Abandonment would involve Japan’s interests being ignored by its partner amid a deal with one of its enemies; entrapment would mean being forced to fight alongside the United States in a war chosen by the Americans but not by the Japanese.
These worries about extreme outcomes have tended to alternate, depending on the political mood in Washington, DC, at the time. Yet currently, Japan finds itself worrying about both abandonment and entrapment simultaneously. This may be as good a sign as any that the Trump administration represents a sharp break with the postwar past.
