Japan’s Reluctant Realism Foreign Policy Challenges in an Era of Uncertain Power

In Japan's Reluctant Realism , Michael J. Green examines the adjustments of Japanese foreign policy in the decade since the end of the Cold War. Green presents case studies of China, the Korean peninsula, Russia and Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the international financial institutions, and multilateral forums (the United Nations, APEC, and the ARF). In each of these studies, Green considers Japanese objectives; the effectiveness of Japanese diplomacy in achieving those objectives; the domestic and exogenous pressures on policy-making; the degree of convergence or divergence with the United States in both strategy and implementation; and lessons for more effective US - Japan diplomatic cooperation in the future. As Green notes, its bilateral relationship with the United States is at the heart of Japan's foreign policy initiatives, and Japan therefore conducts foreign policy with one eye carefully on Washington. However, Green argues, it is time to recognize Japan as an independent actor in Northeast Asia, and to assess Japanese foreign policy in its own terms.

The Search for Strategy and Identity Domestic Institutions and Foreign Policy Japan-China Relations Japan and the Korean Peninsula The New Eurasia Diplomacy Japan and South East Asia Multilateral Diplomacy Japan and the International Financial System

MICHAEL J. GREEN is Senior Fellow for Asian Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. At the Council he is currently running research projects on U.S. - Japan relations, the diplomacy of the Korean peninsula, and the impact of technological change on U.S. military strategy in East Asia. He also teaches at the Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and consults for the Office of the Secretary of Defense.