Michael H. Armacost. Friends or Rivals? The Insider's Account of U. S.-Japan Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), xiv + 271 pp.; ISBN 0-231-10488-X (cloth).

Michael Armacost’s informative and very readable account of his four years as United States Ambassador to Japan bears a title posing a false choice: are the Japanese our “friends” or are they our “rivals”? The question reflects what Armacost perceives to be growing pressure on the United States, in the years after the end of the cold war, to define more clearly where Japan stands in our Manichean view of the world. American diplomacy, reflecting American popular sentiment, has long tended to identify countries as either friend or foe. Now that the cold war is over and the Soviets are no longer able to serve as our Evil Empire, there has been a growing demand for a new target. During the years that Ambassador Armacost served in Japan, from 1989 to 1993, Japan seemed to be the leading candidate to accede to this role.