OSAKA — A half century after it was signed, the 1960 Japan-U.S. security treaty remains the foundation for bilateral cooperation, even as the world it was forged in has changed drastically.
Given the treaty's violent and controversial beginnings and contentious questions it raised that still plague bilateral relations, the 50 years of its history underscores the intense effort on both sides that have gone into maintaining and expanding it.
The world of 1960 was, politically, bipolar. The United States, Western Europe and their allies were locked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, its Eastern Bloc satellites and communist China. Fears of a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviets in particular were very real.