Japan Us Security Relations And The Revised Defense Cooperation Guidelines PDF Download

This paper is focused on the U.S.-Japan alliance as reflected in the evolution of the U.S.- Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation. It begins with consideration of the October 3, 2013, 2+2 Statement released by Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, and Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera. The statement reaffirmed the critical importance of the alliance to international stability and security, the U.S. commitment to the security of Japan, and a common strategic vision based on shared values. The statement also tasked the two governments to review the existing 1997 U.S.-Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation. Over the course of three-plus decades, the guidelines have served as the framework for U.S.-Japan security cooperation. The guidelines date back to the Cold War. They were first agreed to in 1978 and, operationally, focused on the defense of Japan. Defense planning under the guidelines concentrated on a potential Soviet invasion of Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido, while assigning regional contingencies to joint studies. The guidelines, however, failed to address the emerging challenges to international security that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Cold War construct of international relations. In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the United States fashioned a United Nations-based international coalition to liberate Kuwait. Constrained by political understandings regarding the exercise of collective self-defense, Japan contributed $13 billion and was internationally criticized for "checkbook" diplomacy. The Persian Gulf War revealed a fundamental disconnect between the United States and Japan in responding to the security challenges of the post-Cold War world. At the same time, events on the Korean Peninsula-the nuclear crisis resulting from North Korea's withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and provocative rhetoric threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire"-revealed serious shortcomings in the guidelines framework for security cooperation. To deal with a potential conflict, the United States moved to augment forces on the peninsula using Japanese ports and airfields, only to meet with Japanese legal restrictions. With still fresh memories of the Persian Gulf War, officials in Washington and Tokyo recognized that a failure by Japan adequately to support the United States in a Korea-like contingency in the Asia-Pacific region could put the alliance at risk. This recognition ultimately led to the 1997 revision of the guidelines.