political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state (polity), state. It defines the process for making official gov ...

have a built-in tendency to move from lower (national,

regional In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

) to higher (

global Global may refer to: General *Globe, a spherical model of celestial bodies *Earth, the third planet from the Sun Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 198 ...

) level of political unity.” In reality, while the "War Era" had almost realized the establishment of the five Regional Hegemonies, by its innate logic the first "Weapon Revolution" comprising the

invention An invention is a unique or novelty (patent), novel machine, device, Method_(patent), method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It m ...

of bows/

arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

s, and

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

s/ maces, this "Era" was demolished by the external shock of the logic of the second "Weapon Revolution" comprising the invention of

guns A gun is a device that propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). Solid projectiles may be ...

and

cannons A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during t ...

. Thus, the history of "war" came to witness an advent of the "World Partitioning War Period," the second phase of "War Era," with the discovery of the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

in 1492. However, the pursuit of the tendency to move from lower (national to regional) to higher (global) level of political unity by the logic of the second "Weapon Revolution" has become impossible because of the realization the third "Weapon Revolution" includes the invention of the

nuclear arms A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...

. It is important to note that humanity parted from the "War Era" when the Kellogg–Briand No-War Pact of 1928 was signed, and after the

UN Charter The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...

of 1945, etc. An act of aggression, under whatever name, has been declared illegal and humanity opened the door of the "No-War Era." However, a global "No-War" regime has not yet been fully completed as the United Nations is effectively blocked from acting by the veto power of five countries. This underlines the importance of advanced democracies including Japan, that share such values as

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

and democracy. If united, they could lead the way to, and herald the advent of, the "No-War Era" in the history of humanity. On the other hand, actors, governmental or otherwise, who attempt to change the status quo by force must be criticized for their contradiction of the maintenance and development of the "No-war Community.” Itō maintains that within the 21st century global system what is to be called a "No-War Community" is currently being built. In this sense, he sides with those who believe in the progress of history. In this view of history, the "No-War Community" signifies an unprecedented stage attained by humanity.

References

External links

Japan Forum on International Relations

Global Forum of Japan

Council on East Asian Community
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ito, Kenichi 1938 births 2022 deaths Japanese diplomats Japanese political scientists Japanese international relations scholars Hitotsubashi University alumni Academic staff of Aoyama Gakuin University People from Tokyo Metropolis Deaths from pneumonia in Japan

Life

Thought

See also

References

External links