The U S Japan Security Alliance In The 21st Century

In fall 1996, the Council on Foreign Relations formed a Study Group, chaired by Harold Brown of CSIS and Richard Armitage of Armitage and Associates, to reexamine current assumptions and explore the factors affection the evolution of this crucial alliance.

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.

The author explores the changing nature of Japanese security policy and the impact of those changes on the U.S.-Japan security alliance. He begins his analysis by acquainting the reader with an insider's view of the conflicted Japanese conceptions of security policy and the various ideational and structural restraints on expanding the role of the military. Next, he explores the events of the past decade that have caused huge shifts in security policy and posture and predicts the future vectors of those changes within Japan. Finally, the author overlays the likely Japanese security future on the alliance and concludes that changes in the basic relationship between the United States and Japan must occur if the alliance is to retain its centrality 20 years from now.

In this book, American and Japanese experts examine to what extent diverging priorities in the U.S.-Japan alliance are real and whether they are not remedied with political and diplomatic leadership and other processes. American and Japanese authors are paired to analyze the same topic, where doing so is possible, for comparing their perspectives.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - Region: Other States, grade: 72% - First Class Honours, University of Greenwich, language: English, abstract: This paper argues that because of the new reality of the twenty-first century where the United States is beginning to decline, China is rising and North Korea has acquired nuclear capabilities, Japan may need to rethink its foreign and security policy which are deeply anchored on its alliance with Washington. In the light of these new challenges, this paper considers potential problems and constrains in Tokyo’s current strategy and suggests it may not be in Japan’s best interest to continue pursuing them. Finally, alternatives to Japan’s security policy are considered and this paper concludes that no single alternative could replace the U.S.-Japan alliance as an effective security policy in the foreseeable future. Rather, all the alternatives pursued together would potentially lead to an efficacious option, consequently providing Japan’s foreign policy with greater independence from the United States.

The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Past, Present, and Future explains the inner workings of the U.S.-Japan alliance and recommends new approaches to sustaining this critical bilateral security relationship.