CAIRO – 21 March 2018: Looking at the United States’ relationship with Japan, it becomes clear that the two allies agree on many things. To further understand the nature of the U.S.-Japan relationship, Egypt Today sat down with Satoru Mori.
Mori, a professor of international politics and U.S. foreign policy at Hosei University, co-chairs the Asia Strategy Initiative, a joint Japan-U.S. policy recommendation project formed by experts from Japan and the United States.
Currently, he is taking part in multiple policy research projects organized by the Japan Institute of International Affairs, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and multiple others. He is also exploring the U.S. strategy in Asia with particular focus on U.S.-China relations and U.S.-Japan relations, as well as the U.S. defense innovation and its implications for U.S. allies and the impact of artificial intelligence on international security.
Mori is a former Japanese Foreign Ministry official and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, LL.M. degrees from Columbia University Law School and Kyoto University, and an LL.B. degree from Kyoto University.
His book “The Vietnam War and Alliance Diplomacy” won the Hiroshi Shimizu Prize for Distinguished Academic Work from the Japanese Association of American Studies in 2010. He also received the 2015 Nakasone Yasuhiro Incentive Award.
ET: Prior to the previous U.S. elections, you were
of the negative consequences that may result of Donald Trump becoming president. Which of the concerns have materialized or have you perhaps begun to see a different side to him?
SM: Through a number of meetings, we secured joint statements; on the security side, we got an A+. We secured everything that we have got.
Nevertheless, we do see a pattern by Trump to focus of the North Korean trade. My main concern here is what will happen to the other issue areas? He has been somewhat weak on that side. So, we hope that the Trump administration will be more engaging on a wide-range of issues, rather than just engaging with North Korean trade.
We want to see the United States re-invigorate engagement in what we see are some of the seemingly less talked upon areas. North Korea may be a vehicle to get the Unites States involved in Asia in humanitarian assistance… and Chinese strategy, for instance. So, that is a new change. The concern somewhat shifted. We thought that Trump would not be interested in alliances, but this is not the case anymore. Our new concern is if Trump is going to focus only on North Korean trade or will he focus on a much wider scale.
ET: Trump will be the first U.S. president to meet the North Korean leader; how do you see this meeting going?
SM: I think right now we will probably have the summit between North Korea and South Korea first, probably in April. Then we will have, in May maybe, a Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump meeting, but I think that we need to first see what will come out of the North-South meeting.
If we see significant progress or if the North shows a sincere will to act towards what the international community wants, then there could be a meeting between the North Korean leader and the U.S. president.
When it comes to a North Korean and U.S. summit, there are a number of things that we need to take into account. First, we have to be aware of the global de-nuclearization map. If North Korea is willing to get rid of its nuclear weapons, what is the timeframe within which they would do so? What are the stages? And so on. What is North Korea going to demand in return?
One of the issues that might come up is that North Korea will say that since I am giving up my nuclear weapons, the ones that I built over decades to protect myself, I would like the security threat to be reduced, meaning they would demand that U.S. troops be removed from South Korea. The next question would be, would South Korea, Japan and the United States be okay with this? Would they be ready for this? This would create a regional change and there will be a lot of discussion about whether this is a strategically viable decision.
The process of giving up nuclear weapons, we would argue, should not be part of any deal, because they built them by violating the original deal, and getting rid of them would go back to the original compliance. I think the U.S. and South Korea can give North Korea security guarantees, but I believe that removing U.S. troops from South Korea is a completely different thing.
The second issue that may come up is the verification mechanism. How would we know that they are actually getting rid of their weapons? Before, they said that they are getting rid of their weapons, but secretly they continued to develop them. And we discovered that they had violated their promise in 2002. In 2005, North Korea said they were willing to get rid of nuclear weapons and then they continued to develop them, testing missiles and so on. So, there has been a trend of them violating their promise, and so, people in Tokyo, South Korea, and so on are very skeptical of any promise by North Korea to get rid of their nuclear programs. A verification mechanism would have to be very intrusive. This means that it would have to go everywhere and see everything, but I do not think that North Korea would agree to this. They would not be ready for an intrusive inspection. The fact that we do not know where the nuclear weapons are makes it increasingly difficult to come up with a deal.
For North Korea, there needs to be a retreat, not a freeze, because they have already developed nuclear weapons.
ET: A week ago, Trump said that he thinks the U.S. should establish a “
.” He has also pushed for increased military budgets and defense innovation. The effects on the U.S. allies are huge; how has Tokyo felt this increasing defense innovation in the U.S.?
SM: On a space force, we are yet to assess what the implications are for Japanese national security, but there has been discussion of the establishment of space force or space court. I think the reason is that space used to be considered a facilitating domain supporting other domains on the land, meaning sea, air and land. But now space has become a domain in itself. This has changed our idea of how space should be protected. People are now talking about cyber manipulation of satellites and using satellites to collide into other satellites. So, there are some space military operations that are becoming a physical reality and this is why they are coming up with the idea of a space force now.
Now, turning to Japan, Japan’s space assets are very limited. We depend on the United States in terms of military cooperation and so on. As far as Japan is concerned, if the United States is moving towards better defense capabilities in outer space, it is generally good for Japan. This is because it provides security and defense for Japanese assets as well.
Japan is currently looking into how it can enhance its space capabilities.
China has already established what it called a strategic support force in December 2015. What they did is that they integrated cyber, space and electronic warfare headquarters. They put them together. This is a very advanced organization and reform. We are yet to see what it will succumb to and how, as well as if, it will work out. Having something does not mean that it is working, but China is already making this organizational innovation in this domain.
Space forces are perhaps the United States’ way of reacting to the Chinese developments in this sector and their growing capabilities in space. I think the U.S. increasing its capabilities and assets in space would be a good thing to its allies and Japan.
ET: Beijing believes, as I think you would agree, that it is able to realize political objectives, albeit small, via manipulating risk through low-level coercive tactics at sea and, to a lesser extent, land. The U.S. has commented on the issue, but it has not been involved due to the low-level intensity of China’s actions. Can you elaborate on the effects of this on the region and the rest of the world? Do you feel that the Trump administration is carrying out Obama’s legacy in terms of their attitude towards China’s actions in the sea?
SM: I think that the Trump administration has been more forthcoming in terms of the defense strategy of the United States and many countries than compared with the Obama administration; Trump is a lot more straightforward. Obama looked at the history of the region and had a long-term view of it. He did not think that there is a need to overact to these threats by China. Trump, on the other hand, is a lot more forward leaning, and the defense organization of the United States under the Trump administration is a lot more forthcoming and counters China’s actions more obviously.
We are still yet to see what has actually changed and what will happen, but the general attitude has generally changed quite a lot from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.
ET: The relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and national and international security is complicated and controversial. AI holds different merits to both securities, as well as faults. How has Japan worked on helping its allies via its innovations in the AI field, especially in terms of solving the North Korean issue?
SM: With regard to North Korea, U.S. interests and Japanese interests overlap quite significantly. We agree on the general approach of applying pressure on North Korea to give up its weapons. That is a good start and I think Japan, as a U.S. ally, is willing to contribute many things to the cause. We are not really strong with artificial intelligence, I would say. I would also say that we are working on it but we are not quite there as of yet.
I hope that the defense cooperation between the United States and Japan will progress and that we will be able to provide competitive help to the U.S. in this area.
ET: There were several reasons why Britain wished to end or not take part in the Vietnam War; however, in your book on diplomacy and the Vietnam War, you place the imperial retreat factor above other factors. You argue that the fundamental reason for Britain’s mediation of the war between the U.S. and the communist states lay in London’s desire to facilitate its military withdrawal from the East of Suez, so as to reduce the balance of payments deficit and defend the value of the British pound. I would be interested to hear why you placed this reason above the others and how the continuation of the U.K.’s presence here would have affected it’s economic development?
SM: The whole British presence East of Suez went all the way to Hong Kong. Back then the British pound was under speculative attack; it was losing value basically. This was, therefore, a fundamental issue for Prime Minister Harold Wilson, because the pound was losing value at a very rapid pace.
In order to stop this, Wilson had to prove to the market that he is not going to spend any more British pounds overseas through this idea of imperialism. So, in 1967, I believe, he announced his withdrawal from the Suez Canal. And so, he went through all the trouble of trying to convince the United States president at the time to come out of Vietnam. Why was Wilson willing to risk his personal relationship with the U.S. president to mediate peace in Vietnam? That is the question I posed myself at the beginning of my research.
This is kind of weird isn’t it? And so, I dug up the archives in London and I came across this document and it talked about the huge strategic issue about the U.S. military presence and the value of the British pound. The national economic interest basically prevailed over their solidarity with the United States. Initially they were supportive, but then their position changed.
The Johnson administration was very influenced by their allies during the Vietnam War. One of the arguments that I wanted to make is that the U.K. and France were able to provide options and alternative view points at different times during the war.
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