Return to Basics: Recalibrating the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance

[ 10 ] asia policy Return to Basics: Recalibrating the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance Michael Finnegan The U.S.-Japan relationship has, on the whole, proven to be a very positive and useful tool for the national security needs of both states. The relationship is a complicated web of political, economic, military, and social ties that has at its core a security partnership—an alliance—stemming from the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security of 1960. In what direction that alliance is evolving, and indeed whether it remains useful and necessary as a national security tool for the individual partners, is a critical question to consider in thinking through the broader question of the future U.S.-Japan relationship. However, past attempts to do so have often been built on a set of faulty premises concerning the ability of the alliance to evolve to meet future needs. Past Attempts to Find a Future Alliance This question of where the alliance is going and what purpose it will fulfill for both the United States and Japan is not a new one, having lingered over the alliance now for the better part of two decades. With the end of the Cold War, however, the United States’ strategic imperative for Japan to provide the “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” as former prime minister Nakasone once characterized it, declined significantly.1 Hard on the heels of this sea change came the first Gulf War, highlighting for both partners the bedeviling issue of the alliance: what can Japan do? Japan’s response was dissatisfying from a U.S. viewpoint and embarrassing in the mind of many Japanese. Criticized for practicing “checkbook diplomacy,” Japan looked to itself with concern. The 1994 nuclear crisis with North Korea further complicated the situation by exposing the operational inadequacy of the alliance to respond to a crisis—not a third of a world away in Southwest Asia, but right in Japan’s neighborhood. This crisis catalyzed a process of evaluation and restatement of the purposes of the alliance through the 1996 Clinton-Hashimoto declaration and the subsequent 1997 Defense Guidelines revision. Both of 1 Martin Fackler, “Japan’s Elder Statesman Is Silent No Longer,” New York Times, January 29, 2010 u http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/world/asia/30nakasone.html. michael finnegan is a Senior Research Associate at The National Bureau of Asian Research. He can be reached at . [ 11 ] roundtable • a new stage for the u.s.-japan alliance? these efforts outlined a new vision of the alliance and were “aimed at creating a solid basis for more effective and credible Japan-U.S. cooperation under normal circumstances and during contingencies.”2 Four years later, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Prime Minister Koizumi and President Bush similarly pledged themselves to a new, more capable alliance. In the assessments of most observers, however, the promise of this new, more capable alliance remains unfulfilled. These assessments and restatements of the alliance’s purpose over the last two decades have always hinged on two premises. First, the idea of a future for the alliance has been based on the belief that the alliance must continue; that it is—beyond the rhetoric—truly the irreplaceable linchpin of U.S. and Japanese security. Secondly, the possibility of a more capable future alliance has been premised on the assertion that Japan can and will do more to contribute operationally. Both of these premises are questionable. Desires for the Alliance to Do More On the first point, the strategic value proposition, or the strategic need of the alliance, has shifted and now depends on future security threat analyses. The Soviet Union is no more, and the pressing need for the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” has waned for the most part. However, North Korea is increasingly a cause for concern, although it is not yet clear whether it poses a long-term threat. China’s future course is uncertain. And the world beyond East Asia is obviously more complicated. The security challenges that the allies confront thus continue to shift, but in the face of this uncertainty the alliance on the whole will remain useful if it can provide the operational tools to meet these challenges...