SPECTERS OF CHANGE HAUNT AMERICA-JAPAN RELATIONS

New technologies are driving a new perception of ourselves and the wor ld we live in that is relevant to strategic and security thinking in a global economy. A ''creative universe'' has displaced science's old m echanistic worldview with a consequent need in understanding the behav ior of modern, advanced states to recognize that, exorcised of the Com munist specter, world order is haunted by the specters of evolutionary change: convergence, complexity, and culture. States need to be under stood both as powers and cultures in a world that tends to evolve towa rds greater organization, differentiation, and interdependence, and as the key to survival and prosperity grows more knowledge and skill bas ed. In such a world, the interaction of modern states with each other must be seen more in terms of the imagery and non-linear dynamics of e cology than of autonomous, atom-like entities colliding and power-bala ncing in a zero-sum quest for hegemony. Self-help in a creative univer se is more a question of mutual-regarding, positive-sum game, in which survival is achieved by concensus building, and finding ways of coevo lving with competitors, since cooperation is structurally driven by gr owing complexity. Nor is a creative universe converging on Western way s, but predisposed towards cultural heterogeneity. Non-kinship-based ' 'reciprocal cooperation'' emerges spontaneously in the struggle for su rvival amid growing complexity. In such a world, state autarky is an i mpossible dream; hegemony, an ever more elusive, improbable goal; and modern states find that their security concerns have more and more in common. Few states are more affected by the challenges of evolutionary change in our times than America and Japan. As the two largest, most advanced economies, their highly competitive, leading-edge, wealth-cre ating corporations increasingly feel compelled to collaborate in strat egic alliances to ensure their survival. Yet their political and secur ity practitioners, buttressed by different ideological orientations an d cultural traditions, largely remain stuck in the old realist zero-su m mindset that sees one country's gain as the other's loss, even thoug h, in a ''creative universe,'' the return of nineteenth-century Europe an-style multipolarity and hegemony is unlikely. Two more probable fut ures are either economically oriented spheres of influence centered la rgely on Europe, the Americas, and East Asia, or a more ''polycentric, '' or ''polyarchic'' configuration of power relations reflecting the d iffusion of power and the imperatives of cooperation as well as the po tential for conflict. Growing complexity and the ''incompleteness'' of even the most powerful states ensures that no state can choose its ow n best strategy, or attain its best outcome, independent of the choice s of other states. In short, the revitalization of the US-Japan allian ce needs to acknowledge the implications of the forces of convergence, complexity, and culture, and proceed hand in hand with a sustained, h igh-level dialogue on Northeast Asian security between China, Japan, R ussia, and America, and, where appropriate, the Koreas, and the Republ ic of Mongolia. The need for high-level engagement between America, Ja pan and China, in particular, could largely determine whether China an d Japan can be fully integrated peacefully as powers and cultures in a future world order.