How do alliance partners treat the problem of credibility of extended deterrence when they understand seriousness of security threats differently? Do they continue negotiations on the measures to confirm credibility? If so, why? To study this problem, this paper examines US policies toward nuclear sharing when France challenged NATO and shook US-European relations since World War II.

France withdrew from the military organization of NATO when nuclear sharing and the stationing costs of the US/British troops on the European continent also troubled the alliance. The administration of Lyndon B. Johnson treated them as parts of a large problem. Washington also tried to solve these related problems through closer cooperation of the United States, the British, and the West Germans. This tripartitism (or trilateralism) was the basic framework through which the Johnson administration considered the ways to deal with individual problems in NATO.

Nuclear sharing was not only a part of tripartitism but also a means to promote it. At least by the end of 1964, the respective US governments regarded nuclear sharing as the major way to secure credibility of extended deterrence and, as a result, to hold the alliance together. This attitude changed, however, by the beginning of 1966 when the Johnson administration seriously studied the France-NATO problem and the troop stationing costs. By constructing a nuclear consultation mechanism based on US-UK-FRG cooperation, Washington expected to introduce tripartitism into NATO.

The problem of the US/British troop stationing costs grew tense in the middle of the same year. The Johnson administration tried to persuade Bonn to bear more costs of these costs, and this burden-sharing was expected to be a part of tripartitism. Washington tried to introduce a burden-sharing mechanism into NATO in face of the French challenge. President Johnson particularly considered a deal with Bonn over nuclear sharing and the troop costs problem, and this became clear in unofficial US-Soviet talks over the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Johnson insisted on sustaining the possibility of a common strategic nuclear force despite Soviet rejection of any common strategic nuclear force with FRG participation. Here Johnson expected to open this option of a common nuclear force to encourage Bonn’s acceptance of larger burden to support US/British forces.

This paper shows that a nuclear sharing measure played a role in inter-allies’ negotiations even though its prime purpose, securing credibility of US extended deterrence, grew less relevant. This perspective could enhance our understanding of nuclear issues under a less tense international situation.

This paper deals with the continuities and changes in France’s nuclear deterrent strategy by asking the following question: has the basic notion of French strategy switched to the so-called “deterrence by denial” as opposed to “deterrence by punishment”? Some raised such question, by observing that France no longer insists on her nuclear weapons’ retaliatory capabilities, but underlines its arms’ precision as if they were to be used in counter-force operations. Such critiques do not make sense to others, because all deterrence capabilities should be or should at least look operational in order to be effective. And in a world where many countries are increasing their military invulnerabilities, the search for operational capabilities is a condition sine qua non to strengthen the deterrence.

In order to answer the above question, this article first traces the French nuclear strategy thinking from 1945 on, with a focus on the strategic quarrels, in 1960s, between Pierre Gallois and Raymond Aron. Aron was against Gallois’ nuclear weapons’ “equalizer” concept which made French nuclear deterrence oriented not only against Russians but also against Americans. These quarrels were more political than strategic. In fact, the Vth republic under De Gaulle promoted the notion of national independence based on Gallois’ concept on nuclear deterrence and rejected Aron’s preferences on France-US cooperative relations. The article then analyses how France’s independent nuclear policy found its righteousness as US-USSR condominium emerged during the Cold war. France was against US coexistence with the Soviets which would undermine its Ally’s national interest. The US-USSR condominium was sacred through Arms Control measures. Even Aron criticized the condominium by calling the SALT I agreement a US-USSR “Alliance”.

The second part of the article is devoted to the revision of France’s nuclear deterrence strategy in the post-Cold war era. It was especially under Jacques Chirac’s administration that France’s nuclear doctrine went through an important revision. The article uses presidential discourses, parliamentary discussions as well as ministerial internal documents such as “Horizon stratégique” in order to analyze how and why France had to review its nuclear deterrence strategy. The focus here is put on the notion of “counter-deterrence”. This notion is based on France’s recognition that France can no longer be on the side to deter but will be deterred by an emerging country in the post Cold war era. And it happens that these emerging countries are non-democratic countries marking the decline of the Occident.

This article concludes that continuities in France’s nuclear deterrent strategy remains essential whereas the changes are only apparent. The changes are nonetheless important because they confirm that today’s nuclear world order as two-folds (or disconnected between): global order between Russians and Americans; regional order among emerging nuclear countries including nuclear-capable Iran.

This manuscript analyzes the nationalism seen in Japan’s Middle East diplomacy after the World War II, focusing on Takeyo Nakatani, the president of Japan Arab Society. Nakatani’s activities, thoughts about the Middle East, and his network with Japanese politicians will be investigated. Specifically, it examines Nakatani’s relationship with conservative politicians such as Nobusuke Kishi, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Takeo Miki etc. in his approach to the Arabian countries, as well as how Nakatani’s Pan-Asiatic notion left over from the pre-war period effected his ‘public diplomacy’ to the Middle East.

Concretely, the manuscript first examines Nakatani’s role in Japan’s involvement of the Egyptian Aswan High Dam construction project. Then, it inquires the process of establishing the Japan Arab Society in Tokyo and Nakatani’s ‘public diplomacy’ with Egypt and other Arab countries. Finally, Nakatani’s postwar Asianism is discussed in the example of the Middle East issues, especially the Palestinian Question.

Consequently, Nakatani was a Japanese nationalist, keenly advocating that the Japanese Imperial regime and so the institution of Tennō should be preserved in post-war time. Tennō, Japanese Emperor was a holy existence which took his roots from a two-thousand year history and was placed at the center of Japanese nation and people. His ideological background deeply related to the Greater Asianism, Pan-Asianism in other word, did not leave him in post-war period either.

Since Japan’s technological and economical superiority to other Asian countries, he consistently advocated that Japan was still the leader nation of all Asia even in post-war time. He believed that most of Arabian countries in the Middle East obtained their independence via Japanese defeat in the World War II, that Nakatani explained it as ‘Japanese sacrifice for Asian nations’ in the war.

‘Asia’, which was Tōyō in Nakatani’s word, was centered on Japan and Japanese Emperor was the core of this concept. Nakatani’s way of thinking is none other than ‘the post-war Asianism’. He thought that Japan’s diplomacy towards the Middle East as a demilitarized country should be based on peaceful system, and the economic and technical aspects should be mainstream of the politics to countries in the region.

Briefly, Nakatani as a non-state actor played crucial roles in Japan’s Middle East diplomacy in post-war period. And Asianism, nationalist ideology in Japan before and during the war was still effective in his actions, remarks on the Middle East issues and even network in the relations with both Japanese politicians and leaders of Arab countries.

Since the liberalization of capital accounts, huge international financial crises have resulted repeatedly and caused serious damage. This experience clearly demonstrates that the international lender of last resort is essential for the stable development of the global economy.

Intriguingly, the U.S. that bore the responsibility of the international lender of last resort after World War II ceased bilateral balance of payment (BOP) support recently and commenced its delegation to the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Prior to the second half of the 1990s, the U.S. gave huge amounts of bilateral BOP support to economically or politically important countries because it is easier to reflect U.S. national interests in bilateral support than multilateral ones. However, since the second half of the 1990s, the U.S. has provided limited bilateral support however important a crisis country is, and increased contribution to the IMF instead. Why has the U.S. ceased to provide support by itself and delegated the role of the international lender of last resort to the IMF?

Previous studies explained the U.S. utilization of the IMF mainly by two international factors: change in the nature of BOP support from economic stabilization to structural adjustment and a decline in the U.S. financial capacity. However, these international factors dissipated post the second half of the 1990s with no precise explanations for the U.S. delegation to the IMF during that period.

Therefore, this paper focuses on the U.S. domestic decision-making process that previous studies almost ignored and presents a hypothesis that the Congress has delegated the BOP support to the IMF for the purpose of blame avoidance. That is, while integration of the U.S. economy into the global financial system increased the necessity of BOP support for the American political elites, enlarging inequality also increased discontent in the U.S. voters with the support. Consequently, members of Congress that faced a serious dilemma have delegated the support to the IMF for reconciliation between implementation of necessary BOP support and maintenance of political support from voters. This paper verifies that hypothesis both by statistical analysis and by supplementary case analysis.

This paper has three main contributions to the existing literature. First, it demonstrates that the IMF has a politically important function to the U.S. that enables implementation of large BOP support through domestic blame avoidance. Second, it confirms the significant role and preferences of the Congress in deciding the means of the U.S. BOP support. Third, it hints at the general theory of international institutions that multilateral organizations can be utilized for blame avoidance because they can lower the visibility of operations controversial in domestic politics.

This article aims to examine the process by which the project of codifying international law was initiated in the League of Nations in the 1920s, particularly focusing on the contribution made by an American international lawyer, Manley O. Hudson.

The codification efforts for international law under the aegis of the League of Nations, including the Hague Codification Conference in 1930, are considered to be crucial in the history of international law. During this period, not only did the number of multilateral treaties increase dramatically, but also non-Western states began to participate in treaty negotiations through the forum of the League, and the international law-making process, which had previously been dominated by the Western powers, was transformed into a more universal one.

Nevertheless, the development of international law was not necessarily promised by the establishment of the League Covenant. In the first place, the drafters of the Covenant had little interest in the enhancement of international law in general. This is evidenced by the fact that the Covenant contained only one sentence in the preamble that referred to international law. What is more, at the first Assembly of the League in 1920, a resolution proposing to embark on the project of codification was rejected.

How did the League then change its course and decided to undertake the project for assembling the Hague Conference? The League’s efforts for codification were in fact not solely made for the purpose of development of international law. With the United States showing a keen interest in hosting a codification conference at that time, some League officials were concerned that the role as the bearer of the global legal order would shift from Geneva to Washington. Hudson, who was a temporary member of the Secretariat of the League, strongly shared this concern; he submitted a memorandum to the Secretary-General, Sir Eric Drummond, suggesting the League demonstrate its initiative in codification in order to preserve the League’s presence in the making of global law. With the approval of Drummond, Hudson co-drafted a resolution on the project of codification of international law which was adopted at the Fifth Session of the League’s Assembly in 1924.

Hudson’s proposal became the catalyst for the League to quickly take up the initiative on the codification of international law; it paved the way for the holding of the first codification conference in The Hague. For the League, the codification was one of the means for maintaining its leadership of world order building in relation to the United States.

Since the September 11 attacks, the United States has led the global war on terrorism, which primarily targeted terrorists motivated by radical Islam, also known as Global Jihadists. This international military campaign caused many serious problems, such as heavy civilian casualties by the U.S.-led military actions, the expansion of Jihadist militant groups by the power vacuum in Iraq, and the overwhelming refugee influx in Europe. Many experts on international law or human rights have criticized preventive attacks, torture, and drone strikes targeting those suspected of being involved in terrorism activities as illegitimate.

Critical terrorism studies have regarded the methodological vulnerability of mainstream terrorism studies as one of the causes of this problematic counterterrorism. This article reflects on the omissions of conceptual analyses in terrorism studies as an American social science by focusing on fanaticism, which is one of the key concepts in the New Terrorism theory. The assertion is that the concept of fanaticism has distorted the recognition of the Global Jihad in academic and political contexts. Thus, this article deconstructs the binary system of reason/fanaticism, exposing the arbitrariness of the system by hidden political power.

The first section describes the process of constructing binary systems in terrorism studies: secular/religious motives and reason/fanaticism. This process is revealed by shedding light on significant works by Bruce Hoffman and Walter Laqueur. Hoffman has claimed the possibility of unprecedented attacks by religious terrorists because of the radical difference between secular motives and religious ones. He concluded that religion inspires terrorists to more destructive violence, for example, the use of weapons of mass destruction. Laqueur developed the binary system of secular/religious motives, using the term fanaticism, which means a mental illness caused by a loss of reason. He constructed the structure of reason/fanaticism in the core of his New Terrorism theory.

However, this structure is invalid because our minds cannot be transcendentally divided between reason and fanaticism. The second section of the article thus points out that the structure’s boundary has been drawn arbitrarily from the perspective of the Enlightenment and Western modernization. By reviewing the Foucault/Derrida debate about madness, the author clarifies that our minds are the mixture of truth and falsehood. This means that terrorists who seem to be absolute fanatics follow truth to some extent. As long as scholars persist in using this term, terrorism studies will naturalize the distorted understanding of Global Jihad.

Finally, the article presents some concepts in psychoanalysis or social psychology as an alternative approach to the New Terrorism theory. These studies have explained our irrational behaviors by focusing on our minds’ unconsciousness. We should reflect on the conceptual problems of existing studies from a critical perspective, paying attention to micro approaches more positively for the development of multidisciplinary terrorism studies.