Pacific Alliance

Despite the enduring importance of the U.S.–Japan security alliance, the broader relationship between the two countries is today beset by sobering new difficulties. In this comprehensive comparative analysis of the transpacific alliance and its political, economic, and social foundations, Kent E. Calder, a leading Japan specialist, asserts that bilateral relations between the two countries are dangerously eroding as both seek broader options in a globally oriented world. Calder documents the quiet erosion of America’s multidimensional ties with Japan as China rises, generations change, and new forces arise in both American and Japanese politics. He then assesses consequences for a twenty-first-century military alliance with formidable coordination requirements, explores alternative foreign paradigms for dealing with the United States, adopted by Britain, Germany, and China, and offers prescriptions for restoring U.S.–Japan relations to vitality once again.

"U.S.-Japan alliance ties critically need broadening and strengthening in the cultural and social, as well as military spheres. This book gives us concrete ideas, drawn from across history and around the world, on how to do it."—Walter F. Mondale, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, and former Vice President of the United States, “Kent Calder has written an important book.  Pacific Alliance will be a valuable addition to the literature on Asian security and foreign policy.”—Nayan Chanda, Director of Publications, YaleGlobal Online Magazine and author of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization, “A volume that will appeal to beginners and to specialists, to practitioners and to scholars of international politics and security relations. . . . Interesting and thought-provoking . . . makes[s] important contributions.”--Andrew L. Oros, Pacific Affairs 

Kent E. Calder is director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. He has served as special advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Japan and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).