Detailed Description

This paper analyses the consequences of the US pivot to Asia on the US-Japan alliance and on Japanese foreign and security policies. On the one hand, the US pivot is reassuring for Tokyo, since it seeks to ‘rebalance’ Chinese military ascendency and to strengthen extended deterrence in the region. On the other hand, it contributes to the acceleration of the ‘normalisation’ of Japanese security policies, speeding the process of overcoming the institutional self-binding prescriptions that underpinned Japan’s post-war pacifism.

America's increasing strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific has been one of the distinctive features of the foreign and security policy of the Obama administration. This renewed attention has been determined by both the global power shift towards Asia, caused by the rapid economic development of Asian countries, and by the new challenges the region poses to American primacy and the present international order