Thursday, January 08, 2009

Joseph Nye, Ambassador to Japan, Not Good News for the Ozawa DPJ

According to an Asahidispatch from Washington, Joseph “Soft Power” Nye will replace John Thomas “Tom” Shieffer as ambassador to Japan. The article repeats earlier media reports that Japan hand Kurt Campbell will be joining the State Department as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

In the short run, these appointments should make the Japanese foreign policy establishment happy. Nye has been paired with Republican Richard Armitage—remember the Armitage-Nye Report*—and Campbell with Republican Michael Green, so we’re talking about the importance of the Alliance and bipartisanship and continuity as far as the United States’ relations with Japan is concerned.

On the other hand, we’re not getting a Mansfield or Mondale or even a Foley—statesmen at the end of their political careers, symbols of the unchanging, highly asymmetrical bilateral relationship, Japan’s security blankets if you will. And Nye is certainly not one of those super-fundraisers who are assigned to countries where, short of turning into a serial murderer, an ambassador could do little harm to U.S. interests.

The global infrastructure needs repair, and the United States is not in a position to go it alone. And Obama is less inclined to want to try to do so. Most of all, this will put under severe stress the fantasy of a foreign and national security policy that the Ozawa DPJ is has been putting forth in fits and starts under severe stress.

And to think that the Japanese establishment had overwhelmingly favored a McCain administration and that the DPJ had been reaching out to the Democrats.

ADD: * Should we now call it the Nye Report?

11 comments:

Robert Dujarric said...

Good point, same situation for the Europeans. Saying no bozo Bush was easy, refusing Obama's requests will be harder.
RD

Jun Okumura said...

At least a European state has the EU and NATO to fall back on, Robert. Japan’s relationship with the U.S. is bare-naked bilateral. The DPJ may very well win the Lower House election, but if it wants to hold on to power, it must find ways to reconcile the politically-motivated foreign policy and national security positions that it has taken up under Ozawa’s guidance with the real-world, regional and global constraints that Japan faces.

Robert Dujarric said...

Yes indeed. But maybe the problem is on the US side. Even with the most hawkish LDP PM Japan can't really do much in areas far from Japan so better to get (a) Tokyo to make sure the SDF takes care of defending Japan (in conjunction with the US) and (b) finds a way to make other contributions to the common good (like building a Shinkansen to replace the miserable Third Wordish antique known as Amtrak in the US). My fear is that Obama may actually think what he says about Afghanistan and send more troops - and ask the allies for more - to bring western civilization to the Hindu Kush.
RD

Jun Okumura said...

Robert: I have no personal opinion on the utility of a “surge” in Afghanistan; I’ll defer to your expertise there. In any case, I agree, there’s not much that the Self-Defense Force can do troop-wise, given the constitutional issues and the widespread domestic aversion to anything that smacks of gun play on our part. Our public doesn’t want to put non-combat personnel in harm’s way either (although it will be quite supportive and proud of our men and women once they are in place). And the situation on the ground is steadily worsening in Afghanistan. That is why the DPJ bluster, at once boastful and erratic, is so alarming. Better to stick to the refueling operations (where the Taliban can reach our ships—yet), and on top of that to add a destroyer squadron or two to the informal international fleet (for which I hear that the British are acting as the liaison) that is amassing to protect traffic against Somalia–based pirates.

More generally, I’ve become disillusioned with hard infrastructure projects that are not accompanied by adequate local governance. The bulk of our aid went to East Asia, much of it in the form of big infrastructure projects, for which we like to praise ourselves. But in truth, it was governance—not aid—that was the key element of the East Asia Miracle. We must be thankful that our colonial or Cold War legacies do not for the most part extend to the more intractable regions that clamor for help. (There’s North Korea, but that’s another story.)

There are things to do on the softer elements of the global infrastructure as well. Here, I think more attention should be given to the financial arrangements being worked out in the region between Japan, China and South Korea and more broadly with our Southeast Asian neighbors. Just as important, I believe that there is room for us to play a bigger role in reimagining and reconstructing the global regime. Then there’s WTO, where the Doha Round is virtually dead on its tracks. But I cannot even begin to hope for progress there, let alone for our negotiators to play a meaningful, proactive role in breaking the ice.

Robert Dujarric said...

Jun, yes I think the basic thrust of my thought is that Japan's capacity for out-of-area military ops is limited by budgetary, political, ideological, legal, constitutional, and other obstacles. So rather than push for a few Japanese "boots on the grounds" the US would be better off thinking of other ways in which Japan can contribute to the alliance and the world.

Robert Dujarric said...

Jun, yes I think the basic thrust of my thought is that Japan's capacity for out-of-area military ops is limited by budgetary, political, ideological, legal, constitutional, and other obstacles. So rather than push for a few Japanese "boots on the grounds" the US would be better off thinking of other ways in which Japan can contribute to the alliance and the world.

Jun Okumura said...

Robert: I think that we both begin with the same two assumptions: first, the Alliance is in principle a good thing; and second, in your words, “Japan's capacity for out-of-area military ops is limited by budgetary, political, ideological, legal, constitutional, and other obstacles”. Where there could be some disagreement between us is the extent to which the Japanese public can be pushed to accept a more substantive role in operations where sovereignty is not a legal issue. I think that U.S. pressure helps in this respect if only as a reminder of how far we continue to distance ourselves from the other liberal democracies, as well as many other less liberal/democratic states that nevertheless share our interest in maintaining and improving the global architecture and protecting it against harm. Moreover, I believe that it is both ethically dubious and economically disadvantageous for Japan to pay blood money for keeping our troops out of harm’s way. Besides, the blood of our non-military personnel—doctors, bureaucrats, the police—are just as valuable as that of our soldiers.

However, it is important to remember that our national interest may not be consonant with that of the United States in specific instances and/or at more granular levels. A case in point is the Palestinian question and, more broadly, the overall situation in the Middle East. I assume that if Japan were more able where it is willing, then .it would find it easier to beg to differ where it is less so. That in the end will hopefully lead to a more productive, if sometimes more contentious, Alliance. At least that is what the Armitage (now Nye?) Report was pointing to, and I agree with that objective.

Robert Dujarric said...

Jun, Yes I think especially your final point is key, if Japan carries more weight, it might be able to have more influence on US policy, RD

Jun Okumura said...

And just as important is the fact that there will be a cost to that influence, which—as Robert does not need to be reminded—is the other side of the point that he make against advocates of Japanese expansionism/interventionism that the small-state strategy expressed as the Yoshida Doctrine has worked out just fine for the welfare of the Japanese people.

But times, I think, are changing. I don't think that we can keep sitting it out.

Robert Dujarric said...

Jun, that's the question, how much have the times changed, how much does the Japanese govt want to do/can do,
RD

Jun Okumura said...

You could call it the pay-or-play question. Time and money are getting tighter for Japan, but the LDP can't afford to give the matter the attention that it deserves. I think that the DPJ is even less ready to lead on this issue.