Foreign policy focuses on change. New leaders, new technologies, new conditions -- all create the need for new policies. Experts are always planning for contingencies -- the crisis to come -- and when they hit it's usually because governments failed to recognize the new realities that created them.

That's why there's concern on both sides of the Pacific about the Japan-U.S. relationship. A growing number of experts fear that the security alliance has not kept pace with changes in Japan, the United States and throughout Asia. The two countries agreed to the updated defense guidelines, but that is merely a starting point for alliance modernization.

Strains are already visible. Japan is trying to cut its host-nation support. The U.S. is pushing Tokyo to prepare to assume a higher profile in regional security. Tokyo wants more say in decision making. All the while, the Okinawa base issue simmers. Last summer, the situation had become sufficiently hot for local commanders to impose a curfew on their soldiers.