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91. Fall 2018 edition of Strategic Visions

Author:
Alan McPherson
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Strategic Visions
Institution:
Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University
Abstract:
Strategic Visions: Volume 18, Number I Contents News from the Director ......................2 New Web Page...............................2 Fall 2018 Colloquium.....................2 Fall 2018 Prizes..................................3 Spring 2019 Lineup.........................4 Note from the Davis Fellow.................5 Note from the Non-Resident Fellow....7 Update from Germany By Eric Perinovic.............................8 A Conversation with Marc Gallicchio By Michael Fischer.......................10 Fall 2018 Colloquium Interviews Kelly Shannon...............................12 Jason Smith...................................14 Drew McKevitt.............................16 Book Reviews Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944-1945 Brandon Kinney.........................18 Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America Taylor Christian.........................20 To Master the Boundless Sea: The US Navy, the Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire Graydon Dennison.....................23 Losing Hearts and Minds: American-Iranian Relations and International Education During the Cold War Jonathan Shoup.........................25 The Action Plan. Or: How Reagan Convinced the American People to Love the Contras Joshua Stern..................................27
Topic:
Diplomacy, War, Military Affairs, Grand Strategy, and Empire
Political Geography:
Japan, Iran, Middle East, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

92. U.S. Embassy Tokyo Role in the Establishment of U.S.-Mongolia Relations

Author:
Alicia Campi
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The U.S. and Mongolia established diplomatic relations in 1987, after earlier failed attempts and many years of Cold War frostiness. In this account, Dr. Campi describes the negotiations leading up to relations with the Mongolian People’s Republic, at the time a communist country closely allied to the Soviet Union, and her own role in the process.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, History, Bilateral Relations, Negotiation, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Japan, Mongolia, Asia, and United States of America

93. Debating the Quad

Author:
Euan Graham, Chengxin Pan, Ian Hall, Rikki Kersten, Benjamin Zala, and Sarah Percy
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
In this Centre of Gravity paper, six of Australia’s leading scholars and policy experts debate Australian participation in the ‘Australia-India-Japan-United States consultations on the Indo-Pacific’ - known universally as the ‘Quad’. A decade since its first iteration, the revival of the Quad presents significant questions for Australia and the regional order. Is the Quad a constructive partnership of the region’s major powers to safeguard regional stability, uphold the rules-based order and promote security cooperation? Is it a concert of democracies seeking to contain China? Or is it an emerging strategic alignment that risks precipitating the very confrontation with China it seeks to avoid? Or is it something else entirely? Euan Graham opens the debate by arguing that the Quad represents a rare second chance for Australia to cooperate with regional powers who have a shared interest is the maintenance of stability in Asia through the preservation of a balance of power. In addition to constraining China’s strategic choices beyond its maritime periphery, Dr. Graham argues that the Quad’s revival aims to send a concerted strategic signal to China along the four compass points of the Indo-Pacific region, but sufficiently restrained to avoid significant blowback from Beijing. Chengxin Pan responds that instead of forcing China to change tack, the Quad, by exacerbating China’s strategic vulnerability, will achieve precisely the opposite: prompting it to further strengthen its military capabilities. Dr. Pan argues that the nature of China’s challenge to the existing regional order is actually geoeconomic in design, as evidenced by the Belt and Road Initiative. To meet this challenge, however, the Quad’s military response is far from the right answer or an effective alternative. Ian Hall next argues that the Quad is neither a proto-alliance nor an instrument for containing China. Given that these states have so far failed to advance a coherent and coordinated line on Chinese initiatives to transform the region, Dr. Hall notes that the Quad offers something more prosaic and evolutionary: a forum for discussion and information exchange intended to lead to better policy coordination between like-minded states with a stake in the rules-based order. Rikki Kersten notes that the Japanese government wants Quad 2.0 to be seen as a Japanese initiative because it aspires to lead an ethical endeavour that reaches beyond the Asia-Pacific region. This represents a stepchange in post-war Japanese foreign and security policy thinking. Japan under Abe is seeking to harness rising insecurity to underpin its own regional leadership credentials and enhance the geographical scope of its security policy ambition. Benjamin Zala responds that the potential risks associated with sending containment-like signals to Beijing in the short-term and the potential for misperceptions over ambiguous commitments during a future crisis in the longer-term clearly outweigh the benefits of the current vague aspiration to cooperation with no clear purpose. Dr. Zala also warns against blurring the lines between formal military alliances and strategic partnerships like the Quad which increase the odds of miscalculation during times of power transition. Finally, Sarah Percy rounds out the debate by arguing that discussions of the Quad’s high politics have thus far obscured the more practical and interesting questions about how it might function and contribute to maritime security. Dr. Percy notes that that the day-to-day operations of most navies are focused on the more proximate security challenges posed by maritime crime. The Quad would yield tangible and possibly lasting benefits from such cooperation.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, and Maritime
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, India, Asia, and Australia

94. Japan-Russia relations: The Kremlin has the upper hand

Author:
Bart Gaens and Marcin Kaczmarski
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Even though bilateral relations have warmed somewhat, Japan has failed to convince Russia to make concessions with regard to the territorial issue of the Northern Territories/South Kuril Islands, or to cut back its cooperation with China
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Japan

95. A new Direction in U.S- Russia Relations?

Author:
Paul Saunders
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the National Interest
Abstract:
America’s relationship with Russia was among the most controversial foreignpolicy issues of the 2016 presidential campaign, and has remained so in the Trump administration’s initial weeks. Much of the controversy has been strictly political, focused primarily on exploiting anger and suspicion toward Moscow as a weapon during the election campaign and, more recently, in confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s key foreign-policy and national-security nominees. That said, public discussion before and after the November election has also exposed sharp differences over U.S. policy toward Russia and the assessments of U.S. and Russian interests, objectives and values that shape Washington’s choices. This volume seeks to contribute to that debate by exploring U.S. options in pursuing President Trump’s stated intent to engage with Moscow
Topic:
International Relations and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Japan and America

96. Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy: What does it mean for the European Union?

Author:
Nanae Baldauff
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
Not so long ago Japan seemed to be left out on the diplomatic stage, notably when it decided not to join China’s newly established Asian Investment and Infrastructure Bank (AIIB) in 2015. But while no one can deny China’s impressive global outreach under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Japan has not been sitting idly by. Quite the contrary, Japan is playing a leading role in shaping the concept of free and open Indo-Pacific region, and has positioned itself as an important political actor that upholds the rule of law under its Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy (FOIP). As China becomes more and more assertive economically and militarily, strengthening ties with Japan becomes all the more important for the European Union (EU). As a strategic partner of Japan, the EU more than ever needs to work with Japan in upholding the liberal international order.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, European Union, and Investment
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Europe, Asia, and Indo-Pacific

97. The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Significance and Role

Author:
Seth Cropsey and Jun Isomura
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
The alliance between the United States and Japan, born at the end of the Second World War, continues to play a vital role in the defense of the Japanese Islands and in U.S. regional Indo-Pacific strategy. The People’s Republic of China is challenging the U.S.-Japan alliance in the Indo-Pacific Region. China has greatly increased its defense budget, expanded and modernized its navy, and increased operations that challenge the region’s status quo—including in the East China Sea, where the PRC regularly violates Japan’s territorial waters, in the vicinity of the contested Senkaku Islands. China’s belligerent behavior poses a strategic threat to Japan’s domestic security and will continue to encroach on Japanese and U.S. interests in the region. The PRC’s threatening behavior and an aggressive nuclear-armed North Korea are testing the U.S.-Japan bilateral alliance as it has not been tested since the Cold War. The United States continues to serve as a guarantor of Japan’s national security. The U.S. military has stationed naval, air force, army, and amphibious forces in Japan as a strategic deterrent against would be aggressors. With U.S. forces in Japan as a deterrent, Japan has developed a pacifist strategy based on non-aggression and security limited to self-defense. The Japanese constitution’s Article 9 enshrined this principle into law. Japan’s regional strategy has paid dividends through political, diplomatic, and economic engagement with Indo-Pacific countries. This includes Japan’s increasing defensive security cooperation in the region. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces have participated alongside the United States and such neighboring states as South Korea in bilateral and multilateral exercises that build both capabilities and security relationships. Beyond diplomatic and soft power engagement, Japan has in recent years increased its defensive capabilities. To counter Chinese and North Korean missile threats, Japan has worked with the United States to build an advanced ballistic missile defense. In addition, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces have acquired medium-range cruise missiles for its air forces to deter potential adversaries from launching attacks. Tokyo has expanded its defense to counter challenges below the threshold of war against Japan’s outlying islands. Improved intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and the establishment of amphibious forces contribute to this defense.
Topic:
International Relations, Defense Policy, National Security, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

98. U.S.-Japan Cooperation on Strategic Island Defense

Author:
Seth Cropsey and Jun Isomura
Publication Date:
09-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
Japan’s southwest island chain, an archipelago of 1,200 kilometers (750 miles), is known as the Ryukyu Islands. Along with Taiwan and the Philippines, it comprises what the People’s Republic of China (PRC) perceives as the first of three strategic island chains. To China, these island chains represent geostrategic impediments to Pacific Ocean expansion and power projection, which its adversaries—including the United States and Japan—might use to counter Chinese aggression in a conflict. In particular, the first island chain represents the first geostrategic hurdle for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as it seeks access to sea lanes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Two of China’s three PLAN fleet bases are located on the East China Sea. To reach the South China Sea and the Pacific, ships or aircraft from these bases must transit through the choke points of the Taiwan or Miyako Straits, the latter passage through the Ryukyus. Japan’s southwest islands pose a significant strategic and operational challenge for China, and thus their defense is equally strategically and operationally important for Japan. China, to achieve its goal of global superpower status by the mid-twenty-first century, has sought to contest and change the status quo across the Indo-Pacific region by constructing and arming islands from the South China Sea to the East China Sea and beyond. As part of this effort, the PRC has expanded and modernized its armed forces. The immediate objective is to neutralize what Chinese rulers regard as the threat of the first island chain. This has included building a larger and more advanced surface fleet and air force, including the country’s first aircraft carrier, as well as advanced destroyers and more advanced aircraft. It also involves developing and expanding China’s amphibious assault capabilities by means of a larger and more capable PLAN Marine Corps, along with more amphibious warships, amphibious aircraft, and amphibious assault vehicles. In the PRC’s crosshairs is not only Taiwan, the keystone of the first island chain and a vigorous democracy, but also the Senkaku Islands of Japan, whose sovereignty the PRC contests, and the Ryukyu Islands. Any Chinese invasion of Taiwan or military attempt to assert sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands runs the risk of drawing the United States and Japan into a conflict with the PRC. The U.S.-Japan alliance obliges the United States to defend Japan and its sovereign islands. Both countries maintain a security presence in the Ryukyus, principally on the island of Okinawa, where the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) maintains a nineteen-thousand-strong force, alongside U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy units. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and Coast Guard also maintain ground, maritime, and aviation elements on Okinawa and conduct regular air and sea patrols throughout Japan’s southwest islands. In keeping with constitutional restrictions that limit Japan’s security forces to self-defense, Japan’s Ministry of Defense has also recently sought to bolster the country’s amphibious capabilities to counter potential Chinese aggression. In the face of a rising PRC challenge, the United States and Japan have in recent years streamlined and strengthened their security cooperation. This has included participation in bilateral and multilateral exercises to improve interoperability at tactical and operational levels. In addition, the 2015 creation of an alliance coordination mechanism (ACM) provides guidelines for the U.S. and Japanese governments to coordinate defense cooperation, including the defense of Japan’s outlying islands, at a policy level. However, the two countries still lack an integrated means—at the bilateral or multilateral level—to coordinate operations in response to regional contingencies.
Topic:
Defense Policy, International Cooperation, Military Strategy, Bilateral Relations, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

99. Fears of War on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Dario Kuntić
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
War is lurking on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has embarked on an accelerated buildup of weapons of mass destruction and modernization of its already large conventional force. It has been consistently testing a series of ballistic and intercontinental missiles, performing nuclear tests, and accelerating toward development of a fully functional nuclear weapon that could strike the United States. The North Korean regime is now estimated to have as many as twenty nuclear warheads and could soon be able to make some to �it on the missiles necessary to deliver them. With time running out, Washington may come to the conclusion that a preventive military strike against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs is the only way to deprive Pyongyang of capability to launch a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile on the US. On a visit to Seoul in March this year, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson left open the option of a military strike to prevent the development of nuclear weapons program from advancing too far, vowed to defend allies in the region, and ruled out negotiations with Pyongyang. As Washington and Pyongyang escalate their war of words, with both sides hinting it could end with a nuclear con�lict, the prospect of serious con�lict is stronger than ever.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Nonproliferation, and Deterrence
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

100. Japan’s Shift in the Nuclear Debate: A Changing Identity?

Author:
Sayuri Romei
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
Throughout the Cold War, Japanese leaders and policy-makers have generally been careful to reflect the public’s firm opposition to anti-nuclear sentiment. However, the turn of the 21st century has witnessed a remarkable shift in the political debate, with élites alluding to a nuclear option for Japan. This sudden proliferation of nuclear statements among Japanese élites in 2002 has been directly linked by Japan watchers to the break out of the second North Korean nuclear crisis and the rapid buildup of China’s military capabilities. Is the Japanese perception of this double military threat in Northeast Asia really the main factor that triggered this shift in the nuclear debate? This paper argues that Japanese élites’ behavior rather indicates that the new threats in the regional strategic context is merely used as a pretext to solve a more deep-rooted and long-standing anxiety that stems from Japan’s own unsuccessful quest for a less reactive, and more proactive post-Cold War identity.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea