While the rhetoric of U.S. policy toward Asia increasingly highlights a new "strategic partnership" with China and an "alliance" with Russia, U.S. strategy for the Asia-Pacific region in the next century will only be as credible as the alliance the United States sustains with Japan. Despite close bilateral ties, Washington remains unsure how Tokyo might react to a China-Taiwan conflict, an American confrontation with Iran, or a further deepening of the Asian financial crisis. This study group worked with a similar Tokyo-based group to review case studies that focus on contemporary aspects of Japanese commercial, strategic, cooperative, and financial diplomacy, including: Japan’s role in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, Japan’s Eurasian diplomacy, the emerging dynamics of Sino-Japanese security relations, and Japan’s policy toward the Korean peninsula. Each case study assessed factors such as the domestic determinants of Japanese policy, the role of the United States in Japanese policy making, the points of bilateral divergence, and the lessons for the United States and Japan in terms of policy objectives and coordination. The study group culminated in a book by Michael Green analyzing Japanese foreign policy and its impact on U.S. interests in Asia.