Explaining Germany's and Japan's reticence to assume regional security and political leadership roles befitting their economic status in the post-Cold War era

The demise of the Cold War posed new challenges to the international system. Central to these challenges is the extent of German and Japanese security commitments within their regions. It is important to know whether two of the world's acknowledged economic powers will play significant stabilizing role, and if they choose not to, what are the reasons for it and what can be done to convince them that their military might and political leadership are needed. The primary undertaking of this research is to explain post-Cold War German and Japanese reticence to assume the roles expected of them. In order to undertake this task, various tools of the field of Foreign policy analysis are considered. A review of the predictive or explicative abilities of a number of Cold War based models reveals, however, their inadequacy for explaining German and Japanese post-Cold War behavior. The chief deficiency of both those models based on the liberal and realist schools is that they cannot account for the complexity of German and Japanese foreign and security policy since the end of the Cold War. It is found that Maria Papadakis and Harvey Starr's environmental model overcomes many of these deficiencies. The environmental model is then applied to case studies, a procedure which allows one to better understand the process by which policy was made for both Japan and Germany in the timeframe considered. In the final chapters it is argued that Japanese and German foreign and security policy will remain contradictory and that both will practice a 'have-it-all-ways' policy. It is observed that if the U.S. continues to insist that its two richest allies bear more of the burdens of security, it must attempt to understand their need to follow a 'have-it-all-ways' policy as well as work toward helping them make sense of their contradictory and complex post-Cold War world environments. Only through understanding the environment in which policy is made will the U.S. ultimately help Germany and Japan assume political and military leadership roles that befit their economic roles.