nbr special report #17 | november 2009

managing
unmet expectations
in the U.S.-Japan Alliance

table of contents

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27
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Foreword
Richard Lawless & Jim Thomas
Managing Expectations in the U.S.-Japan Alliance
Michael Finnegan
Appendix A Project Description
Appendix B Managing Unmet Expectations: Workshop Scenarios
Appendix C U.S. Workshop Summary
Appendix D Japan Workshop Summary

Foreword

s senior advisors and peer discussants, we have been privileged to contribute to the
inception, development, and evolution of this important project. This report provides a
reasonable point of departure, if not a conceptual roadmap, for a serious reassessment of
the U.S.-Japan alliance. Such a fundamental reassessment is long overdue and is clearly
essential to the respective national security postures of both nations.
In the first instance our project was undertaken to illuminate the obvious, as well as the not-soobvious, disconnections and vulnerabilities that have long resided, mostly unchallenged, within this
critical security relationship. These alliance disconnections have been tolerated by both Washington
and Tokyo and quietly accommodated over many years, and through successive evolutions of both
governments, for a variety of reasons and in order to meet a range of ends detailed in this report.
Beyond an illumination of what the alliance both is and is not, the project sought to highlight
a plausible future that will most likely not be as kind to the alliance as the past half century or
so, wherein the Cold War and subsequent U.S. regional hegemony created a situation in which
the functionality of the U.S.-Japan military arrangement was never seriously tested. But today in
greater Asia, Japan and the United States as individual actors, as well as the alliance itself, already
confront a more complex regional security dynamic, involving more capable and aggressive
national actors. Compounding the deteriorating regional security environment is the likelihood
of reductions in both U.S. capacity and willingness to soldier on in an uneven relationship while
facing a range of global challenges that demand more immediate U.S. attention.
Asking security planners to acknowledge the twin realities of serious alliance deficiencies in
almost all facets of the military relationship and of the rapidly evolving regional security dynamic,
the report proposes a wholesale reassessment of the national security options by each nation.
Though several options and selected hypothetical outcomes are presented for the purpose of
furthering debate and discussion, there is no false confidence that the full range of possibilities
and outcomes has here been captured.
In Japan, the recently seated Hatoyama government has made achieving an equal U.S.-Japan
security partnership a core element of its policy manifesto. This study, completed coincident with
the arrival of that new Japanese government, calls for no less from the two nations, which have
both benefited substantially from the alliance.
Ultimately, it has been our intention to spur a dialogue on the alliance that in the coming
months and years will allow the two partners to address the issues and challenges identified by
this project so that a strengthened alliance emerges.
Finally and importantly, we wish to acknowledge the sustained efforts of the projects principal
investigator, Michael Finnegan, the fine organizational support of The National Bureau of Asian
Research, the financial support of the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the sustained interest and
well-honed contributions of the U.S. and Japanese participants who have waded enthusiastically
and passionately into this discussion. We are confident that this undertaking has only just begun.

Richard Lawless
former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for
Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, 200207

Jim Thomas
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Plans and Resources, 200406

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the national bureau

of

asian research

nbr special report #17 | november 2009

Managing Unmet Expectations in

the U.S.-Japan Alliance
Michael Finnegan

michael finnegan is a Senior Research Associate at The National Bureau of Asian

Research (NBR). He served as the principal investigator and led an interdisciplinary
team assembled by NBR for this project. He is a Northeast Asian security specialist,
former Senior Country Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and
former Special Assistant for Regional Security to the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. He can be reached at <mfinnegan@nbr.org>.

The author would like to thank NBR for its commitment to this project and
the Smith Richardson Foundation for its generous financial support. Additionally,
the Japan Institute of International Affairs was of critical assistance in arranging
the Tokyo workshop. In this regard, special thanks are due to Ambassador Nogami
Yoshiji, president of JIIA, and Funabashi Yoichi, of Asahi Shimbun, for their personal
support. The project is also indebted to the senior advisors for their consistent
support, to the projects core group for expert guidance, and to both the American
and the Japanese workshop participants for their candid and forthright examination
of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Any failings in this reports treatment of the project
findings are the responsibility of the author.
NOTE

executive Summary
This report examines the U.S.-Japan alliance to answer three related questions: Is the
alliance meeting the mutual expectations of the partners? If not, what are the potential
consequences? Given the stakes involved, what are the policy implications for the alliance?

Main Argument
The alliance is failing to meet the expectations of both the U.S. and Japan in significant
ways. For the U.S., the continuing inability of the alliance to operationalize itself in the core
mission of the defense of Japan as well as to be operationally relevant in the region remain
the key failings. For Japan, the primary growing concern is the U.S. meeting and sustaining
commitments to the defense of Japan, including extended deterrence. At base, both partners
have reasonable reasons to feel their core expectations are not being met nor will be met by
the current trajectory. Thus, despite public statements about strength, the alliance is actually
quite brittle precisely at a time when both allies are perhaps depending on it more than
ever. In a crisis the exposure of the alliances inability to meet key expectations is likely to
engender a subsequent significant and deal-breaking breakdown of confidence, leading one
or both partners to consider alternatives beyond the current configuration.
Policy Implications
The efforts of alliance leaders to sustain the alliance as is put both nations at risk.
The allies must develop a more sustainable set of expectations to form the basis of the
alliance.
Current efforts of policymakers to strengthen, deepen, or broaden the alliance fall short
and in meaningful ways distract the allies from meeting the central expectation of the
alliancethe defense of Japan.
Leaders must recognize that both countries have several alternatives to the current
alliance relationship, which although carrying significant downsides, must be considered
in policy calculations.
Policy leaders should consider implementation of a new grand bargain on Japanese
defense, wherein the primary focus of the alliance reverts to the defense of Japan, Japan
assumes primacy in this area, and newly clarified U.S. support commitments are met.

The alliance that we have is the cornerstone of security in East Asia. Its one
that my administration wants to strengthen.
Barack Obama, remarks during the visit of Prime Minister Taro Aso to the White House,
February 24, 2009.

he U.S.-Japan alliance continues to be viewed by both countries as the linchpin of stability

in the Asia-Pacific region and as key to the national security strategies of each country.
Leaders of both nations continue to speak of the importance of the alliance, now and in
the future. The unquestioned conventional wisdom on both sides of the Pacific holds that
Japan is an indispensable ally for the United States in the region and that the alliance, as currently
constituted, will continue to serve the interests of both nations. Indeed, the security institutions
and personalities responsible for alliance management on both sides have a cultivated bias toward
the never-ending utility of the current relationship.
A significant and dangerous flaw in this thinking is that two attendant assumptions are given
little attention in most considerations of the alliance. First, there is a general assumption that
the current relationship can continue, with minor adjustment, in the face of a changing security
environmentthat the alliance is up to the challenge. A corollary to this is the assumption that
the current relationship will meet the future needs and expectations of the individual partners.
This leads to a situation where policymakers cannot conceive of other viable alternatives. To
protect U.S., and arguably Japanese, national interests over the long term, this policy blind
spot must be addressed. The criticality both countries have ascribed to the alliance in their
respective security strategies, however, means that the alliances strength cannot be assumed;
rather, one must seek its confirmation.
On the surface, there is much reason to believe that all is well with the alliance. The past decade
has witnessed a series of agreements on defense guidelines, basing realignments, and even common
strategic objectives. These were and remain real accomplishments for alliance managers. On one
level, they can be seen as signs of the alliances strength.
Unfortunately, in many meaningful ways the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance remains a
rhetorical facade.1 Despite the progress that has been made over the past decade to strengthen the
alliance and the great importance that leaders on both sides of the Pacific have attributed to it, the
foundation is actually quite weak and is growing weaker. Indeed, major structural flaws have long
existed just below the surface and make for an uncertain grounding. One may reasonably posit
that unlike other U.S. alliances with NATO or South Korea, the U.S.-Japan alliance is deficient in
several functional ways. Combined or bilateral security institutions and mechanisms, as well as
underlying commitments to mutual defense, provide resilience in the United States other military
alliances; the absence of such institutions and mechanisms makes the U.S.-Japan alliance a brittle
partnership and an alliance that does not fully functionone that does not truly live up to the
expectations of the partners. This divergence between the perception of an improving alliance,
and hence its sustainability, and the reality of increasing tension and decreasing utility leads to
the impression that this alliance is subprime, which could in turn lead to the conclusion that an
inherently dysfunctional alliance that attempts to sustain itself in an increasingly over-leveraged

Paul Giarra observed a decade ago that the alliance is operating on the basis of rhetorical inertia. The same is in many ways true today.
Paul Giarra, Point of Choice, Point of Departure, Japan Quarterly 44, no. 1 (JanuaryMarch 1997): 16.

Managing unmet expectations u finnegan

situation probably cannot survive more complicated challenges. Should the alliance ever be truly
tested, a significant and deal-breaking crisis of confidence could occur.
At base, the United States and Japan are failing to meet each others expectations within the
alliance. Both sides have reasonable issues or grounds for dissatisfaction, some of which have
existed and been addressed in an incomplete fashion or papered over by layers of agreements and
understandings, and others of which are still emerging and have not yet been addressed or, in
some cases, fully recognized. These friction points could plausibly lead one or the other partner to
consider options or alternatives beyond the alliances current configuration.
In Japan, some are beginning to question the fundamental benefits of the alliancein particular
the extended deterrence afforded to Japanand are asking if the alliance provides Japan the full
range of protection the government believes, or may come to believe, the country requires in the
future. These critics see potential shortfalls that will threaten Japans interests.
In the United States, many increasingly question the asymmetric investment of the United
States in the relationship, as the country continues to provide the bulk of the common goods as
well as the majority of alliance capabilities; in other words, is this situation a classic cheap rider
problem? If so, then the basic assumptions undergirding the alliance must be adjusted. More
critically, some U.S. alliance managers also question whether the alliance will work when needed.
The tipping point in the calculus of the partners may be that both sides are asking similar
questions about the alliance at the same time. Moreover, the challenges to the alliance will only
become more pronounced as the future situation evolves; minor irritants that are acceptable now
may not be acceptable in the future, may push the allies to consider alternatives, and may in turn
threaten the alliances long-term sustainability.
At a time when both nations look to a strengthened alliance to bear more weight, such potential
for failure must be addressed. Not doing so will leave the alliance highly vulnerable to internal
shock should an external security crisis arise that exposes these unmet or mismatched expectations
within the alliance.
Recognizing the potentially grave consequences of such a crisis, an attempt to mitigate negative
outcomes in advance is always a prudent course of action. To that end, The National Bureau of
Asian Research (NBR) undertook this study in order to catalyze thinking on the alliance and
explore ways in which the partners could avoid the negative outcomes of an internal shock caused
by an emergency situation. Rather than assessing ways in which to avoid negative outcomes, the
projects intent was to perform a dispassionate bottom-up assessment of the alliance, thereby
generating a wider range of options for alliance managers to consider. The future choices alliance
leaders make on both sides of the Pacific need to be informed by an understanding of the available
options inside and outside the alliance. Only then can these leaders make decisions regarding the
alliance that will truly serve the American and Japanese people.
This project is a unique attempt at exploring the future of the alliance (for a description of
the project methodology, please refer to Appendix A). Much work has been published in recent
years discussing the alliance and various means to strengthen itnew agendas, new capabilities,
and new organizations. Most of this work, however, suffers from the same biasthat the current
partnership is the only possibility and that incremental tweaks or fine-tuning should be sufficient
to ensure that the alliance can continue to serve U.S. and Japanese interests. By using a different
point of departure, this project aimed to arrive at a more nuanced and useful understanding of
the options available, moving beyond simple adjustments of the structure, process, and agenda.

nbr Special report u november 2009

The project attempts to provide a sober assessment of the alliance and the available options
both within and outside it that could be pursued by one or both partners. Although alternatives
to the alliance may be unattractive, it should not be assumed that continuation of the alliance is
a certainty. One or both partners could choose a more accommodationist path vis--vis China,
perhaps setting up a situation of competing or parallel accommodations, with the key question
being which partner defects first. The reunification of the two Koreas could lead to the expulsion
of U.S. forces on the peninsula and prompt calls within Japan for a similar expulsion. The
peaceful or hostile reunification of Taiwan and China could lead to a divergence in the allies
respective security perceptions. Finally, Japan could pursue an independent nuclear capability,
or simmering questions about the credibility of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent could grow
to the point of rupturing the alliance, as Washington reduces the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Movement
in any of these directions could prompt one or both of the allies to withdraw from the alliance,
either formally or in all but name. (See Appendix B for a fuller description of the five scenarios
utilized in the project.)
The projects initial aim was to focus primarily on operational rather than strategic issues
and attempt to understand why the two states were each failing to meet alliance performance
expectations. It became clear through discussions (see Appendices C and D), though, that the
inability of the two allies to meet operational expectations, primarily those of the United States,
was rooted in the domestic politics of Japan and the broader expectations of the alliance as a
geopolitical tool for the allies. Put simply, only one ally appears to have the expectation that the
alliance should be reciprocally operational, and that expectation may be unrealistic.
Indeed, a primary assessment of this project is that the alliance requires a realignment of
expectations to ensure that each partner understands what the alliance can and cannot do for
its individual security, thus allowing for a clearer understanding of both the risks inherent in
this position and the measures, mutual or independent, needed to mitigate those risks. In the
projects assessment, scaling back expectations on both sides to focus first and foremost on treaty
obligations and the defense of Japan is likely a proper first step in adjusting alliance expectations.
This new grand bargain would both focus on what the alliance is, rather than on what it would
be in a perfect arrangement, and ensure that the alliance is able to meet core expectations related
to the defense of Japan.
The projects findings suggest that the preferred option for both the United States and Japan is
the continuation of an evolved relationship, although such continuance should be a choice based on
a new premisethat the alliance is neither the only option nor the only tooland a new bargain.
An additional critical implication for both allies is that, despite a potential preference to continue
the alliance, they must consider a range of options and hedges for the alliancethat is, alternatives
to the current configurationas an essential component in their respective security strategies.
If the alliance cannot meet core expectations, the two allies will be compelled to satisfy those
expectations with some other arrangement. This is a completely reasonable, but often considered
unthinkable, conclusion.
This project began well before the September 2009 installation of a new government in Japan
and hence is not directed at or inspired by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration.
Concerns had been raised in the months preceding the August 2009 election, when it became
increasingly clear that a DPJ victory was likely, that a DPJ government would be detrimental to the
alliance. The party pledged to adopt a more equal partnership with the United States, whatever

Managing unmet expectations u finnegan