Research

Alliance Politics, Coercive Diplomacy, Japanese Foreign Policy

My academic research has focused extensively on alliance politics in Asia, including analyses of the U.S.-Japan alliance, the U.S.-ROK alliance, U.S. approach to alliance dilemmas, and the U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateral defense cooperation.

Book Project

United by Respect: Making U.S. Alliances Resilient in the Era of Strategic Uncertainty

How can the United States strengthen its alliances and enhance cohesion with its allies in the face of countervailing pressures from China? United by Respect advances the conventional “shared threats” explanation for states’ defense cooperation and argues that in the era of peacetime contestation and strategic uncertainty, the balance of respect demonstrated by the United States and China toward U.S. allies’ decision-making processes shapes their policy choices by decisively shifting domestic coalitions. It finds that, counterintuitively, the ability to appear independent of U.S. pressure makes it easier for U.S. allies to promote pro-alliance decisions at home and make alliances more resilient in the long term. With newly collected archival and interview evidence, the book illuminates the rich history of U.S. alliance management in Asia since the 1950s and offers theoretically and historically grounded policy implications for how to navigate intensifying U.S.-China competition.

Articles

• “Japan’s Revolutionary Military Change: Explaining Why It Happened Under Kishida” (With Ryo Sahashi), Pacific Affairs, Volume 97, No. 3 (September 2024): 519-540.
• “Adhering, Distancing, or Waffling? Understanding a New Dilemma in the U.S.-Japan Alliance,” Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs, Vol. 2 (Spring/Summer 2015): 67-97.
• “外圧が育む日韓安全保障協力ー2012年日米韓合同軍事演習実現の要因分析 [The Japan-Republic of Korea Security Cooperation Nurtured by External Pressures],” Seijigaku Kenkyu, Vol. 49 (May 2013): 135-171.

Working Papers

• “History and Politics of the Taiwan Clause: U.S.-China Competition over Japan and its Link to Taiwan’s Defense” (Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Cold War Studies)
• “Infeasibility of Dual Deterrence in Grey Zone Conflicts: Assessing the East China Sea, 2008-2014” (Under review)
• “Reassessing the Impact of the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: U.S.-Japan Alliance 1995-1996” (Work-in-progress)