The three decade-old U.S.-Japan alliance faced a major turning point in 1990, as the Cold War wound down and a central pillar of the relationship-containment of the Soviet Union-began to fall away just as bilateral trade competition was peaking. Despite this, the allies deepened security cooperation throughout the next quarter century, in addition to broadening collaboration in economics, technology, and diplomacy. At the current juncture geopolitical change in Asia and diversified threats to prosperity, the allies should work to incorporate their full range of cooperation in more direct service of comprehensive national strategies, recognizing the unique ways that their alliance supports global stability and serves mutual interests. The start of a new U.S. administration is an opportune time to recalibrate alliance interaction to keep it relevant and productive, and this presentation will set the scene and offer recommendations on this front.

Jim Schoff, currently a Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published a book-length study in 2017 on the post-Cold War evolution of the U.S.-Japan alliance, taking advantage of thirty years of experience with Japan in various fields including business, journalism, academia, government, and the non-profit sector. Before joining Carnegie in 2012, Schoff served as senior adviser for East Asia policy at the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense and, before that, as director of Asia Pacific Studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. During the 1990s he assisted in U.S.-Japan trade law cases, led business development efforts for a U.S. construction and program management firm in Japan, and led policy studies at the U.S.-Japan Foundation.