to fight their battles if they were not prepared to fight for themselves.
Subsequently, the end of the Cold War removed much of the justification for the extensive network of US security alliances and military deployments. A “peace dividend” was widely expected, and most of the US forces in Europe were repatriated as Washington slashed defense expenditures.
The US Defense Strategy Reports of 1990 and 1992 also called for removal of most US forces from the Asia-Pacific region by the end of the decade. At the same time, leaders in Japan began to speak of the lessening need for the security alliance with the United States, and of greater reliance on the UN and on economic cooperation. It began to look as if Japan would reassume responsibility for its own foreign policy and bear a much greater burden for its own defense.
But that all changed in 1995 with the publication of the US Defense Department’s new Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region. This document reversed previous statements by saying that although the Cold War was over, diverse conflicts posed threats to US interests and made it necessary for America to maintain its then-current troop levels (about 100,000) in the region for the foreseeable future. This was followed in April of 1996 by the US-Japan Joint Declaration reaffirming the “Alliance for the 21st Century,” which essentially confirmed the unilateral US commitments of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty while providing the basis for a potential broadening of Japan’s support of US military-related actions. Thus, as far as the United States and Japan were concerned, the end of the Cold War changed nothing.
Behind this great reversal were three unexpected developments: the Gulf War of 1990–1991, North Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile development, and the rapid rise of China’s military spending. All of these created uncertainty that caused both Tokyo and Washington to postpone significant changes in the security arrangements. But this status-quo course posed several problems for America. The US was losing the overwhelming economic competitiveness that had supported its political and military superiority during the Cold War. China was becoming a formidable regional rival. With a rapidly growing economy and an authoritarian government that had no need of policy approval from the citizenry, it could easily bear the burden of an arms race. With a relatively declining economy, Washington would find engaging in such a race increasingly difficult. (By 2012 it had already become impossible for Washington to even contemplate sending its aircraft-carrier battle groups into the Taiwan Strait, as it had done in 1996 in response to Chinese threats of attack on Taiwan.) In addition, by carrying the major burden of defense for Japan and its other Asian allies, the United States was enabling Japan to postpone the long-term necessity of providing more of its own security. The arrangement allowed Tokyo to avoid serious consideration of its own circumstances. For instance, it could neglect settling disputes with South Korea and China over minor islands, antagonize neighbors with denials of certain facts of World War II, and postpone serious discussion of mutual defense arrangements with South Korea and other potential Asian allies. Finally, the understanding assumed a perfect and continuing congruence between the interests of America and those of its Asian allies. In doing so, it potentially made the United States hostage to policies and actions of its allies that might not always be in its own best interests.
WAKE-UP TIME
The advent of the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in December of 2012 marked the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana. Abe himself recognized that the United States could not indefinitely maintain its hegemonic role, and that the arrangement had become a potential long-term trap: as US power declined, Japan would increasingly be unable to defend itself unless it took steps now to assure its future. Early in his term, Abe spoke of “breaking away from the postwar order.”
Abe visited India in May of 2013, pledging greater defense cooperation between Japan and India and agreeing to conduct joint military exercises on a frequent basis. In July of that year, he visited the Philippines and offered ten patrol boats to help the Philippine coast guard better defend Manila’s claims to some of the South China Sea islands also claimed by China. Said Abe, “For Japan, the Philippines is a strategic partner with whom we share fundamental values and many strategic interests. In order to further reinforce this relationship...we confirm continued assistance to the capacity-building of the Philippine coast guard.”
Coming from the then junior security partner in the US-Japan alliance, these visits and statements were surprising to some. But Abe seemed to have understood that the continued presence of American power in the region could only be maintained on the basis of a stronger, more independent Japan. Many suspected Abe of dreaming of a revitalization of Japan’s prewar nationalism. But, as Kazuhiko Togo, an ambassador in the Japanese Foreign Ministry noted in the Nelson Report in September, 2014, no American president could indefinitely justify unilateral American defense of Japan to the American public when the interests of the two countries might diverge. Ironically, the nationalist Abe was trying to keep the Americans in the Pacific as part of his effort to keep the Chinese out, or at least at bay.
Three issues were particularly indicative of the trend of the future of the Pax Americana: South Korea-Japan dissension; Chinese-Japanese confrontation over the Senkaku Islands; and a potential choice for America between the current Air-Sea Battle strategy of complete dominance over the East and South China Seas up to the shores of China, and the new, less confrontational Offshore Control strategy anchored on the second island chain rather than the first.
SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN DON’T TALK TO EACH OTHER
Like Japan, South Korea had a mutual security treaty with the United States that committed America to its unilateral defense. As allies of the United States, South Korea and Japan were indirectly allies of each other, and shared many of the same security concerns. Nevertheless, neither country shared even routine national security intelligence with the other. All exchanges took place through American intermediaries. Finally, in June, 2013, it appeared that an agreement on intelligence sharing had been reached. At the last minute, however, the deal was tabled because of an intense anti-Japanese reaction by the South Korean parliament.
This was triggered by Tokyo’s release of a public opinion survey showing that two-thirds of Japanese thought the Takeshima Islands, then administered by South Korea as its own sovereign territory, were rightfully Japanese territory. South Korean politicians saw the release of this survey as insultingly provocative and reneged on the intelligence deal.
To explain just how strange this situation was, some analysts noted that Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were committed to defending the Takeshima Islands as Japanese territory, while South Korea’s president emphasized that his country would defend them to the death, especially against Japan. The United States, as the most important ally of both countries, was bound by treaty to defend each. Did that mean that the US Navy would go to war with South Korea against Japan while the US Army went to war with Japan against South Korea? Obviously, this was kind of a joke question, but it carried an important hidden meaning. If South Korea and Japan didn’t care enough about their own and regional security to settle the issue of these tiny, insignificant islands in order to share national security intelligence, perhaps America should also think differently about how it fulfilled its security treaty commitments.
THE SENKAKU ISLANDS
The second issue that had ramifications for the future of the Pax Americana was China’s unilateral and unannounced establishment, on November 23, 2013, of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea that overlapped with Japan’s ADIZ in the same area, covering the Senkaku Islands. Beijing required aircraft of any type passing through this zone to file a flight plan with the Chinese authorities and to notify them when entering the space.
Sovereignty disputes over the Senkakus between Japan and China were nothing new. In the wake of World War II, the islands had been kept under US Occupation authority and then turned over to Japan, along with Okinawa, when the islands reverted to Tokyo’s authority in 1972. According to accounts by former Japanese diplomat Hiroshi
