ABSTRACT
How will multipolarity and expanding multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific affect the Japan-US alliance? In this chapter, we explore several possible futures for the Japan-US relationship: continuation, evolution, and dissolution. We argue that the bare continuation of the alliance is unlikely given the massive changes taking place at the international level of analysis. Some sort of rebalancing would seem to be inevitable. Evolution is the most likely outcome, especially given that the alliance has been steadily strengthening and growing in geographic scope for more than 70 years. However, we argue that the dissolution of the Japan-US alliance should not be regarded as altogether unthinkable. The emergence of the Indo-Pacific megaregion as an organizing idea in world politics and the possibility of major domestic-level shifts in Japan and the United States are reasons to imagine that even the Japan-US alliance might not last forever.
