Whither the 2015 US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines: Expectation vs. Reality
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines are best thought of as the implementing guidance for the security treaty. They clarify expectations for both parties by defining their respective roles and missions within the alliance, in both peacetime and wartime, to meet the obligations of the security treaty. The United States and Japan revised the Guidelines in April 2015 in an effort to ensure that alliance roles and responsibilities were more balanced and capable of addressing 21st century security threats, as well to emphasize the new global nature of the US-Japan alliance. This revision was made possible by the Abe administration’s controversial decision to reinterpret Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, and the passage of its accompanying peace and security legislation. It is in this context that this paper will examine the implementation of the Guidelines. While they call for “seamless, robust, flexible, and effective bilateral responses” to threats against Japan’s peace and security, there remains considerable debate as to whether the alliance is thus capable. After an overview of alliance history, its unique characteristics, and a review of the previous versions of the Guidelines, this paper will examine the impetus for and the implementation of the 2015 Guidelines to assess whether the rhetoric around purported alliance capabilities matches its actual means. It will show that the US-Japan alliance, as enabled by the 2015 Guidelines, is structurally postured for effective deterrence against its most-likely threats – those that will occur off-shore, such as with China or North Korea. However, there are significant policy and operational challenges to effectively implementing the 2015 Guidelines. Most critically, as the capstone defense cooperation document, the Guidelines are merely an evolution of the previous two; they reinforce the parallel operational approach to potential conflicts. This paper will explore the roadblocks to truly seamless, bilateral responses. Significant political, operational, and doctrinal hurdles remain if the alliance is called to respond to a real-world scenario. In this regard, the Guidelines are insufficient and should be further updated to force deeper operational integration.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | March 2018 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Morgan, Marcus | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Sneider, Daniel | |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Stanford Global Studies, Center for East Asian Studies |
Subjects
| Subject | US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines |
|---|---|
| Subject | US-Japan Alliance |
| Subject | US-Japan Security |
| Subject | Stanford Global Studies |
| Subject | East Asian Studies |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Morgan, Marcus (2018). Whither the 2015 US-Japan Defense Cooperation Guidelines: Expectation vs. Reality. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/qt281by4080
Collection
Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection
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- Contact
- morganma@stanford.edu
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