First Among Equals

Fundamentally, Japan shares a wide range of values and interests with the United States. The essentially similar long-term goals of these two nations, whose economies produce nearly 43 percent of the world's wealth, facilitate envisioning a world order that would be ideal from both countries' viewpoints. Such a world order would be premised on democracy, human rights, and free markets. Based on these principles, Japan would willingly support this world order. In fact, the United States, as the ultimate guarantor of such an order, is unlikely to meet substantive objections from any of the major players on the world stage. Nevertheless, while promoting this world order, the United States must be cautious and attentive to local conditions around the world.

For this ideal situation to be realized--at least with regard to Asia--two requirements must be met: a continued working partnership between the United States and Japan and a solid base of public support for the domestic and international goals of both nations.

A Matter of Perspective

The great challenge for the United States in securing this ideal world order will be coming to terms with its unprecedented relative and absolute power. Already evident are two diametrically opposed risks: complacency and arrogance.

As with Gulliver on his travels, it is all a matter of perspective. The self-complacent protagonist may easily shirk his global responsibilities. Yielding to self-absorption, indifference, or just plain laziness, he may not even realize how gossamer-thin is the tissue of multilateral obligations that enmeshes him with the smaller and weaker members of the international community. For example, the United States may not heed what global warming means to the Lilliputian island nation of Micronesia. Naturally, for them, any portent of the Pacific Ocean's waves swamping their islands is of the utmost concern.

By the same token, the din of humanitarian disasters in faraway places with unpronounceable names is unlikely to motivate a self-complacent United States, unless others can somehow demonstrate that responding to them complements Washington's immediate self-interest. In either of these cases, other countries will be highly attuned to any sign that the United States is preparing to neglect or abandon them.

Conversely, Gulliver may become all too conscious of his own real or imaginary weaknesses and shortcomings; he may fall prey to suspicion, doubt, anxiety, and fear of the unknown. This paranoid protagonist will meddle in everyone else's business on the spur of the moment, foisting his own preferences on others with scant regard to the actual needs of the people and the regions concerned--all, ostensibly, in the name of "moral leadership." The danger here is overreaction to perceived crises--humanitarian or otherwise--under pressure of domestic public opinion agitated by CNN.

U.S. unilateralism is thus simply the other side of the coin from U.S. isolationism. From the perspective of the smaller members of the international community, the sheer unpredictability of the superpower's behavior is most disturbing. Irrational swings between isolationism and internationalism, between complacency and arrogance, are part and parcel of an unfortunately recurring pattern in U.S. history--a story as old as the United States itself.

New in the twenty-first century, however, are the repercussions these swings will have on international events, simply because of the sheer disproportion of U.S. power. Whether as formal allies or as potential antagonists, all nations in the world expect certain things of the United States, just as if they were its clients. They watchfully anticipate every U.S. move, lest they be abandoned, trampled, or entangled--the typical attitude of the junior party of an alliance toward its superior. Now more than ever, what the United States does is just as important as what it does not do.

When trying to understand the U.S. point of view and craft appropriate responses, Asians must keep the U.S. perspective in mind. Ironically, the prize for being the sole superpower is, by definition, that one is surrounded [End Page 74...