Hegemony and the US‒Japan Alliance

Misato Matsuoka

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351399142
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

It is widely recognised that the increasing importance of the US?Japan alliance is strongly linked to emerging threats in the Asia Pacific, with China's rise and the ambitions of North Korea having brought the two allies closer together. This book, however, seeks to question whether these factors are indeed the sole determinants of this enduring alliance.

A pioneering study conducted through the lens of neo-Gramscianism, this book unravels the intricate political dynamism involved in the US?Japan alliance. It provides an innovative attempt to link the concept of alliances to hegemony and thus examines Japan's relationship to US dominance in the region. Building on existing scholarship, it also seeks to examine how Japan's continuing dependence on the US, and the burden it places of citizens living near US military bases, may affect the durability of the alliance in the post-Cold War era. As such, this book presents an alternative theoretical tool in the field of international relations to analyse the political nature of the alliance, as well as US hegemony in the region.

This book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics and foreign policymaking, as well as International Relations and Security Studies more generally.

1 Introduction

Introduction

In a speech in April 2015 entitled, ‘Toward an Alliance of Hope’, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō highlighted the relevance of the US‒Japan alliance (Kantei 2015). The nature of security is transforming to include not only traditional but also non-traditional forms consisting of peacekeeping operations (PKO), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) and energy security; alliances remain at the centre of foreign policymaking in the modern era. While ideas such as ‘the end of alliances’, ‘the end of alliance theories’ and ‘coalition of willingness’ have emerged, alliances have nonetheless continued unceasingly, even in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 contexts. In the face of a changing and malleable international security environment, alliances have been reshaped and continue to play an important role in international relations. The US‒Japan alliance in particular has been reconfigured, redefined and reinforced to cope with changing regional and global circumstances, taking into account not only joint military operations and joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) activities, but also the values of democracy, the rule of law, free and open markets and respect for human rights. Furthermore, the significance of the US‒Japan alliance was highlighted in the wake of the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, or ‘Great East Japan Earthquake’, with the implementation of Operation Tomodachi.

Criticism of the alliance also continues, as some scholars and activists argue against Japan’s continuing dependence on the US and point out the burden placed on local citizens in the prefectures hosting US bases (McCormack 2007; Magosaki 2012).¹ These criticisms put the alliance under scrutiny and raise questions about its durability in the post-Cold War period; it can be annulled at any time if both sides agree.² Whilst it has been widely recognised that the increasing importance of the alliance is due to the emerging threat from China’s rise and from North Korea, these factors are not the sole determinants of its endurance.³ While the alliance was formed in consideration of the Cold War security environment, US alliances have been harnessed despite the discourse on US decline. Especially in the midst of US fiscal austerity, experts have questioned whether the US‒Japan alliance will continue to develop (de Koning and Lipscy 2011).⁴

This leads us to the central question of this book: ‘Why and how is it that the US‒Japan alliance has managed to adapt its relevance and functions in the post-Cold War period despite critiques, both domestic and international, of its original military rationale?’ To answer this question, this book includes, but goes beyond, a military understanding of alliances, adopting the neo-Gramscian framework which considers not only military but also ideational and political dimensions. In the realm of International Relations (IR) scholarship, alliances are still often treated merely as military alliances, not necessarily political. Specifically, as mainstream alliance theories exhibit, negative perceptions of the interdependence of allies still exist, and these sometimes display a limited understanding of alliance relationships in the post-Cold War period. In light of the politics of alliances, it is important to explore not only material but also the interrelated economic and ideational aspects of alliances, which shape alliance politics in the contemporary period. In consideration of the current circumstances, it seems that it is not only material elements that have bolstered alliances, and this underlines the importance of examining other elements such as ideology. Although some literature addresses the causes of the continuity of alliances (Walt 1997), in-depth investigations on the durability of the US‒Japan alliance have not been made, particularly within an IR theoretical framework. Furthermore, it is worth noting that the US‒Japan alliance seems to have become deeply embedded in Japanese society as the pillar of Japanese foreign policy, a development which will be examined in this book.⁵

Arguments

The analysis presented in this book is based upon the hypothesis that as the US‒Japan alliance has developed, it has helped harness US dominance in the Asia-Pacific region as part of the US-led alliance system. In this regard, within the neo-Gramscian theory of alliance, not only the military but also the economy and other political elements have influenced and been influenced by this development, the durability of which may have been previously overlooked. As explained in this chapter, neo-Gramscian concepts including ‘historic bloc’, ‘organic intellectuals’ and ‘common sense’ are crucially relevant in understanding the political dynamics of the US‒Japan alliance and the US role in the Asia-Pacific region. Furthermore, the case study of the US‒Japan alliance and US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific will be helpful in evaluating the sustainability of US hegemony in the region, especially in the face of the (re-)rise of China.⁶ Although China has made gains in terms of military and economic strength, it is observable that US allies in the region understand the relevance of an alliance relationship with the US and even the importance of developing relationships among themselves by means of an ‘alliance network’.⁷ In this respect, the neo-Gramscian approach to hegemony enables us to gain deeper insight into the sustainability of hegemony by means of alliance relationships as well as the importance of not only the hegemonic state but also the non-hegemonic states.

The hypothesis presented in this section rests on the arguments provided in subsequent chapters, which are organised as follows. First, since the postwar period, it is clear that the US‒Japan alliance has developed through the interplay of coercion and consent, and that ‘organic intellectuals’ have played an important role, as seen through the neo-Gramscian lens. This can be observed in the influence of the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ on the US‒Japan alliance and Japanese foreign policymaking, which is explored in Chapter 2. Second, in the realm of force interoperability and military‒industrial relations, Japan has come to accept US foreign policymaking in the post-Cold War period. Third, from the neo-Gramscian viewpoint, the US‒Japan alliance has harnessed the US-led historic bloc in the Asia-Pacific. The second and third arguments are examined by using ‘social forces analysis’, which was developed by Robert W. Cox. Last, the importance of the US‒Japan alliance has become common sense in the view of Japanese foreign policymakers. Furthermore, in consideration of the aforementioned arguments, this book accepts the underlying assumption that in the context of the alliance, Japan and the US are already ‘entrapped’ or ‘entangled’ with each other. While existing theories of alliances are reviewed in a subsequent chapter, this book argues that the neorealist understanding of alliances cannot explain their durability, specifically in the post-Cold War period. In the following sections, this chapter will provide an IR literature review on the US‒Japan alliance, which has been predominantly analysed from realist, liberal and constructivist viewpoints. Indeed, it is said that the neo-Gramscian framework may be closer to the constructivist approach, particularly in its emphasis on the ways in which politics may be shaped by ideas. This section will explain why the neo-Gramscian framework can be more useful in explaining alliance sustainability as well as the sustainability of hegemony. This chapter will also explain how this theoretical framework will be applied as the research method on which this book is based.

International relations literature on the US‒Japan alliance

Realist approach

There are various realist interpretations of the US‒Japan alliance:⁸ balance-of-power theorists generally assume that rising states, or ‘rising powers’, which is the common term in the contemporary world, would seek power when they are empowered materially. Within this theory, it was assumed that Japan would seek strategic independence while reducing its dependence on the US in the context of the US‒Japan alliance. For instance, Waltz (1993) foresaw that Japan would obtain nuclear weapons soon and seek strategic independence to reduce its vulnerability to US power. In a similar vein, Layne (1993) argued that the US‒Japan alliance would be terminated as Japan started balancing its power against the US according to the balancing logic suggested in his concept of ‘the strategy of preponderance’.⁹ Waltz (1993) also explains, regarding US hegemony, that

hegemony leads to balance.… That is now happening, but haltingly so because the United States still has benefits to offer and many other countries have become accustomed to their easy lives with the United States bearing many of their burdens.

(Waltz 1993, p. 77)¹⁰

Conversely, defensive realists provide insights that differ from those of the balance-of-power theorists, taking into consideration certain social elements. Midford (2000) argues that the US‒Japan alliance has become more important for Japan’s ‘reassurance strategy’ than the military balance of power. In particular, according to him, Japan’s ‘pacifist outlier strategy’ has been designed to reassure its neighbours, who remain deeply suspicious due to their experience of Japanese invasion and occupation during the imperial period (Midford 2000).¹¹ Midford (2002) clarifies that the US‒Japan alliance is regarded as an ‘expanding bottle’ with its participation in regional security as a way to build up security contacts with other Asian states. This perspective seems to be relevant in explaining the ways in which Japan has adapted its policy to regain trust from other Asian countries.

Twomey (2000) claims that the US‒Japan alliance has worked as part of a ‘circumscribed balancing’ which contains a socialisation-against-aggression effect and forces Japan to engage in restrained behaviours. His argument is that Japan has been socialised against aggressive defence policies since the Second World War (Twomey 2000). According to him, ‘circumscribed balancers’ are less concerned about the peripheral areas and issues but are rather concerned about the bilateral military balance (Twomey 2000). While Midford and Twomey have elaborated their insights by taking into account social influences on security policies, Lind (2004), on the other hand, explains that Japan’s postwar security policy is consistent with a ‘buck-passing strategy’, which involves closer military cooperation with the US, US bases in Japan and the creation of a world-class military force. According to her, whilst Japan has become capable of enhancing its military power and has expanded its military roles,¹² it is only when allies fail to respond to growing threats that it needs to do so (Lind 2004).

Aside from these explanations, the US‒Japan alliance has been examined on the basis of realist logic using different theories. For instance, ‘mercantile realism’ was developed by Heginbotham and Samuels (1998), who assumed that states achieve balance not only through military growth but also through technical or economic gains.¹³ They argue that Japan was able to enjoy a cheap ride in terms of defence spending and ignore regional military threats by balancing with the US in techno-economic terms (Heginbotham and Samuels 1998). The concept of ‘reluctant realism’ emerged from Green’s (2001) idea that Japan must take more assertive steps to preserve its international status, considering that the US‒Japan alliance is still not a fully operational military alliance. According to him, Japan has moved towards a greater realism in regard to national security and identity and the demise of idealism (Green 2001).

Regarding these existing realist conceptions of the US‒Japan alliance, the alliance mechanism has been thoroughly examined using the balancing logic, but this concept is limited in its ability to explain the durability of the alliance. First, while realist scholars have investigated the US‒Japan alliance in consideration of power balancing and the states’ material capabilities, the resulting insights are likely to be abstractive and therefore overlook some elements. For instance, with regard to the notion of ‘balancing’, Twomey acknowledges that ‘balancing is an imprecise concept’ (2000, p. 170). Realist scholars have rarely looked into the history of the relationship between the states, which may not be explainable using balancing logic. In addition, although some defensive realists consider social or perceptual influences on foreign policymaking, realists’ ideas are based on purely international systemic factors with a focus on regional instability in East Asia and the changing balance of power between the US and Japan, which may not sufficiently explain the continuity of the US-led alliance system in the Asia-Pacific region.

Second, realist assumptions about alliance and hegemony are exclusively based on the material capabilities of states, such as military spending. Lind (2004) discusses Japan’s military expenditure, but the total expense does not explain reasons for and nuances of the security policy itself, and therefore does not provide a complete understanding of the development of the US‒Japan alliance. Her analysis focuses primarily on the material component of the alliance. Moreover, regarding the concept of hegemony, neorealists tend to base their explanations of US strategy towards Japan on the theory of hegemonic stability, which is firmly based on material capabilities. In consideration of these features of realist explanations about the US‒Japan alliance, the strengthening alliance relationship between Japan and the US and the implications of the evolving features of this alliance system are seldom discussed.

Liberal approach

Liberal explanations about the US‒Japan alliance look into the role of ideas and institutions in creating the US-led liberal order in the Asia-Pacific. Unlike some neorealists, who view alliance formations negatively, most liberals agree that liberal values are an indispensable factor in sustaining the US‒Japan alliance and thereby maintaining regional stability, and these values have become predominantly observable in the post-Cold War period. In contrast to the realists’ focus on material capabilities, liberals give a greater role to the concept of shared ideas. One of the basic liberal assumptions is that the shared values of the regional liberal political order help sta...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations and acronyms
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Historical trajectory of the US‒Japan alliance (1951–1991) and development of the US-led historic bloc
• 3 Force interoperability and the military-industrial relationship in the US‒Japan Alliance
• 4 The US‒Japan alliance and regionalism in the Asia-Pacific
• 5 The US‒Japan alliance as ‘common sense’
• 6 Breaking away from the postwar regime?
• Appendix
• Index