The Research On The Autonomy-Security Trade-off In US-Japan Alliance

The US-Japan alliance has been a very important problem in the research of international relations. It has been more than 60 years since the US-Japan alliance formally established in 1952. The US-Japan alliance has gone through the whole process and the end of the cold war. It did not collapse with the disappearance of the common threats. But instead, it achieved the deepening of cooperation and strengthening of the alliance, through a series of adjustments according to different situations. What’s the reason? And the development trend of the US-Japan alliance after its establishment suggests that Japan has improved its position from the dependence to the strategic partner of the United States as its growth of strength. Why did the United States constantly meet Japan’s Independent demand? How did Japan promote its position within the alliance? How did the United States and Japan realize the coordination of interests?Based on the considerations of the above problems, this paper will study from the perspective of alliance management in the US-Japan alliance and explore the reason why the US-Japan alliance display as such a development momentum according to the interaction between the United States and Japan. For all this, this paper will employ the Autonomy-Security Trade-off Model as the analytical tool, because the US-Japan alliance is built on the autonomy-security trade-off. Also, all the member states balance their interests through constant autonomy-security trade-off after the transformation of strength contrast and the change of autonomy-security demands. As a consequence, the change of member states’ strength is the independent variable, and the autonomy-security choice of member states is the dependent variable. On this basis, this paper sets three hypotheses of the autonomy-security trade-off in the US-Japan alliance beforehand:(1) Japan’s expansion tendency is obvious, challenging the autonomy-security trade-off; (2) the United States encourages Japan’s expansion, regulating the autonomy-security trade-off; (3) coincidence of interest is the foundation of alliance’s autonomy-security trade-off. Then this paper verifies the hypotheses theoretically and historically, and analyzes the member states’autonomy-security choice after the change of its strength, as well as the influence to the alliance’s autonomy-security trade-off.This paper argues that the reason why the US-Japan alliance could develop continuously is not only the choice of countries for their national interests, but also the result of interaction and trade between the United States and Japan, each take need, achieving a win-win situation. The autonomy-security trade-off is a progress of interest game, the United States and Japan achieve their own purposes through complex deals, avoiding the direct confrontation. As a result, the United States and Japan acquire the benefits compromise in the alliance, ensuring the stability of the alliance. That’s why the United States constantly met Japan’s Independent demand and Japan promoted its position within the alliance. What’s more the autonomy-security trade-off has became a mechanism, which regulates, guides and constrains the behavior of the member states and affects the country’s autonomy-security choice, as well as country’s diplomatic decision-making. Based on the mutual influence between the country’s autonomy-security choice and the mechanism of autonomy-security trade-off, this paper will analyze the historical evolution in depth and predict the development tendency of US-Japan alliance.In conclusion, this paper combines the autonomy-security trade-off model with the US-Japan alliance. The historical evolution of US-Japan alliance could verify the hypotheses of autonomy-security trade-off in asymmetric alliance. The autonomy-security trade-off model is also an analytical tool to analyze the historical evolution of US-Japan alliance and its motivation and the development tendency of US-Japan alliance. The US-Japan alliance is a typical case of autonomy-security trade-off, this combination research is feasible.