Strengthening The Us Japan Alliance

For more than three decades, the multifaceted alliance between the United States and Japan has contributed significantly to the security of Japan and the maintenance of peace and security in the Far East. With the end of the Cold War, new sources of potential threats have arisen at a time when Japan's national self-confidence has been shaken by nearly a decade of economic stagnation, a highly fluid political situation, and an inadequate institutional structure for crisis management and strategy formulation. Osius examines how Japan is trying to redefine its identity from a nation whose constitution renounces war as a sovereign right to a normal country involved in United Nations peacekeeping operations and regional military relationships. In his initial chapters, Osius focuses on the purpose of the security alliance and argues that U.S.-Japanese interests coincide enough not only to sustain the alliance, but also to warrant strengthening and promoting it. He then examines the challenges and opportunities for an enhanced alliance over the next decade. Together, he maintains, the United States and Japan can address broadly defined security concerns, such as energy supply, weapons of mass destruction proliferation, transborder crime, piracy, and illegal narcotics, as well as environmental issues, infectious disease, economic development, and humanitarian and disaster relief. However, if it is to thrive, the U.S.-Japan alliance must remain dynamic rather than static and must be nurtured, sustained, and enhanced by both parties. An important analysis for policy makers, scholars, and students of U.S.-Japanese political and military relations and Asian Studies in general.

The release of Japan’s three strategic documents in December 2022 was a watershed moment in Japanese foreign and defense policy and the beginning of a new chapter for the U.S.-Japan alliance. In many ways, these changes built on incremental shifts over the past decade or so. At the same time, such declarations would not have been possible without the recent and unprecedented recognition, at both the elite and popular levels, of the major security challenges Japan faces from China, North Korea, and Russia. In response to these threats, Japan has decided to comprehensively strengthen its military power. These actions could be interpreted as hedging behavior in reaction to the unpredictability of the American political system. But ultimately, the new capabilities will create opportunities for strengthening the alliance. Ultimately, Japan’s defense transformation offers an opportunity for Washington to work closely with Tokyo to strengthen the alliance and prepare it to meet the treacherous geopolitical landscape it faces in the years ahead.

Only of late has defense "burden sharing" emerged as a key issue in U.S.-Japanese relations. This monograph examines the legal, political, economic, and attitudinal constraints inhibiting the Japanese from contributing more to their defense. Includes discussion on the legal obligation of burden sharing; indicators of contribution to defense; legal, policy, and political constraints; Japan's defense contribution and some initiatives for increased burden sharing; and U.S. strategy to influence Japan's contribution. Charts and tables.

Japan's use of Soft power in its international politics is as yet understudied. Soft power presents as many challenges as promises. This book explores the way Japan uses soft power in its relationship with the US, its Asian neighbours and Europe and aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of soft power in international relations. Hard power, on the other hand, is more tangible and has received far greater scholarly scrutiny than soft power. However, as this collection makes clear, hard power has its limitations and counterproductive consequences as an instrument of policy. This book makes it clear that hard power alone will not provide Japan with the peace and security it desires. A smart balancing or mixture of hard and soft power is required. Is Japan up to this challenge? While this book cannot give a definitive answer to this question, the excellent line-up of contributors present their best analyses of the effectiveness of Japan's current attempt at balancing the two components of national power in meeting its bilateral and multilateral security challenges. The US-Japan Alliance is suitable for upper undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in International Politics, Political Science, Security studies and Japanese studies. Winner of The Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Special Prize, 2011.

The year 2004 marked the 150th anniversary of the signing of the first treaty of peace and amity (Treaty of Kanagawa) between the United States and Japan. The author offers a significant Japanese view of the alliance, explores the history, but also poses the question what the relationship will be for the next fifty years.

How relevant today is an alliance that was forged between a powerful United States and a weak Japan in the context of a cold war struggle with the Soviet Union? In what ways have the changes in the relative power positions of the two countries and the structural changes in the world economy created new challenges to the U.S.-Japan relationship and how are the two countries responding to those challenges? These are some of the important questions addressed by the eight Japanese and American authors of this volume. Their focus ranges from issues of military relations, trade and financial management, and shifting security perspectives to the roles of the mass media in the bilateral relationship. A truly binational effort, the book brings together the thinking of some of the best-trained younger political scientists to focus on the present and future of one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world.

Defending the U.S. and Japanese homelands, protecting and maintaining a safe and secure online environment, and ensuring that territorial and maritime disputes are resolved peacefully in an orderly process free from coercion represent some of the most important aims of the U.S.–Japan alliance. In 2015, Washington and Tokyo issued new defense guidelines to guide their security cooperation in support of these goals. The new guidelines expanded the areas of applicability of the alliance to include threats not limited to situations in areas surrounding Japan (SIAS-J), thus going beyond a limit that appeared in the 1997 U.S.–Japan Revised Defense Guidelines. The new guidelines also expand allied defense cooperation to include the increasingly important domains of space and cyberspace. To better understand the rapidly changing and deepening cooperation between the United States and Japan, as well as the prospects for the future evolution of their partnership (including with regional states in South and Southeast Asia, as well as Oceania), the RAND Corporation commissioned a series of papers by leading experts and hosted a two-day conference in Santa Monica, California, in March 2016. The findings of those efforts illuminate important options for continuing to tighten alliance cooperation and suggest prospective pathways forward as the two countries look to respond collectively to the rise of China, a more aggressive Russia, and an increasingly risk-acceptant and provocative North Korea.