Question: In the coming decades, which strategic path is Japan likely to follow in response to a rising China and different possible perceptions of its American defense-treaty ally?

1. After concluding that a weak or vacillating America is likely to abandon it, a “Hiroshima be damned” Japan develops its own nuclear weapons and charts an independent course.
2. After concluding that a weak or vacillating America is likely to abandon it, a “bandwagoning” Japan accedes to China's hegemony and becomes part of an Asian economic condominium led by China.
3. Firm in its belief that America will honor its treaty obligations and continue to provide Japan with its nuclear umbrella, a “staunch ally” Japan expands its economic ties with the United States and other allies in the region while bolstering its conventional military and missile-defense capabilities.

How Japan responds to the challenge of a rising China—and possibly a declining America—will no doubt have a significant impact on the future of war and peace in Asia. A “Hiroshima be damned” Japan armed with atomic bombs arguably raises the risks of actual nuclear war in Asia. A “bandwagoning” Japan allied with China against the United States conjures up a replay of Imperial Japan's “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” and World War II—perhaps with a very different victor and ending. Even a “staunch ally” scenario is no guarantee the bullets won't fly as it would certainly spur China, in the spirit of our by now well-known “security dilemma,” to produce more and more bullets. So what's the only country to suffer a nuclear holocaust likely to do—caught as it is between an inglorious imperial past, a pacifist present, and a highly uncertain future?

In choosing exactly which of Yogi Berra's proverbial forks in the road to take, the first troubling truth Tokyo must grapple with is this: It has cast its economic lot in with a rising Chinese power harboring a citizenry that seemingly has little but hate and disdain for Japan. Nor should this enmity be any surprise as China's new generations have been fed a steady diet of hateful and fearful messaging in everything from history books that highlight Imperial Japan's atrocities to the roughly two hundred movies a year that inevitably cast Japan as the villain.1

The equally troubling truth here is that Tokyo has also cast its national security lot in with an America that is in the midst of one of its all-too-periodic flirtations with neoisolationism. Nor is this any surprise as the problem America now faces in fulfilling its defense-treaty obligations to staunch allies like Japan is both an economic and political one—and the two are ineluctably intertwined.

On the economic front, chronic US budget deficits are being resolved in no small way by dramatic cuts in defense spending. In fact, these defense-budget cuts have found little opposition amongst an American public profoundly and deeply war-weary after dutifully funding two of the longest wars in American history, those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On the political front, perhaps if those wars had ended better, American taxpayers might be more willing to finance an American military “pivot” to Asia. However, with Iraq literally in burning pieces and a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, many Americans—particularly those struggling on the economic front—are simply fed up.

It follows that, at least from a Japanese perspective, the United States looks increasingly like it has an economy no longer strong enough to sustain its military commitments, a populace that is losing its political will, and a political system in gridlock no longer wise enough to establish its defense spending priorities. Not surprisingly, then, even when American presidents or secretaries of state or chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff profess their strong commitment to Asian allies like Japan, their counterparts in Tokyo or Seoul or Manila are dutifully and rightfully skeptical.

What, then, is a twenty-first century Japan supposed to do in the face of this increased uncertainty over the commitment of its most important ally and protector? This is a particularly crucial question since Japan has increasingly found itself at the tip of China's coercive spear.

Indeed, it has become almost a daily occurrence for some element of the Chinese military to challenge Japan's defense forces. Whether it is a fleet of Chinese warships steaming uncomfortably close to Japan's territorial waters, Chinese fighter jets or reconnaissance planes encroaching on Japan's air space, an armada of civilian and paramilitary Chinese vessels executing a “cabbage strategy” around Japan's Senkaku Islands, or the Chinese press waging relentless media warfare against an allegedly ultranationalist Japan, it is a continuous Beijing drumbeat that has ratcheted up tensions in the region.

It is precisely because of this mounting pressure that Japan's ultimate choice of its strategic path cannot be separated from the question of whether the United States will fulfill its defense-treaty obligations in the event of a Chinese attack. In thinking this choice through, however, it is critical to understand the scope of what America's treaty obligations really are.

The very real “will there be war” problem here is that these obligations are not just a matter of whether the United States would send ships and troops to help Japan should China be so imprudent as to invade the Senkaku Islands or shoot down a Japanese plane for entering disputed airspace. America's treaty obligations also speak directly to the question as to whether the United States will truly provide the nuclear umbrella it has promised to hold over Japan for more than sixty years if conflict does indeed erupt. Here, a little more history may well be in order.

When the United States and Japan entered into their mutual defense pact in 1952, this seemed to be a good deal for both countries. From the US perspective, America got to maintain forward bases on Japanese soil to protect its interests in Asia and because Japan committed to a small, defense-oriented military, American citizens would not have to worry about another Pearl Harbor.

From Japan's perspective, this was a fine deal as well. With American taxpayers effectively footing the bill for its defense, Japan could devote its considerable economic resources to peaceful development and trade.

For more than six decades, as part of the longest mutual defense treaty in modern history, neither Tokyo nor Washington ever imagined this treaty might be invoked because of an attack on Japanese soil. As Senior Fellow Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations has noted:

In the early years, the US-Japan alliance was first and foremost a Cold War arrangement that allowed the forward deployment of American forces in the region. If there were ever going to be a conflict in Asia, it wasn't going to happen on Japanese territory. Instead, it would be all about the Korean Peninsula or perhaps a Taiwan Strait contingency.2

Today, however, both Tokyo and Washington must worry about the direct engagement of Japanese and Chinese forces and the probability, however low it may seem in the abstract, that China might respond during a conflict with a nuclear strike or threat of a nuclear strike. It is in contemplating any such nuclear-strike scenario that Tokyo must rightfully begin to wonder whether the United States will offer its nuclear arsenal in defense of Japan in a new age of Chinese nuclear capabilities that bring counterstrikes on Los Angeles or Chicago or New York onto the chess board.

Put simply, this is Japan's “will the United States be willing to trade Los Angeles to save Tokyo?” dilemma. In truth, asking an ally to expose its major cities to nuclear obliteration is certainly a lot to ask—and both Tokyo and Washington are increasingly aware of this subtext in their treaty alliance. This is all the more true in Washington because of the attendant problem of so-called moral hazard. To wit: America's commitment to defend Japan and its territories raises the possibility that Japan may engage in behavior that is more bold—and possibly more reckless—than it otherwise would be.

Of course, here is the nub of the matter: As soon as Tokyo begins to doubt the certainty of America's promised nuclear umbrella, Japan must contemplate at least two alternatives to the “staunch ally” scenario.

The first, the “bandwagon” scenario, is the classic “turn over the king and admit defeat” move in a chess match. In this scenario, Japan sees China as the ultimate winner in the struggle for Asian hegemony—so a kowtowing Japan simply switches sides and throws its lot in with a new Imperial China.

The obvious downside for Japan is that any “bandwagon” scenario would necessarily involve the surrender of Japanese claims to the Senkaku Islands. A vassal Japan would also likely have to accept China's definition of its maritime rights—and thereby lose its fishing and oil and gas rights in much of the East China Sea. Moreover, should an Imperial China really want to flex its revanchist muscles, Japan might even have to surrender its Okinawan territories and allow them to be restored as the Ryukyu Islands in a Chinese empire.

On the economic front, Japan might fare a bit better as it would likely enter into a “condominium” arrangement with China. This arrangement would in all probability include a protectionist trade zone between the two countries—with America as the odd trading partner out—as well as the adoption of the Chinese renminbi as a reserve currency replacement for the US dollar.

In fact, there is at least some logic to this “bandwagon” scenario given the high degree of economic interdependence that already exists between China and Japan As for the potential of this scenario as a trigger or trip wire for war, it stems largely from the profound negative impacts a Chinese-run economic condominium likely would have on both the economic prosperity and national security of the United States.

Economically, America runs the risk of being forced to trade on unfavorable terms with China's condominium, with an attendant reduction in both trade and US GDP growth. Militarily, there is also this strategic hat trick to consider: The United States loses its forward bases, America's missile-defense shield in Asia is lowered, and, as China projects its power further and further into the Pacific, US cities from Seattle to Washington, DC, become more and more vulnerable to nuclear strikes or blackmail. For these reasons alone, such a “bandwagon” scenario might lead to greater conflict between China and the United States over time.

Now what about the “Hiroshima be damned” scenario? Here Japan's extreme aversion to developing its nuclear-weapons arsenal because of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is only matched by Japan's almost certain ability to quickly build and deploy highly sophisticated nuclear weapons.

The abiding fact here is that Japan's more than sixty years of experience using nuclear reactors to generate electricity for the home islands has given it both the expertise and the fissionable material to rapidly develop a nuclear bomb. Wed that expertise and material with Japan's vaunted manufacturing prowess and, unlike countries like Iran and North Korea, which are slowly developing relatively small bombs, Japan could have a bevy of the biggest ones almost overnight.

This stark possibility does indeed shine a bright light on one of the most important functions of US force projection in Asia, namely, to keep the nuclear peace. Here, most experts believe that the likelihood of nuclear war in Asia is far lower if countries like Japan and South Korea remain without nuclear weapons themselves and simply rely on the United States for deterrence. However, once the reliability of that American nuclear umbrella comes into question, all bets—and the brakes on nuclear proliferation in Asia—are off.

Given that the “Hiroshima be damned” scenario is likely to be even more destabilizing than the “bandwagon” scenario, the question must be asked as to whether the “staunch ally” scenario would fare any better at keeping the peace. The answer here inevitably hinges on how China responds to a growing economic and military alliance between America and Japan.

On the one hand, if China is simply and pragmatically probing the limits of Japanese and US resolve with its current trajectory of aggression, then a “staunch ally” scenario should enhance the peace. As Pentagon analyst Michael Pillsbury has framed this “peace through strength” principle, if China probes and finds weakness, it will proceed. However, if it strikes and finds steel, it will retreat.3

On the other hand, if China becomes more and more vulnerable to its own internal nationalistic pressures—or if its leaders believe that a military buildup by a US-backed Japan is likely to lead to another foreign humiliation—China will dutifully follow the “security dilemma” script and redouble its efforts to arm itself. Of course, at that point, war becomes more and more likely.

From this stark assessment, you should see how important it is that the leaders of China, Japan, and the United States have frank discussions about both their capabilities and intentions as they seek to find a durable and lasting peace. However, as we shall discuss in a later chapter, one of the biggest obstacles to peace in Asia is China's extreme aversion to negotiation and transparency. And so Japan as a trigger or trip wire for war will loom large in the decades ahead—and much of what happens will be driven by the degree of US commitment and resolve in the region.