U.S.-Japan Relations: The End of Interdependence?

U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS:___________ THE END OF INTERDEPENDENCE? James E. AuerEdward J. Lincoln Marius B. Jansen Kent E. Calder [Editor's Note: On October 3, 1990, SAIS's Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies held a conference, U.S.-Japan Relations: The End of Interdependence? The speakers were asked to respond to the question of whether or not Japanese and American national interests are inherently in conflict, and of so, whether those diverging interests can be reconciled and pursued by both countries cooperatively under the existing structure of the bilateral relationship. The remarks of four of the participants follow.] 93 94 SAISREVIEW James E. Auer is director of the Center for U.S.- Japan Studies and Cooperation at the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and research professor of Public Policy at the George Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. From April 1979 until September 1988, he served as special assistant for Japan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. U.S.-Japanese defense relations were a success story of the 1980s. The Mutual Security Treaty celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in June ofthis year after a rocky start in 1960, which is best described in George Packard's book, Protest in Tokyo.1 In the 1980s, Japan made a quantum leap in its defense capabilities, increased significantly its financial support for U.S. forces based in Japan and offered to share commercial defense technology with the United States. Most important of all, the United States and Japan worked in the 1980s to deny the Soviet Union any political advantage from its massive military buildup in the Asian Pacific region since the mid-1960s. As a result, just as the Pacific was emerging as the economic center of the world, carrying twice as much U.S. trade as the Atlantic, Pacific deterrence remained strong and even increased. I believe that the specter of increased defense cooperation—in the technological, as well as the military, spheres—between the world's two largest economies may have been one of the critical factors motivating Mikhail Gorbachev to pursue new political thinking and economic restructuring . Even before the great events that unfolded in Eastern Europe at the end of 1989, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty rivaled the importance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) among U.S. defense arrangements. Given those events and the likelihood ofcontinuous growth of the Pacific economies in the 1990s, the U.S.-Japanese treaty may well be the most important of the current decade. Asked in the late 1970s to name an area the United States could not defend, the chief of naval operations, Admiral James L. Holloway III, stated that the country would be hard-pressed to maintain sea control in the Sea of Japan during a conflict with the Soviet Union. Congressional calls for increased defense burden sharing from all U.S. allies, particularly Japan, became shrill. In 1981, however, the Reagan administration decided to cease public criticism of U.S. allies and to conduct a frank 1. George R. Packard, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis of 1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966). THE END OF INTERDEPENDENCE? 95 though private dialogue, not about spending levels but about appropriate mutual defense roles. The United States proposed such a dialogue to Japan in March 1981 and, two months later, President Reagan and Prime Minister Suzuki signed a joint communiqué in Washington calling for a division of defense responsibilities. While still in Washington, the prime minister stated that Japan's national policy under such an agreement included the defense of Japan's territory, airspace and sea-lanes to within 1,000 miles. Japan did not yet have the capability to carry out its self-declared role in 1981. Soon after taking office the following year, Prime Minister Nakasone announced that carrying out the Reagan-Suzuki communiqu é would be a priority of his cabinet. He exempted the United States from a Japanese ban on the export of military technology to foreign countries and directed the Japan Defense Agency to draw up a five-year defense plan for 1986-1990 to give Japan's Self-Defense Forces the requisite ability to carry out Japan's...