Hegemony and the US‒Japan Alliance
Hegemony and the US‒Japan Alliance

Author: Misato Matsuoka

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-14

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1351399144

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It is widely recognised that the increasing importance of the US‒Japan alliance is strongly linked to emerging threats in the Asia Pacific, with China’s rise and the ambitions of North Korea having brought the two allies closer together. This book, however, seeks to question whether these factors are indeed the sole determinants of this enduring alliance. A pioneering study conducted through the lens of neo-Gramscianism, this book unravels the intricate political dynamism involved in the US‒Japan alliance. It provides an innovative attempt to link the concept of alliances to hegemony and thus examines Japan’s relationship to US dominance in the region. Building on existing scholarship, it also seeks to examine how Japan’s continuing dependence on the US, and the burden it places of citizens living near US military bases, may affect the durability of the alliance in the post-Cold War era. As such, this book presents an alternative theoretical tool in the field of international relations to analyse the political nature of the alliance, as well as US hegemony in the region. This book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics and foreign policymaking, as well as International Relations and Security Studies more generally.

Dilemmas of a Trading Nation
Dilemmas of a Trading Nation

Author: Mireya Solis

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2017-08-01

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 0815729200

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The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan—and the United States—in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout. Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade. In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability. Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction—economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America's diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.

Japan's Security Relations with China Since 1989
Japan's Security Relations with China Since 1989

Author: Reinhard Drifte

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-08-03

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1134406673

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1. Japanese-Chinese relations under Cold War conditions -- 2. The rise of traditional and non-traditional security concerns -- 3. Between power balancing and enmeshment policies -- 4. The dynamics of engagement.

On Theories of Victory, Red and Blue
On Theories of Victory, Red and Blue

Author: Brad Roberts

Publisher:

Published: 2020-05-10

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781952565014

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While the United States and its allies put their military focus on the post-9/11 challenges of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, Russia and China put their military focus onto the United States and the risks of regional wars that they came to believe they might have to fight against the United States. Their first priority was to put their intellectual houses in order-that is, to adapt military thought and strategic planning to the new problem. The result is a set of ideas about how to bring the United States and its allies to a "culminating point" where they choose to no longer run the costs and risks of continued war. This is the "red theory of victory." Beginning in the second presidential term of Obama administration, the U.S. military focus began to shift, driven by rising Russian and Chinese military assertiveness and outspoken opposition to the regional security orders on their peripheries. But U.S. military thought has been slow to catch up. As a recent bipartisan congressional commission concluded, the U.S. intellectual house is dangerously out of order for this new strategic problem. There is no Blue theory of victory. Such a theory should explain how the United States and its allies can strip away the confidence of leaders in Moscow and Beijing (and Pyongyang) in their "escalation calculus"-that is, that they will judge the costs too high, the benefits to low, and the risks incalculable. To develop, improve, and implement the needed new concepts requires a broad campaign of activities by the United States and full partnership with its allies.

All Possible Wars?
All Possible Wars?

Author: Sam J. Tangredi

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13:

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This survey is a product of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) 2001 Working Group, a project of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the working group is an independent, honest-broker effort intended to build intellectual capital for the upcoming QDR. More specifically, it aims to frame issues, develop options, and provide insights for the Chairman, the services, and the next administration in three areas: defense strategy, criteria for sizing conventional forces, and force structure for 2005-2010. One of the group's initial tasks was to assess the future security environment to the year 2025. This was pursued by surveying the available literature to identify areas of consensus and debate. The goal was to conduct an assessment that would be far more comprehensive than any single research project or group effort could possibly produce. This survey documents major areas of agreement and disagreement across a range of studies completed since the last QDR in 1997. Because it distills a variety of sources and organizes and compares divergent views, this volume makes a unique contribution to the literature. It also provides a particularly strong set of insights and assumptions on which both strategists and force planners can draw in the next Quadrennial Defense Review. This survey does not claim to predict or illustrate all possible wars that Anmrica might face between now and the year 2025. Rather, it attempts, through analysis of representative and reputable sources, to incorporate the most likely characteristics of the future security environment into a single scenario, while heightening our awareness of dissenting viewpoints and plausible wild cards.

The Japan-U.S. Alliance
The Japan-U.S. Alliance

Author: Nishihara Masashi

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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For the foreseeable future, the alliance with the United States will remain the cornerstone of Japan's security. The Japan-U.S. alliance is also arguably the most important factor in the stability of East Asia. While this alliance is thought to rest on a firm foundation, it is in reality constantly affected by a number of elements, small and large. Domestic public opinion and politics, international events and their repercussions, tensions between other countries, and cultural outlook--all these things and more influence the health of the alliance. In this collection of essays, six Japanese political scientists examine how the differences as well as the similarities in policies between the two alliance partners toward various issues and countries may affect the solidarity of the alliance and, hence, influence the stability of the Asia Pacific region at large. Themes covered by these young scholars--all of whom were born after World War II--include the two countries' strategies toward armed non-state actors, the security of Southeast Asia as a common agenda in the alliance, the Taiwan issue in Sino-Japanese relations, the impact of a reunified Korea on the security agreements between Japan and the United States and between South Korea and the United States, economic sanctions against Myanmar, and the overall framework of the Japan-U.S. alliance. As the first such collection of analysis and opinion on this topic in English by Japan's intellectual leaders of tomorrow, this volume makes accessible to readers current thinking in Japan on the alliance that is so important to both countries.

Japan’s Arduous Rejuvenation as a Global Power
Japan’s Arduous Rejuvenation as a Global Power

Author: Victor Teo

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-04-08

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 9811361908

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This open access book assesses the profound impact of Japan’s aspirations to become a great power on Japanese security, democracy and foreign relations. Rather than viewing the process of normalization and rejuvenation as two decades of remilitarization in face of rapidly changing strategic environment and domestic political circumstances, this volume contextualizes Japan’s contemporary international relations against the longer grain of Japanese historical interactions. It demonstrates that policies and statecraft in the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s era are a continuation of a long, unbroken and arduous effort by successive generations of leaders to preserve Japanese autonomy, enhance security and advance Japanese national interests. Arguing against the notion that Japan cannot work with China as long as the US-Japan alliance is in place, the book suggests that Tokyo could forge constructive relations with Beijing by engaging China in joint projects in and outside of the Asia-Pacific in issue areas such as infrastructure development or in the provision of international public goods. It also submits that an improvement in Japan-China relations would enhance rather than detract Japan-US relations and that Tokyo will find that her new found autonomy in the US-Japan alliance would not only accord her more political respect and strategic latitude, but also allow her to ameliorate the excesses of American foreign policy adventurism, paving for her to become a truly normal great power.