After winning the Florida Republican primary on Tuesday, Arizona Senator John McCain has more or less solidified his position as the likely Republican presidential candidate. Sankei's Komori Yoshihisa was quick to praise Senator McCain today for his unstinting support for the US-Japan alliance, pointing to lines from Senator McCain's essay in the November/December issue of …
Tag: US-Japan alliance
Haass on allies and rivals
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, had an op-ed in the Financial Times this week (excerpted from a forthcoming article in The National Interest) in which he reconsiders the nature of US relationships with traditional allies and perceived enemies.Calling it the emergence of a "Palmerstonian moment," Haass wrote, "We are entering an …
Recommended Book: Securing Japan, Richard Samuels
In the aftermath of Japan's first successful test of its ballistic missile defense systems, the "Japan Rising" meme will undoubtedly be on the lips of foreign commentators. Expect more articles like the NYT article by Norimitsu Onishi discussed in this post in July.Fortunately MIT's Richard Samuels, in his latest book Securing Japan, provides a more …
Continue reading Recommended Book: Securing Japan, Richard Samuels
Unease in Japan, yawns in America?
The Yomiuri Shimbun has published the results of a poll (conducted with Gallup in the US) that surveyed American and Japanese attitudes towards their respective national institutions and the US-Japanese relationship.As the article summarizing the poll reports, Yomiuri recorded a 14% (to 39%) and 15% (to 46%) drops respectively in the number of Japanese and …
He came, they talked…what next?
Prime Minister Fukuda, cold bug and all, arrived in Washington as scheduled on Thursday evening and spent Friday meeting with President Bush and then dining with the president and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.The Swamp, the Chicago Tribune's politics blog, has a summary here, and takes care to note that Mr. Bush served US beef …
An unscripted summit?
Mere days before President Bush and Prime Minister Fukuda are scheduled to meet in Washington, a State Department spokesman has announced that the US will not give concrete consideration to the abductions issue when it comes to removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.Now, I don't disagree with this policy — …
Fukuda makes it explicit
Following my discussion of the US-Japan alliance in this post and this post, Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo, a few days before his summit with President Bush in Washington, has told the Washington Post that "his government's reach in global security affairs would not be as expansive as the Bush administration wants."In other words, Mr. Fukuda …
The alliance in an Atlantic mirror
I went to Carnegie Hall last night for a panel discussion on US-German relations held as part of the current Berlin in Lights festival underway in New York City. Moderated by Richard Holbrooke, the discussion featured Henry Kissinger, Josef Joffe, John Kornblum (a former US ambassador to Germany), and Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, a member …
Towards a new alliance
Looking over Secretary Gates's visit to Tokyo, there were few surprises.He "demanded" to legislators that Japan renew its refueling mission. He voiced his opposition to proposed cuts in Japan's host-nation support (i.e., the sympathy budget) for US forces in Japan. And has become standard for ministerial visits to Japan, he reasssured Japan of the viability …
The alliance cools
Robert Gates, US secretary of defense, is in Japan for talks with Prime Minister Fukuda and members of Mr. Fukuda's cabinet, including the defense and foreign ministers, for talks on US-Japan security cooperation. Not surprisingly, Japan's interrupted refueling mission in the Indian Ocean topped the agenda.It's a shame that Mr. Gates did not take office …
Tobias S. Harris 