The Impact of Trade Problems on US-Japan Security Cooperation

Abstract

From the vantage point of the summer of 1986, it is clear that trade problems have not yet caused substantial damage to US-Japan security cooperation. The US-Japan Security Treaty is intact. Japan is still under the American nuclear umbrella. The US Seventh Fleet and Fifth Air Force continue to operate from bases in Japan, and together with US Army divisions in South Korea, provide Japan with a conventional defensive shield. The Japanese Self-Defence Forces are still not powerful enough to defend Japan. Their main functions are to raise the threshold of a Soviet attack, thus reinforcing the credibility of the Security Treaty, and also to help persuade Americans that Japan is making some effort to defend itself. The US-Japan Security Treaty continues to be what the Japanese government have always officially called it, an anzen hosho, a security guarantee, a guarantee extended by the US to Japan.