Japan as US ace in the hole.

One reason the Bush Administration didn't rein in State's bullying of Russia is that they thought it would be Japan, not Russia, that would counterbalance China's rising power in Asia. Yesterday's Washington Post op-ed by Michael Zielenziger takes a clear-eyed look at Japan in the aftermath of the electoral rout of the Liberal Democratic Party. Zielenziger's concerns might be overblown. But his cautions, which I publish below in their entirety, are a good argument for State to radically alter their Russia policy.

US foreign policy is still in the grip of Cold War thinking, which looks at political situations in a country as relatively static and therefore predictable to a high degree. The pressures of globalized trade, the realities of democratic politics in so many countries today, and the fact of intelligence agencies overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data they must analyze, have converged to create a more fluid, unpredictable geopolitical landscape.

So it's not so much developing a Plan B, which might be outmoded by the time a fallback plan is needed; it's a matter of devising policies that spread around risk.

5 Myths About the Japan That Just Said No
By Michael Zielenziger
Sunday, August 5, 2007; The Washington Post

Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration seemed convinced that it could rely on a newly assertive Japan to contain China's rise and help prosecute the global fight against terrorism. Then last weekend, Japan's voters just said "No." The stinging electoral rebuke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (which lost control of the upper house of the Diet for the first time since the party was founded in 1955) does more than usher in a new era of drift and unpredictability in Japanese politics. Abe's drubbing should also dispel some dangerous misperceptions about today's Japan:

1. Japan is a strong, rising power, ready to assert new influence across Asia.
Even before the Bush administration came to power in 2001, many members of its kitchen cabinet were arguing that an assertive new Japan was ready to become the United States' chief surrogate in checking Chinese expansion. Japan would no longer be a "free rider," they said, in contrast with its behavior in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Tokyo merely wrote a $9 billon check to help protect its oil supply.

Sure enough, after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi dispatched peacekeeping soldiers to southern Iraq, ostensibly to conduct "humanitarian relief," in defiance of Japan's pacifist constitution. Koizumi's hand-picked successor, Abe, went further still, pledging to revise the constitution to eliminate the clause renouncing Japan's willingness to wage war. He also promised to work ever more closely with the Pentagon on missile defense and logistical support for U.S. combat troops, and he toed a more strident line against North Korea.

But Abe's eagerness to draw closer to Washington and rewrite the constitution clashed with the will of the people. While most Japanese citizens tell pollsters that they believe the post-World War II constitution (written by U.S. occupation forces in 1946) ought to be updated, most also reject expanding the nation's military muscle. And a majority of voters older than 60 -- the aging nation's most important voting bloc -- say that the constitution's pacifist Article 9 remains the most important legacy from the debacle of World War II.

So while U.S. military planners want Tokyo to seize more responsibility as the U.S. military is stretched thin, Japan now seems likelier to back away. A counterterrorism measure that permits ships from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to refuel U.S. naval convoys is up for renewal this fall and may not pass. Don't be surprised if Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the newly emboldened opposition Democratic Party of Japan, uses this as a lever to break up the Diet and force new elections.

2. Japan has shed its economic blues.
More than 15 years after its bubble economy burst, Japan may be groping its way back toward sustainable growth. But despite the stunning export success of carmakers such as Toyota and electronics firms such as Canon, the nation's domestic consumption remains anemic.In fact, anxious voters rebelled against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in part because they believed Abe had put economic reforms on the back burner. (The fact that his government apparently lost 50 million pension records, and that three of his ministers faced campaign funding scandals, also didn't help.)

Today, most Japanese seek economic renewal, not military revival. The nation's giant banks still generate tiny profits, consumer prices continue to fall, domestic demand remains feeble, and real interest rates are nearly zero. The yen is weaker than even the U.S. dollar, and that's saying something. The nation's fiscal deficit tops 170 percent of gross domestic product, while the population is shrinking because women won't marry and bear children. That translates into a nation that will soon make South Florida look like a youth hostel.

Japan should be welcoming immigrants to nurse its elderly and wooing foreign investors to restructure its service economy, but it still can't muster the courage to see its culture altered by globalization.In fact, as a result of Abe's stumbles, Japan can no longer even be counted on to support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States or help revive the Doha round of global trade talks; the weak domestic economy forces politicians to pander to local concerns.

3. Japan has reconciled with its neighbors.
Not quite.

Just a decade ago, economists and political theorists assumed Japan would become the central hub of "the Asian Century." But that assumed that Japan and its neighbors could finally address the issues still festering from World War II.

Japan has failed to emerge as Asia's main power, in no small part because it has yet to transcend the "history question." Unlike his predecessor, Abe did not raise hackles in China or Korea by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the graves of several Japanese war criminals. But Japanese textbooks still do not adequately teach new generations such wartime horrors as the 1937 Nanking Massacre, the occupation of Korea or the forced recruitment of women to "service" Imperial soldiers.

Last Monday, the U.S. House passed a symbolic resolution urging the Japanese government to officially apologize for conscripting those "comfort women." The resolution barely merited notice in U.S. newspapers, but it dominated the front pages in Japan, where even some members of Abe's own party think Japan has already done too much apologizing. That doesn't bode well for a stable Asia.

4. Japan will help the United States solve the North Korean nuclear problem.
Abe's weakness makes this tough.The old game plan ran as follows: Washington and Pyongyang finally negotiate a deal that trades North Korea's nuclear weapons and technology for diplomatic recognition and a pledge not to wage war, then Tokyo writes the large check that helps isolated, bedraggled North Korea leap into the 21st century.But Abe and the Bush administration no longer see eye to eye here.

While Washington recognizes that the Iraq debacle heightens the need to cut a deal with Kim Jong Il, many Japanese leaders think Washington is eager to abandon Tokyo's quest for a fuller accounting of the civilians abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.

Pyongyang says it has returned all those it kidnapped and made a detailed accounting of its bizarre espionage campaign. Washington isn't clear what sort of "full accounting" Tokyo expects. But Abe first gained notoriety for his hard-line stance on the abduction question, and his electoral crash last weekend may convince him that he has to push harder, even to the point of incurring White House wrath.

5. Japan's government, like its corporate powerhouses, has a long-term strategy.
Guess again. Honda and Toyota actively think about how they'll survive the next century, but Japan itself hasn't figured out where it wants to go. Does it seek to endure as a quasi-socialist system that demands collectivism and obedience, or become more of a free-market society that rewards individual initiative? Does it want to remain reliant on Washington, or reemerge as a powerful independent actor? Does it want to open itself to the world, allowing immigration and investment, or be left to its splendid isolation?

Nearly half of the nation tells pollsters that it wants to shrink government and empower entrepreneurship; nearly half seeks to expand the welfare state. The rest don't know or don't care. "We've missed so many opportunities," a rising young leader of the LDP told me. "Right now, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is to simply survive."

Michael Zielenziger, a visiting scholar at Berkeley, is the author of "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its OwnLost Generation."