Energizing the U.S.-Japan Security Partnership

The U.S.-Japan political partnership is due for a period of internal reflection and strategic reinvestment. ¹ The alliance that has provided the bedrock for U.S. policy in Asia and has been a mainstay, preserving peace and stability for nearly half a century, does not get the attention or recognition it deserves. The security component of the alliance, after a period of intense activity between 1995 and 1998, has also lost some momentum. In terms of real strategic oversight on both sides of the Pacific, the alliance has been on a kind of bureaucratic autopilot for the better part of a decade. There are a number of reasons for this, not least of which has been the tendency to take the benefits of the alliance for granted. Yet, there are important changes underway in the Asian-Pacific security environment that suggest a more activist approach to the alliance is in order. To revitalize the U.S.-Japan security partnership, the new security dimensions of Asia--ranging from dramatic diplomatic developments on the Korean peninsula to increasing tensions across the Taiwan Strait--demand a more intense and high-level focus for the alliance.

What Has Been

For all the talk of the U.S.-Japan security alliance as the cornerstone of U.S. strategy in the Asian and Pacific region, there has not been enough attention by senior U.S. policymakers, commentators, and elites to understand its complexities or sustain its importance. Indeed, except for a brief period of strategic reexamination in 1995--the so-called Nye initiative that culminated in the 1996 Clinton-Hashimoto Security Declaration--the alliance has, for more than a decade, been managed by mid-level bureaucrats on both sides of the Pacific. (I must admit here to being one of those mid-level officials, having worked at the Pentagon between 1995 and 2000 on Asian security matters.)

Before making the case for devoting considerably more attention at the highest levels of our government and society to the U.S.-Japan partnership, it is important first to identify the reasons for the previous lack of focus--in both political parties and both the legislative and executive branches of government--to this crucial security partnership.

Perhaps the most important reason for the absence of a sustained effort to engage on common security themes in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War was the growing sense of economic competition and hostility between Japan and the United States marking the period of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The contrast between a close security partnership and an intense economic rivalry has always made for a difficult coexistence, but, during this period, all balance was lost with much more time spent on semiconductors, flat glass, and auto parts than the potential conduct of the alliance in a crisis. Furthermore, the strategic implications of the end of the Cold War in Asia were far less immediate or apparent than in Europe. Policymakers in Washington primarily were preoccupied with a succession of continental challenges, including Russian reform efforts, German reunification, NATO expansion, and ultimately the disintegration of Tito's Yugoslavia.

Comparatively, Asia's security issues seemed somewhat remote, and these supposedly secondary concerns were easily shuffled to the back burner. There was also the traditional reticence, even allergy, to explicit examinations of security inside Japan. For many, the delineation of roles and missions between Japan and the United States in the security sphere went something like this: the United States would take care of Japan's security, and Japan, in turn, would not ask any questions. The reality was and is that, for much of the U.S. national security apparatus, nothing could be more comfortable than an ally that provides bases, generous host-nation support, and does not want to be consulted.

More recently, a primary Asian preoccupation of U.S. policymakers in the past five years has been to rebuild relations with China, ties which were virtually nonexistent since...