In Inglorious, Illegal Bastards, Aaron Herald Skabelund examines how the Self-Defense Force (SDF), the post-World War II Japanese military, and specifically the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF), struggled for legitimacy in a society at best indifferent, and often hostile to its very existence. From the early iterations of the GDSF as the Police Reserve Force and the National Safety Force, through its establishment as the largest and most visible branch of the armed forces, the GDSF deployed an array of public outreach and public service initiatives including off base and on-base events, civil engineering projects, and natural disaster relief operations. Internally, the GDSF focused on indoctrination of its personnel to fashion a reconfigured patriotism and esprit de corps. These efforts to gain legitimacy achieved some success and influenced the public over time. Such military-society integration did not just change society. It also transformed the force itself as it assumed new priorities and traditions, and contributed to the making of a Cold War defense identity, which came to be shared by wider society in Japan. As Inglorious, Illegal Bastards demonstrates, this identity endures today, several decades after the end of the Cold War.
