When Chinese coast-guard vessels recently intensified their gray-zone operations against Japanese aircraft in the East China Sea, the silence from Washington was deafening. When Beijing launched a coordinated disinformation campaign portraying Japan as a militaristic threat following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi¡¯s Nov. 7 remarks about potential Japanese involvement in a Taiwan contingency, America¡¯s response was measured at best. And when China deployed economic coercion against Japan, the Trump administration¡¯s focus remained squarely on negotiating its own trade arrangements with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
For Tokyo and other middle powers from Canberra to Ottawa, these episodes illuminate an uncomfortable truth, that the U.S. is recalibrating its approach to the world in ways that may leave traditional allies more exposed than at any point since 1945.
The Trump administration¡¯s (NSS), released last week, offers crucial insights into this shift. Unlike previous iterations that championed a ¡°rules-based international order¡± or positioned the U.S. as the indispensable guarantor of global stability, this document explicitly embraces what it calls ¡°flexible realism.¡± It acknowledges that ¡°the unipolar moment of American predominance is over¡± and prioritizes burden-sharing, regional partnerships and, most tellingly, acceptance that ¡°the world¡¯s fundamental political unit is and will remain the nation-state¡± with each nation putting ¡°their interests first.¡±
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