Power, Economics, And Security

The United States And Japan In Focus

Henry Bienen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367284084
• eBook ISBN: 9781000307924
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Klaus E. Knorr. Thisis fitting for a number of reasons. The collaborative work herewas done under the auspices of the Center of International Studiesat Princeton University, which Klaus Knorr directed from 1961until 1968. The concerns of this book are to analyze the relationshipsamong economic and military power and national security; to explorethe ways economic power and economic decline relate to internationalhegemony; and to examine our understanding of concepts such aspower, security, and burden-sharing. These concerns ranked highon Klaus Knorr's research agenda during his productive and fruitfullife.

1
Introduction

Henry Bienen

This volume is divided into two large sections. Part One, Economic Effects on National and International Security, contains chapters that explore through general arguments the relationships among economic, political, and military power and national security. In "Economics and National Security," David A. Baldwin and Helen V. Milner explore the concept of national security and the implications of different understandings of national security for policy formulation. Like Klaus Knorr, they are critical of the overemphasis on military aspects of national security. Also like Knorr, they are interested in analyzing the pursuit of national security by different means: military, diplomacy, propaganda and economic statecraft. They are especially concerned about exploring the core values that are to be protected and thus about the very meaning of national security.

Robert Gilpin concentrates on international economic variables and a changing international political economy in his chapter, "The Economic Dimension of International Security." Gilpin analyzes the paradox that the growth of a world economy has led to unprecedented prosperity and thus, in one sense, to a growth in international security; at the same time, the world market economy may have negative consequences for the political interests and security concerns of particular states. Thus, states are frequently unwilling to leave the market alone. This topic leads Gilpin to examine the international balance of economic and political power, a focus taken up in chapters by Friedberg, Ikenberry and Kupchan, and all the scholars who focus on Japan and the U.S.-Japan relationship in Part Two.

Gilpin focuses on the vulnerabilities created by interdependence as well as the leverages some states have through interdependence. He explores the conditions for the maintenance of an open world economy in the context of the profound shifts entailed by new realities in Europe and the role of developing countries and by the growth of Pacific Basin states. He raises provocatively the issue of the clash between the norms of a liberal world order and the concerns of states over what they perceive to be their fundamental political and security interests.

Aaron L. Friedberg, in "The Changing Relationship Between Economics and National Security," explores, as did Knorr, the connection between wealth and power. He asks, in a changing world, in what ways—if any—do the old verities hold in the relationships between economics and national security? One of his aims is to enter the debate of the decline theorists who argued that overextension and the burdens of military expenditures could and did weaken states economically and politically. Friedberg's argument is that although the United States must address the issue of international competitiveness, it is the Soviet Union that became overburdened. Yet Friedberg, like Gilpin, is concerned about the long-term implications of global economic change on the power of individual states. Whereas Gilpin is concerned with the role of hegemonic states in absorbing costs to provide leadership in the international economic and political systems, Friedberg poses the question in a somewhat different fashion: Because change has been uneven and the Soviet Union has declined, can a transition from bipolarity—the Soviet and U.S. dominance of the international political system—to something approximating multipolarity be managed without serious disruptions? Friedberg's conclusion is that it will matter a great deal whether or not the two large "new" economic powers—Germany and Japan—will continue to have discontinuities between their economic and political-military power. In other words, will military power be less important than it was in the past?

Friedberg also argues that poor states now have significant military capabilities. There has been a diffusion of military power to more actors. There has also been a growing interdependence through globalization of military production and the high-technology development of economic powers, especially Germany and Japan. Economic statecraft has always been important as states vie for influence over each other through trade—allowing or curtailing access to resources, investment, and assistance. Interdependence of production raises new issues for the use of economic statecraft as a political weapon. But interdependence also makes it difficult to deploy this weapon without the deployer facing costs, too.

Whatever the perspective of individual authors on the role of military strength and economic statecraft, all of the contributors to Part One agree that future military potential and overall political prestige are tied to a country's performance in international economic competition. The chapter that focuses most specifically on issues of decline is "Legitimacy and Power: The Waning of U.S. and Soviet Hegemony" by G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan. They explore the different trajectories of decline: the steady erosion of U.S. material capabilities in relation to other industrial nations but the maintenance so far of the NATO Alliance and U.S. political leadership, and the crumbling of the Soviet alliance system and the rapid erosion of Soviet influence. Ikenberry and Kupchan insert a new dimension into the analysis. Although hegemonic order is tied to marshaling material resources, they argue that substantive beliefs are a crucial component of hegemonic power. Thus, they explore the issues of legitimacy and leadership: How do states wield power, and what are the incentives they offer other states to follow them? The roles of ideas and norms are important in their analysis. For them, the web of connections among elites across states and the diffusion of ideas and values are important explanatory factors in accounting for the different paths of Soviet and U.S. relative decline.

Charles Lipson's chapter, "Standard Operating Procedures: Debt Policymaking and U.S. National Security," looks at debt issues with a view to analyzing the relationship between economics and security through a case study of policymaking and implementation. He explores the organizational dimension of modern statecraft. The earlier chapters in this part analyze the linkages between economics and security, and Lipson shows the institutional difficulties in dealing jointly with economic and security issues despite their substantive linkages. Whatever academic analysts may think, it is hard to incorporate the linkages between economics and security in the formulation of detailed agency policies. There may be special times— for example, after World War II—when this can be accomplished. Lipson argues, however, that bureaucratic routines work to segregate issues, and he illustrates this through an examination of the international debt issue. Thus, even when the largest issues of economics and security are on the table, as they may be now, it is difficult to formulate policies that address these large issues in ambitious ways. Whereas Lipson makes this argument for the debt crisis, Part Two illustrates the point in the studies of the U.S.-Japan relationship.

Contemporary students of international political economy and security have come to focus increasingly on the U.S.-Japan relationship as a critical one for exploring the issues of the rise and fall of states and the relationship between economic and political power. Part Two of this volume concentrates on Japan's leadership abilities as well as on the U.S.-Japanese relationship.

Three chapters explore Japan's role in the international political system, taking different perspectives on this issue. Kenneth B. Pyle in "Can Japan Lead? The New Internationalism and the Burdens of History" and Masaru Tamamoto in "Japan's Search for a World Role" explicitly ask whether Japan can replace the United States as the leading, or hegemonic, power. In "Japan in the Emerging Global Political Economy," Kent E. Calder also asks whether it is Japan's turn to assume a more active role in ordering global trade and financial systems. His focus is more on international political economy roles than on global political leadership.

Both Pyle and Tamamoto focus on the ways elites function in Japan in defining a national purpose. Both emphasize the unique Japanese cultural identity as an obstacle to leadership and the historical constraints that make it difficult for those elites who would forge a new consensus, giving Japan a greater leading role. Pyle examines the forms nationalism might take in Japan in the late twentieth century through a detailed analysis of Japanese political and bureaucratic actors and their circles. He analyzes the tenets of the "new internationalism" in Japan, which argues that Japan must assume the provision of more public goods in the international system but must also define its role largely in terms of economic, not military, strength. Just as Gilpin explored the issue of international roles and norms versus domestic autonomy, Pyle does so in the Japanese context. He sees obstacles in a reconfiguration of Japan's political order to accommodate domestic institutions and values and the norms of a liberal international order. He leaves open the possible outcomes.

Tamamoto also concentrates on how Japan thinks about itself. He argues that the primary impetus for Japan's internationalization has come from the United States, not from Japan. He stresses that the debate within Japan has been marked by anxiety among Japan's ruling class. Although Tamamoto, like Pyle, explores the positions of various nationalists and internationalists, he argues that the Japanese conception of the state since World War II has been one in which the state shuns international commitments. He also argues that Japan's leaders remain tied to the U.S. strategic leadership and that although they can accommodate U.S. demands that Japan do more in international economic and political realms, they insist that the United States maintain the alliance as the leader.

Calder describes the rise of Japanese economic power. He also argues that cultural factors complicate Japan's emergence as a dominant world power. He emphasizes the domestic structural constraints that limit Japan's emerging global role. Constraints are embedded in Japan's bureaucratic and party institutions, and Calder explores their functioning in the realm of trade policy. He argues that Japan's capacity and incentives to assume important stabilizing functions in the world economy appear strongest in the area of international finance. This is an area not only of great Japanese strength but one in which bureaucratic and political actors can move with fewer constraints than exist on trade and military policy.

Thus, three specialists on Japan emphasize the constraints on Japan becoming a dominant political and military actor and on translating its economic strength into broader leadership roles. Next are two case studies that explore the issue of burden-sharing and examine tensions in the Japanese-U.S. relationship in the trade and financial realms.

Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, in "Structural Transformation in the U.S.-Japan Economic Relationship," sees a zero-sum political struggle between Japan and the United States. He restates the dilemma posed by Gilpin: How can states reconcile their urge to defend economic sovereignty with the maintenance of stable and growing economic interdependence? For him, the question of U.S.-Japanese trade imbalances is less a trade policy issue and more a profound issue of restructuring the U.S.-Japan relationship through trade payments. It is a political and economic problem of adjustment, with Washington asserting its economic sovereignty. The real question is, who adjusts? However, this question is posed in the context of financial forces outside the control of either government that affect the relationship between them. Kawasaki sees an erosion of the political relationship under pressure from economic forces.

Yoshiko Kojo explores a different area of U.S.-Japanese tensions—that of the roles of the two countries in the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—in her chapter, "Burden-Sharing Under the U.S. Leadership: The Case of Quota Increases of the IMF Since the 1970s." Kojo examines the shifts in U.S. policy inside the fund as the United States responded to the debt crisis and required more resources from Japan but resisted a redistribution of power through voting shares in the IMF. The United States was caught in a dilemma because increased Japanese contributions could be translated into greater power within the IMF. For the Japanese, it became difficult to shoulder greater burdens without commensurate increases in power. Liquidity suffered as the IMF received fewer funds than it expected to deal with pressing problems. Neither the Kojo nor the Kawasaki case studies conveys confidence that mutual adjustments will be easy in the U.S.-Japan relationship.

This volume, then, explores complex political economy relationships between Japan and the United States. The chapters in Part Two reflect on the broad issues raised in Part One concerning power, security, and economic and military strength. We do not believe we have said the last word on these issues by any means. We do think the chapters contribute to thinking about critical questions.

PART ONE
Economic Effects on National and International Security

2
An Intellectual Remembrance of Klaus Knorr

Richard Betts, Michael Doyle, and G. John Ikenberry

Klaus E. Knorr, William Stewart Tod Emeritus Professor of International Affairs, died in Princeton on March 25, 1990. For nearly four decades, three of them as a faculty member and another in active retirement, he had a major influence on the study of international relations at Princeton. He was a scholar and an institution-builder, and he played significant roles in the wider world of public affairs.

Klaus Knorr was a pioneer in U.S. postwar international relations studies. His work in such subfields as strategic studies, political economy, and the study of colonialism and imperialism helped set the terms of research and debate for several generations of scholars. In this chapter, we reflect on this rich and enduring body of work to engage in an intellectual remembrance.

Although his scholarship had a wide range, the critical core of his work concerned power in international politics. In particular, Klaus had an abiding, career-long interest in probing the nature and limits of military power in the contemporary era. This interest was hinted at in his early writings during the 1940s and 1950s on colonialism, raw materials policy, and the war potential of nations. The culmination of this interest came in 1966 with the publication of On the Uses of Military Power in the Nuclear Age. But the same concern for appreciating the true nature of power appeared throughout his later career in studies of international political economy and strategic military surprise.

What is striking throughout Klaus's writings is his commitment to conceptual clarity. In each of his many areas of research, he sought to define a set of critical issues and provide a language for talking about those issues. As Henry Bienen, a friend and colleague, noted, "One of his great strengths as a scholar was an ability to take basic facts, order them, think hard about them, try to understand their causes and consequences, and provide frameworks for furthering our knowledge about the most significant problems of war and peace." Klaus's work does not reflect an effort to build a master framework for the study of international relations. He sought analytic rigor but not architectonic elegance. Moreover, he would not have recognized the distinction between academic excellence and policy relevance. His guiding light throughout his life was the idea that trenchant analysis of important issues made a study relevant to policy.

Professor Knorr was born in Essen, Germany, in 1911. He received the LL.B. degree from the University of Tubingen in 1935. Shortly afterward, he left Germany and came to the United States, where he received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1941. As a graduate student, he served as an instructor in economics at Northwestern University. After spending the war years as a research associate at Stanford, he moved to New Haven—along with a number of his most distinguished fellow graduate students from Chicago—and was appointed an associate professor and research associate in Yale's legendary Institute of International Relations.

In the autumn of 1950, Yale's new president, Whitney Griswold, made it known that he disapproved of much of the work the institute had been doing—including pioneering work on theories of nuclear war and deterrence—and decreed that on April 1, 1951, the institute would be abolished. On April 2, Princeton announced that with funds from the Milbank Foundation, it would create a new Center of International Studies around Knorr and five of his Yale colleagues. An editorial in the next day's New York Herald Tribune commented that the migration "call[ed] up memories of medieval days, when scholars wandered from university to university amid the free cities of Europe." This gain at one stroke for Princeton—and the concomitant loss for Yale—was enormous.

By then Klaus Knorr had become a leading figure in the generation of economists who turned their attention to international affairs during and after World War II. Written with the advice of Jacob Viner, Knorr's published dissertation, British Colonial Theories (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1944), surveyed British ideas on the relations among power, wealth, national security, and economic development between 1570 and 1850. He moved from this sweeping history to issues involving natural resources. The titles of his books—Tin Under Control (Palo Alto, Calif.: Food Res...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• About the Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• PART ONE ECONOMIC EFFECTS ON NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
• PART TWO JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
• About the Book and Editor
• Index