End of an era: Japan-U.S. policy expert Nye dead at 88

Asahi Shimbun

08-05-2025

Joseph Nye, an international political scientist who was deeply involved in U.S. policy toward Japan, died on May 6. He was 88.
Harvard University, where Nye was a distinguished service professor emeritus, announced his passing.
Nye served as assistant secretary of defense for U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration from 1994 to 1995, leading the post-Cold War redefinement of the Japan-U.S. security treaty.
After the end of the Cold War, Japan and the United States were confronted with the fundamental question of the purpose of an alliance based on the security treaty.
Against this backdrop, he compiled the East Asia Strategic Report in 1995. It is also known by its moniker of the "Nye Report."
In it, he emphasized the maintaining of 100,000 U.S. troops in East Asia, taking into account U.S. economic interests.
Nye also stressed the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance in upholding the stability of the Asian region, saying that there is no bilateral relationship more important for the United States than its relationship with Japan.
This led Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Clinton to confirm the Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security. The 1996 agreement ensured that Japan-U.S. cooperation would remain the foundation of peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region into the 21st century.
Nye was also involved in the establishment of the Japan-U.S. Special Action Committee on Okinawa (SACO), which discussed the consolidation and downsizing of U.S. military bases. The talks were in response to three U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa sexually assaulting a schoolgirl in 1995.
Even after leaving office, Nye had called for strengthening the U.S.-Japan alliance.
In 2000, he and Richard Armitage, who later served as President George W. Bush's deputy secretary of state, released the Armitage-Nye Report that served as a U.S. policy document about Japan.
The report noted that Japan's prohibition on exercising the right of collective self-defense had been a constraint in advancing the partnership between the two nations.
This was the origin of the subsequent strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance and Japan's security policy.
Up until last year, a total of six editions of the report has been published.
Armitage died on April 13 at the age of 79.
Some believe that the loss of two leading figures in the Japan-U.S. intellectual community symbolizes the end of an era in the Japan-U.S. relationship.
Nobumasa Akiyama, professor of international politics at Hitotsubashi University, said the trajectory of deepening of the Japan-U.S. alliance cannot be described without noting Nye's contributions.
'With his warm personality, Nye's career also served as a model for many scholars of international politics who aspire to be successful in both the academic and policy communities,' Akiyama said. 'As Japan-U.S. relations are in a state of flux under the Trump administration, the passing of Nye, following Armitage, seems to suggest, albeit coincidentally, a new era in the Japan-U.S. alliance.'
(This article was compiled from reports written by correspondents Daisuke Nakai and Ryo Kiyomiya.)