Eighty years ago, Japan was a nation locked in a titanic struggle for the survival of its fledgling empire stretching from Indonesia to northern China. Its society had been nearly totally upended by the arrival of Europeans and Americans intent on carving up Asia into distinct spheres of influence. Japan’s rapid transformation and military buildup, unexpected victory against Russia, and ambitions toward parity with European powers gradually lit the spark of the Pacific War. Despite tenacious holding efforts, the overwhelming industrial might of the United States proved too much for Japan to overcome. By 1945, with America preparing for a grueling amphibious invasion and atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war would end—and the world would never be the same.

Modern Japan in a Changing World

In early October, Japan’s recently elected Prime Minister (P.M.), Shigeru Ishiba, made headlines for his radical proposal for an “Asian NATO” security alliance, constructed on a similar approach of collective security and mutual deterrence. Ishiba, who took power amid a tumultuous change at the top of Japan’s dominant party, was merely following Japan’s general trend of expanding its footprint in the region which has served as the essence of Japanese military policy for the past decade. In the next fiscal year, Japan will spend over 8 trillion yen (around 53.5 billion USD) on its defense budget, marking eleven consecutive years of record-high defense spending [1]. This coincides with its immense efforts to rebuild a functional military capable of power projection in a security environment shaken by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the looming specter of a potential Chinese attack against Taiwan. Despite being technically forbidden from having a military that could be used for offensive purposes, Japan maintains extensive standing armed forces under the umbrella of the Self-Defense Forces. Its defense spending has placed Japan as one of the world’s largest military spenders, behind only a select few great powers like the United States and China [2]. This buildup has mainly been facilitated by the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (L.D.P.), which has maintained a stranglehold on Japanese politics since the adoption of its post-war constitution. The L.D.P. holds generally conservative and nationalistic beliefs that have guided its vision of what Japan ought to be—a strong regional power capable of independent power projection. Recently, its political grip has been tested—a slew of poor election performances driven by economic anxieties and political scandals have forced the L.D.P. to lead a minority government, although P.M. Ishiba survived the challenge to his leadership launched by opposition parties seeking a change in the prime minister position by emerging victorious in the runoff election [3]. Ultimately, the L.D.P. and Ishiba’s lack of a decisive majority likely means that any major foreign policy changes are unlikely to occur in the short term.

Japan’s movement toward a more independent foreign policy is not unprecedented. Its maneuvers occur against the historical backdrop of postwar agreements that maintained extensive U.S. military bases in the country and American bilateral agreements with both Japan and its neighbors (such as the Republic of Korea). Security infrastructure in the region tends to walk a tightrope between strategic ambiguity and vagueness designed to avoid antagonizing China as well as recognizing U.S. military infrastructure and its role in providing a strong deterrent. Japan’s constitution, despite Article 9 forbidding the waging of war, was reinterpreted in 2014 to allow Japan to enter war if its ally is attacked [4]. This sets the stage for collective defense as Japanese troops would be allowed to fight overseas, despite Japan itself not being attacked by an aggressor country. This same notion of collective defense allows the United States to protect its weaker allies in Europe against many forms of foreign military aggression. But who would Japan be attempting to fold into their alliance?

Challenges of Alliance-Making

It is quite obvious from Japan’s geopolitical strategy that its primary opponent is China, compared to NATO’s primary opponent of Russia in Europe. The former Japanese P.M. Shinzo Abe’s reinterpretation of Article 9 was specifically part of a broader initiative to prepare Japan for a potential war against China [5]. However, Japan’s centralization of itself at the core of any alliance is a break from the older San Francisco model, known as the Hub-and-Spokes model [6]. In this arrangement, the United States served as the dominant hub, with security agreements with its spokes—countries like the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. The real power of this arrangement lies in its flexibility since the United States is free to pursue partnerships with countries such as Vietnam and India that do not necessarily want to participate in treaty alliances with other regional powers. Japan may be able to find other countries such as South Korea that share security concerns about a rising and more aggressive China. But South Korea exemplifies a problem with Japan’s attempts at being the new regional defender of East Asia—while both countries have closely aligned security concerns and economic priorities, historical grievances over Japan’s colonization of Korea and unresolved questions around Japan’s World War II conduct in Asia cause friction and sap domestic political capital [7]. South Korea’s attempts to pursue restitution for Japan’s crimes and Japan’s perceived unwillingness to take responsibility for its conduct mean that cooperation in both countries is perceived, at best, as strained. To counter these problems, both countries have rhetorically centered their cooperative efforts around facing future problems and de-emphasizing past tensions. Yet these problems, even among two countries that the United States has worked to link, are very indicative of issues that Japan will face as it attempts to rebuild its image and relationships in Asia.

The American Model

The United States, on the other hand, has succeeded in Asia precisely due to its principle of not enforcing exclusivity. Its attempts to combat an increasingly bellicose China mirror the containment strategies used against the Soviet Union in the Cold War [8]. From Japan to South Korea to Taiwan, the United States is working to form a cordon around China through island chains. This involves the controversial militarization of islands that gently arc below Japan toward Taiwan and the Philippines with bases, missile and air defense systems, and anti-ship and submarine detection systems. With this cordon in place, the U.S. hopes to prevent a Chinese ‘breakout’ into the Pacific Ocean by inflicting unbearable costs on Chinese military vessels and trade ships. To gather partners, however, the U.S. security footprint in the region expands precisely because of both the rising desire and ability of China to challenge the status quo and regional order. For example, the Philippines has in recent years allowed more U.S. bases to be built due in part to China’s willingness to navally harass Filipino fishermen [9]. This helps the U.S. complete its defense perimeter around China and tighten its line of control in the South China Sea. Yet, the Philippines remains a large trade partner with China, and the United States is careful not to push for the Philippines to integrate itself into any specific security alliance. This reflects a broader trend in the region—countries in the region still engage with China significantly due to its large economy and proximity but turn toward the United States as an alternative to extract concessions and retain some degree of independence from China. The United States also works to build up informal networks as opposed to formal ones. For example, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue allows India, Australia, Japan, and the United States to coordinate and align their response to protecting the Indo-Pacific order that allows all countries to benefit from prosperous trade flows [10]. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is often condemned by China as an aggressive alliance that destabilizes the region, similar to NATO. In reality, the Quad is more of a forum for countries to suggest cooperation opportunities, and countries like India are willing to participate precisely because they are not compelled to sign bilateral defense agreements or binding security arrangements. The United States also has vast economic capabilities to draw on through its dominant control over global financial institutions that formulate decisive and efficient policies, shaping the course of nations abroad. For instance, Bangladesh, following the overthrow of its government by a student-led mass movement, was embraced by the United States, which extended hundreds of millions of dollars in aid [11]. While not explicitly conditioned as such, the United States has long been looking to expand its security infrastructure into Bangladesh, due to its strategic location and access to the Bay of Bengal. The U.S. is certainly aware of its potential as a naval logistics hub and may seek permission to build military infrastructure in the future [12]. 

Risks of Assertion

Japan’s actions to solidify security links represent a unique threat to the United States’ model of security by risking the alienation of allies. There are no better examples than Vietnam and India. Vietnam, despite enmity with the United States from the Vietnam War, has worked to solidify its ties with the United States as a counterweight to China [13]. Yet, Vietnam has little interest in participating in a Japan-led security regime in Asia and still desires to maintain trade relations with China. For decades, India has prioritized its own model of neutrality that eschews joining formal security blocs and prefers to balance its relations with other nations. Ishiba’s rhetoric was firmly rebuffed by India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, in an ominous sign that even a firm Quad member would not be interested [14]. These countries place great weight on the perception of neutrality and non-alignment. To that end, countries in the region have finite political capital to expend on things that are perceived as pro-American—whether through rhetorical gestures like diplomatic visits or treaties of cooperation, all the way to concrete trade agreements and weapons sales. This is because as their connections with the West escalate, countries often must make concessions to similar Chinese gestures in order to keep the balance.

It is clear, then, that Japan’s play carries grave risks. If it begins to displace U.S. security architecture by centering its own formal security alliance, this trades off with U.S. efforts to form a decentralized web of alliances. The appearance of trying to force countries into picking a side can also potentially backfire. India, once again, is a model of this phenomenon—efforts by Russia and China to create a new global order apart from the United States in the form of BRICS have been sharply opposed by India [15]. It is unlikely that countries in Asia will commit to any kind of formal alliance structure due to the desire for strong trade relations with China. If Japan continues to insist on centering itself as the nexus of the current Asia-Pacific order, then the costs of continuing to interact with America and its allies will rise due to China’s backlash. This could cause a scaling back of relations—diplomatic, economic, and military—with the United States, ultimately undermining efforts to keep the status quo against China seeking a new regional order. The better course of action, for both American and Japanese security interests, is to continue the pattern of maintaining loose, non-binding alliances and continue to expand the number of spokes as a form of multilateral deterrence.