1. For most of the period since the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, relations between Japan and the US were overwhelmingly characterized by bilateralism. Each country extended to the other special privileges that they did not extend to other countries. Moreover, the key economic, political, and security relationship between the two nations were primarily dyadic links between the two governments; little influances was allowed to non-governmental actors or other nations.
2. Starting in the mid-to late 1980s, however, and accelerating since then, these once unambiguously bilateral ties have become far more complex and consequently, ambiguous. Three forces account for the bulk of these changes :
(1) alterations in geopolitics,
(2) the enhanced role of private capital flows, and
(3) the rise in number and importance of multilateral organizations.
Bilateralism has by no means vanished completely, nor has it been replaced by some equally easy-to-label alternative. Nonetheless, relations between Japan and the US now manifest a panoply of new traits, directions and managerial complexity that have unquestionably reshaped the relationship.
3. Even where bilateral management continues to prevail – and we find this more in the security than in the economic or financial realms-elites from both countries must face more complicated choices and implications than their predecessors faced.
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