AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

As part of its unprecedented military modernization campaign, China’s development of advanced anti-access capabilities is driving a competition between offensive and defensive missile capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the U.S. is increasingly turning towards its allies, emphasizing the need for strong cooperative relationships and burden sharing in the development of defense architectures against the threat of missile attacks on itself, its deployed troops, and its friends and allies abroad. Japan is commonly considered as the U.S.’ most valuable missile defense partner, and in this context, this thesis considers its impact on U.S. BMD capabilities vis-à-vis Chinese ballistic missile threats. To this end, the case of U.S.-Japanese BMD cooperation is considered through the lenses of the capability aggregation model of alliances, which posits that the primary function of an alliance is to aggregate military capability against threats common to the allies. In disclosing evidence predominantly in support of the capability aggregation proposition, this analysis finds that Japan significantly strengthens U.S. BMD capabilities vis-à-vis Chinese ballistic missiles. In so finding, this study concludes that the primacist notion of U.S. military power as uncontestable is ripe for revision.