| According to the U.S. National Security Strategy in 2003, the U.S. needs to "strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism and work to prevent attacks against us and our friends." The policy question explored in this study is how to encourage "our friends" to provide contributions (alliance contributions) that are more beneficial to "us."; In Part I, after reviewing previous research, I construct two conceptual models on alliance contributions to analyze their change, or burden-shifting: the economic model and the policy process model on alliance contributions. The first model is based on previous studies in public economics and international relations. From this model, I found various kinds of conditions for the change in provision of contributions in terms of types and sizes in relationship to the internal and external environment. The second and complementary model is based on the agenda-setting theory in public policy studies. From this model, I found a condition to bring about a large and sudden change in alliance contributions.; In Part II, I apply an analytic framework based on the conceptual models to Japan's contributions to the U.S. Japan alliance, for examining the validity of the models and showing their practical utility for analysis. First, I examine Japans Host Nation Support program (HNS) for the U.S. Forces in Japan. Second, I examine Japan's alliance contributions and the background environment in the U.S.-Japan alliance during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. From those, I found key causes to bring about the change of Japan's alliance contributions and that the causes support the conditions pointed out in the theory.; In Part III, I analyze the future of the U.S. Japan alliance based on the analytic framework used above. First, I analyze the mid to long term case (10--20 years). I found the plausible direction of changes in Japan's alliance contributions, possible "fault lines" in the base case scenario, and how the U.S. can influence the direction. Second, I analyze the short term case, focusing on the next Special Measures Agreement for the HNS from April 2006. I found the plausible Japan's stance towards the SMA and effective U.S. negotiation tactics to it. |
