The Broader Context: How Australia-Japan Relations 'Fit' Into Regional and Global Security Dynamics

More than a decade has passed since the events of 11 September 2001 transformed the meaning of ‘international security’. Yet the United States’ longstanding bilateral alliances with Australia and Japan remain viable. To remain so, however, they must be adaptable. The intensification of strategic cooperation between Australia and Japan is a key to such adaptation. This chapter analyses how Australia-Japan bilateral security cooperation has been institutionalised through joint diplomatic initiatives and operational ventures since the Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation (JDSC) of 2007. The JDSC initiated the intensification of more systematic and formal cooperation between Canberra and Tokyo across a wide spectrum of traditional and non-traditional security components. Selected cases test the chapter’s argument that sufficient Australian-Japanese policy cohesion exists to preclude alliance fragmentation.