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approach: (1) Japan's own efforts, (2) alliance with the United States, and (3) cooperation
with the international community to defend the homeland and, at the same time, to strive
for improving the international security environment. In this author's view, the
development and application of soft power as an instrument of security policy runs into
difficulties at the intersection of the second and third levels. In the U.S.-Japan alliance,
future demands on Japan will lead more toward the expansion of hard power, particularly
military capabilities and coordination of military planning and operation between the two
countries. On the other hand, demands on Japan in broader international security
cooperation will pull Japan more toward the exercise of soft power.
Simply put, the very alliance with the United States may frustrate Japan's desire to
be viewed as a supporter of international consensus and peaceful resolution of
international conflicts. If gaining broad international support for Japan's policy on major
international security issues and convincing others to forge a common approach to those
issues are the two overall goals of Japanese diplomacy, and if Japan is to utilize its soft
power to achieve those objectives, it must be recognized that on some issues the alliance
with the United States may undercut Japan's soft-power attraction.
The Iraqi case demonstrates this problem. A high-ranking Japanese diplomat
acknowledges the dilemma. After observing, "As is obvious from the case of the Iraq
War, the United States is prepared to act in its capacity as sole world superpower,"
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the
diplomat writes, "Unlike the days when coordination among Western powers aligned
behind the United States was absolutely essential...today broad international coordination
is not always compatible with the Japan-U.S. alliance, no matter how fundamental both
of them may be in shaping Japan's foreign policy. This incompatibility was inherent in
Convention