United States, Japan and Korea Security Alliance From 1994 to Present

UNITED STATES, JAPAN - KOREA SECURITY ALLIANCE
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Abstract
The United States, Japan and Korea have had some security alliances that have spun across several decades. The alliances are mainly focused to the protection of the territorial integrity of the concerned countries. The US-Japan alliance for instance initially focused on the Japan`s territorial defense and then later on merged with the broader US global strategy. The US-Japan alliance is key to helping us understand the external challenges that lie ahead in terms of managing the crucial partnership. The United States- Japan alliance also provides for an excellent and up-to-date effort to think through the relationship between the US and Japan. With the political change in Japan taking shape, there have been fiscal pressures on Washington and Tokyo and there are also some new challenges from China and North Korea that are affecting the state of the two countries. The durability of the US-Japan alliance lies in the capacity of the alliance to constantly redefine itself to adapt to the ever changing security equation in Asia and beyond. This paper examines the causes and the effects of various international events and policies that have taken place in the three countries since the inception of the alliance to date.
United States, Japan and Korea Security Alliance From 1994 to Present
Introduction
The US Japan alliance is based on the 1951 bilateral treaty and is considered one of Washington`s main military partnerships. The arrangement was formulated as a product of the Cold War`s bipolarity. This arrangement served a purpose to prevent the communist threat and expansion. However, there were some structural changes in East Asia in 1989 that necessitated the restructuring of the agreement (Elena, 2005). The bilateral agreement was then redefined in the mid 1990s to include both the regional and global dimensions. The US-Japan security ties saw a period of unprecedented deepening during the term of former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro (2001-2006), with Tokyo becoming an even stronger supporter of the American-led regional security order. Beijing, however, saw the consolidation of the alliance as directed at China and hence seeking to constrain its rising power in East Asia, notably by having impact on the Taiwan issue. The deterioration in Sino-Japanese ties under Koizumi reinforced the security dilemma between the bilateral alliance and the PRC, as well as Beijing`s perception of Tokyo as a major tool in Washington`s strategy of maintaining its primacy in East Asia (Hughes, 2005). However, several new trends have emerged in the relations between Japan, China and the US in the post-Koizumi era and since Barack Obama became US President in 2009 (Ikenberry, 2004). These include stabilization in Sino-Japanese ties, Tokyo`s pro-Asia diplomacy under Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009-present), and America`s increased focus on nontraditional security issues and multilateral engagement of East Asia under the leadership of Barack Obama. Since the remarkable change of the government in Japan, it has become clear that there is need of reexamining the US- Japan security alliance in order to guarantee the alliance`s capabilities of facing the challenges of the 21st century.
The alliance between the two countries has been strong for quite some time. However, there are some challenges that the two countries are facing that jeopardize the state of the alliance. For instance the rape incident in Okinawa and the massive public demonstrations in Japan against the US troop presence have continuously been a question about the stability of the security alliance (Ikenberry & Inoguchi, 1996). There are several events that have transpired that have changed some few issues about the alliance.
Historical Background of the US-Japan Alliance
In the early 1990s, US-Japan relations were more uncertain. Initially, Japan and the United States cooperated closely in order to build a strong and multifaceted relationship that was based on democratic values and the interests in world stability and general development of the two countries. The relationship between the two countries improved greatly in the 1970s. This led to improved economic growth (Elena, 2005). Worth noting is that the GDP of the two countries combined, totaled to about 1/3 of the world`s total GDP. After the cold war, the environment strengthened the relative importance of the economic prowess over the military power as the main source of world influences. This shift greatly affected the standing of Japan, the United States and other economic powers. The views on the US-Japan relationship were then revised(Hughes, 2005). Different commentators thought that the United States was weak and only relied on Japan to advance their interests. Therefore they urged Japan to strike out of the agreement. The future of the relationship was uncertain. However, in October 1994, Japan and the United States agreed to open up three markets in Japan that could be used for selling US based products. In the last part of final decade of the 20th century, the relationship between the countries further improved and strengthened. This was attributed by the entry of China which posed as the main threat to the economic prowess of the US. The emergence of North Korea as a belligerent rogue state and China's economic and military expansion provided a purpose to strengthen the relationship. While the foreign policy of the administration of President George W. Bush put a strain on some of the United States' international relations, the alliance with Japan has become stronger, as evidenced when Japan agreed to deploy troops to Iraq and when they joined the anti-missile defense systems (Ikenberry, 2004). However, in 2009 when the Democratic Party of Japan came into power, they called for changes in the recently agreed upon security realignment plan. They then opened a review to establish how the agreement was reached at. They claimed that the US had dictated the terms of the agreement. However, the US Secretary of Defense refuted the claims and stated that the US was not ready to pay for any changes in the agreement that had been signed earlier on (Maechling, 2000). Some of the US officials are therefore worried that the Japanese government led by the Democratic Party may be considering a policy shift away from the United States and toward a more independent foreign policy.
The nature of the Alliance to date
The starting point for examining the American domestic fault lines that could substantially erode or derail the U.S-Japan alliance is to place the issue in the larger context of U.S. foreign policy and its place in the universe of public policy, where domestic concerns have taken center stage. The radically diminished position of foreign policy in American public life was evident during the 1996 presidential election campaign--it all but fell off the nation's radar screen. Despite a general sense of disinterest, however, there is a residual sense of pride and responsibility from the postwar experience that sustains support for the idea of American leadership, and certainly for doing the fair share in world affairs. But probably the most prevalent public perception of the impact of the world on U.S. interests is a sense of personal insecurity, whether warranted or not, about the unpredictability of the new global economy. It is against that backdrop that American attitudes toward Japan must be viewed. We are going to explore the endogenous forces in the United States that, in response to exogenous factors and/or internal developments, could unravel the U.S.-Japan alliance. However legitimate and accurate the depiction of the alliance as a bulwark of regional stability or that fears of uncertainty may be, they lack the compelling and universal raison d'etre for the U.S.-Japan alliance in the public mind that the Soviet threat provided (Elena, 2005). This is evidenced on the U.S. side by a more one-dimensional focus on trade issues at the official level during the first two years of the Clinton administration. In Japan, the new focus is manifested in the rising saliency of concerns about the social costs of the U.S. military presence like the controversies that befell the marines in Okinawa.
There was a series of external pressure in the late 1990s that served as a catalyst for the reevaluation of the US-Japan Security policy. The 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis exposed the lack of military operability of the alliance, while the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and the 1998 North Korean missile launch over Japan further heightened Tokyo`s regional threat perceptions. The Japan-US response to these developments was the revision in 1997 of the bilateral Defense Guidelines, which committed Japan`s Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to extend non-combat rear-area support to the US military during regional security crises. The result was a broadening of the alliance`s scope from a narrow focus on Japan`s defense, which was its primary focus during the Cold War, to include...