Masataka Okano
For decades, U.S. allies operated within an international system built and maintained by the United States. Washington was committed to keeping global trade flowing, to the benefit of countries around the world. The multilateral institutions formed in the wake of World War II did not prevent war altogether, but they reinforced a norm against outright conquest. And the United States’ vested interest in its allies’ security offered assurance to Japan and other countries that they would be protected if conflict came to their shores.
National security leaders around the world knew that this system was not guaranteed to last forever. Already, in the past several years, the outbreak of deadly wars in Europe and the Middle East, escalating Chinese military activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea, the reemergence of trade wars and breakdown of global governance, and the dizzying pace of change in modern warfare—especially when it comes to drones and artificial intelligence—all required countries to adjust their expectations. The world was becoming a more dangerous, more unpredictable place. Yet Japan and its partners believed that the rules-based international order, upheld at the initiative of the United States, was still the best remedy to these problems.
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