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Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the formulation of the US "security consensus" towards Japan focusing on a) the US think tanks, b) the "alliance mangers", c) personal networks, d) the personality traits of Policy Entrepreneurs, and the implications of the process for the US military base issue in Okinawa?

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyzes the formulation of the US-Japan "security consensus" focusing on a) US think tanks, b) the "alliance managers", c) personal networks, d) and the personality traits of Policy Entrepreneurs. Finally, it presents the US military base issue in Okinawa as a case study.

For a long time, the US-Japan alliance - the linchpin of the American East Asian security framework - has been strained by the problem of US military bases in Okinawa, Japan. These tensions are exemplified by cyclical local protests since the rape incident of September 1995. In February 2019 Okinawa held a prefectural referendum on the issue of a new base construction in Henoko, which again showed that the majority of the local population opposes the construction of a base within the prefecture. Nevertheless, local protests do not seem to have major effects on US-Japan security policy. Andrew Yeo argues that security consensus - defined as "shared perception and intersubjective understanding of the concept of national security held by host government elites" (Yeo 2011: 7) - and particularly the degree of that consensus constitutes the decisive factor that determines the impact of social movements on the security policy.

In light of the above, this paper tackles the questions: What is the American security consensus regarding the US military bases in Japan, and particularly in Okinawa, in the broader context of the American security policy? Who forms that security consensus and how? What is the role of American think tanks and "alliance managers" in the process? How do they interact with their Japanese counterparts? What are the implications of that consensus formulation process for the future development of the US military base issue in Okinawa? Methodologically, the paper tackles the above questions employing Yeo's concept of "security consensus" and by process-tracing the decision-making process through primary sources obtained during extensive fieldwork in Washington DC and, eventually, Japan.