Author: Tomohiko Satake, International Relations, ANU

Tobias Harris is one of the few people who understand the reality of Japan’s security situation, without taking an alarmist posture nor being a ‘free-rider’ advocate. I especially agree with his overall message: ‘The security relationship is important, but it cannot be the whole of the US-Japan relationship’.

He argues that the US should ’socialise’ Japan to have greater diplomatic responsibilities on regional issues, especially in dealing with Korean Peninsula, by taking advantage of its long-term relationship with Japan.

What I am concerned about, however, is that he is too pessimistic about Japan’s military involvement in the international security issues in the future. Or, as he puts it, the ‘idea of a global alliance was far-fetched and doomed to fail’.

It is true that Japan came to have a fear of entrapment by US military action because of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as an ally ‘dependent’ on the US, Japan’s fear of abandonment is still much greater than its fear of entrapment. Japan is still likely to try to make its contribution to US-led coalition efforts for global security more efficient so as to maintain good alliance relations with the US, although this will certainly take time. This stems not only from Japan’s fear of abandonment, but also from its ambition to be a global player, both in the region and the world.

True, the DPJ, a would-be governmental party after the next election, opposes Japan’s current approach to the US-Japan alliance. Yet that doesn’t mean that the majority of the DPJ is against Japan’s contribution to international security like the Socialist Party was during the Cold War.

What DPJ leadership is saying is this: as long as international coalition efforts are based on UN Resolutions, Japan should dispatch the JSDF to them. Note that few years ago Ozawa surprised many people by publishing an article that suggested Japan’s participation in the ISAF in Afghanistan, a move even the LDP was reluctant to make.

It is also likely that the DPJ will change its security posture toward a more ‘realistic’ approach after coming into power, as the SPJ did in the mid 1990s. What the US should do is very clear – refrain from any unilateral military action and link its international security activities (for example, the war on terror) with other international security frameworks, especially with the UN, as much as they can. This seems more likely under Obama.

This makes it easier to engage US allies, including Japan, in these security activities. This is what Bush failed to do, and this is what Obama and Nye need to do, and probably will.

Tobias Harris’ post on the topic, a letter to Ambassador Nye, can be found here.

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2. US-Japan alliance: Time for the US to accept new realities
3. The US-Japan alliance: Lest we forget
4. Urgent need for 21st century vision of US-Japan alliance

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 10:00 pm and is filed under International Relations, Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.