Trade Conflicts and the Common Defense: The United States and Japan
For the United States, providing for the common defense has always had a specific and distinctly American meaning. With few exceptions American policy makers have had a Manichean view of the world, a perspective that reflects the profound and pervasive influence of Lockean liberalism on foreign policy.' Other countries have been classified as either good or evil, as friends or enemies. The United States has found it difficult to identify common interests with enemies or irreconcilable conflicts with friends. In dealing with enemies American policy makers have been very alert to any alteration in the relative distribution of power and unconcerned with absolute gains. In contrast, in dealing with friends American policy makers have been almost exclusively concerned with absolute gains and have been insensitive to relative shifts in power capabilities. The precept that a country has permanent interests but not permanent friends is profoundly antithetical to the American perspective. U.S. policy makers have paid little attention to the possibility that a loss of power vis-a-vis friends could present serious and unforeseen difficulties, either because friends can become enemies or because managing the international system may be more difficult in a world in which power is more evenly distributed. Nowhere has this obliviousness to the potential importance of relative gains