The Japanese public is largely opposed to dispatching the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to the Strait of Hormuz, but framing the issue in terms of Japan’s energy dependence substantially raises support for military involvement in Iran. By contrast, arguments invoking the Japan-U.S. alliance and legal legitimacy for military action have no such effect. These are the findings from a vignette experiment fielded by the Stanford Japan Barometer (SJB) in March, one month after Japan’s February 2026 general election.

The results also reveal that mentioning energy dependence moves opinion in favor of military deployment even among respondents who are told that diplomacy, not deployment, is the right response, suggesting that energy-dependence messaging changes minds regardless of policy recommendation. Alliance- and legal-focused messaging, by contrast, have no measurable effect.

SJB is a large-scale, multi-wave public opinion survey on political, economic, and social issues in Japan. A project of the Japan Program at Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), SJB is led by Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the director of APARC and the Japan Program, and political scientist Charles Crabtree. The vignette experiment on the Japanese public's attitude toward military deployment in Iran was part of the final, three-wave panel survey SJB fielded around Japan’s February 2026 snap election, which focused on identifying public attitudes toward immigration.

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A Public Wary of War

The SJB experiment finds that, without any contextual framing, Japanese respondents lean against JSDF dispatch to the Strait of Hormuz, averaging a score of 2.00 on a four-point scale, where 1 represents "strongly oppose" and 4 represents "strongly support." 

This baseline skepticism reflects the Japanese public’s reluctance to deploy military forces abroad, rooted in Article 9 of the postwar constitution, and a broader wariness of entanglement in the Iran conflict. But the crisis in the Middle East has fueled deep economic fears in Japan, which relies on the region for over 90% of its crude oil imports, making it highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for energy security.

The SJB team wanted to know: Could this energy security argument shift the public’s baseline opposition to military deployment, and if so, how, compared with other justifications?

The Energy Argument Works Both Directions

The experiment randomly assigned respondents to read one of several short policy statements before answering whether they supported JSDF dispatch to the Strait of Hormuz. Some arguments favored deployment; others opposed it. Each invoked a different rationale: energy security, the Japan-U.S. alliance, and constitutional legitimacy.

The most striking change in attitude came from the energy-dependence framing.

Respondents who read a pro-dispatch energy argument – emphasizing that a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would devastate Japan's economy and living standards, making military involvement necessary – showed a statistically significant increase in support for JSDF deployment, rising approximately 0.12 points above the control group.

Notably, respondents who read a con-dispatch energy argument – which presented the same energy-dependence facts but concluded that Japan should pursue diplomacy through its own channels with Iran rather than deploy forces – showed an even larger increase in support, rising approximately 0.28 points above the control group.

That is, simply mentioning Japan's vulnerability to an oil supply disruption raised support for JSDF involvement, even when the message explicitly argued against military action. “This pattern suggests that the energy-dependence information itself, rather than the normative conclusion drawn from it, is what moves opinion,” the researchers write on the SJB website.

Alliance and Legal Arguments Fall Flat

In contrast, two other commonly invoked arguments – obligations related to the Japan-U.S. alliance and constitutional authority – had virtually no effect on the Japanese public’s support of JSDF deployment.

The alliance framing emphasized that contributing to U.S. operations in the Strait of Hormuz is essential, given the centrality of the U.S.-Japan security partnership to Japan's defense. A counter-argument noted that many international observers view U.S. strikes on Iran as violations of international law and that most European allies are declining to participate.

Neither version significantly moved opinion on JSDF dispatch.

Similarly, arguments about whether the conflict legally qualifies for the exercise of collective self-defense – with one version arguing that new legislation could authorize dispatch and another arguing that no existing legal basis permits it – produced near-zero effects.

These null results are particularly striking given how frequently alliance obligations and constitutional legitimacy dominate elite debates over JSDF deployment in Japan. The data suggest that, at least in this scenario, these arguments resonate far more in policy circles than with the general public.

The findings carry important lessons for Japanese policymakers, who are walking a tightrope between the United States and Iran: “Concrete economic stakes are more resonant than foreign-policy abstractions,” note the SJB researchers. Still, the Japanese public’s default position is opposition to JSDF deployment in Iran. “The framing experiments shift opinion at the margins, but do not reverse the underlying skepticism toward JSDF dispatch.”

The following reflection is a guest post written by Yuto Kimura, an alum of the Spring 2021 Stanford e-Japan Program. Earlier this month he graduated from Waseda University’s School of Political Science and Economics.

This is the message I wish to share with high school students considering applying to Stanford e-Japan (or other SPICE programs). As a former participant about to graduate from Waseda University this spring, I can confidently say that the lessons and skills I gained through the program remain invaluable to me, even after five years.

The initial reason I applied for the program was to deepen my understanding of U.S.–Japan relations and U.S. society. Although I was born in the United States, I moved away when I was only a year old and have had little opportunity to engage with U.S. culture since then. While I certainly accomplished that mission through Stanford e-Japan, I came away with so much more. Here are my two biggest takeaways.

The first takeaway is purely skill-based. Throughout the program, we were required to digest a significant amount of reading material to prepare for every class. I vividly remember spending my one-hour train commute focused entirely on these readings. This routine lasted about six months and proved to be an incredible asset during my university studies.

Even at Japanese universities, reference materials are often provided in English; thanks to this program, I was already well-trained to handle them. Beyond reading, the program also honed my ability to write academic papers and deliver presentations. These skills directly contributed to my high grades in university, giving me a head start in areas many of my peers hadn’t encountered until after high school. By dedicating yourself to this program, you are able to sharpen skills that will serve you throughout your future career—a fact that has proven true in countless situations over the last four years.

The second takeaway involves my personal values and perspectives. The most impactful session in the program for me was the one on Japanese American Internment. In Japanese classrooms, we typically learn about the Pacific War through a specific lens—from the Pearl Harbor attack to the invasion of Southeast Asia to the two atomic bombings. However, there is always a flip side to every story.

The program challenged me to look at the war from a U.S. perspective, exploring topics like the rationale behind the atomic bombings through U.S. textbooks, and the internment of Japanese Americans by hearing from some storytellers. You may not necessarily agree with every viewpoint, but acknowledging the existence of differing ones, I believe, is essential to living as a global citizen.

This mindset has stayed with me since then. During my recent solo trip to Malaysian Borneo—an area formerly occupied by Japanese forces—I never missed the opportunity to visit war heritage sites, museums, and Japanese cemeteries in every city. I wanted to reflect on my learning from the program and understand the history through the eyes of the locals.

Lastly, as a proud Waseda alumnus, I also want to highlight the strong, decades-long connection between Waseda and Stanford. From a century-long baseball tradition to Waseda professors of Stanford alumni to countless e-Japan alumni studying here, the bond is deep. If you are considering Japanese universities, I highly recommend Waseda for its rich Waseda–Stanford connections.

Stanford e-Japan is one of several online courses for high school students offered by SPICE, including the China Scholars Program, the Reischauer Scholars Program, the Sejong Korea Scholars Program, Stanford e-Entrepreneurship U.S., Stanford e-China, Stanford e-Entrepreneurship Japan, as well as numerous local student programs in Japan. For more information about Stanford e-Japan, please visit stanfordejapan.org.

To stay informed of news about Stanford e-Japan and SPICE’s other programs, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

Indo-Pacific nations are racing to adapt to a world in which the United States has become fundamentally unpredictable. The 2026 Oksenberg Conference, hosted by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), gathered scholars and foreign service veterans at Stanford University to assess how regional stakeholders are confronting what Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney had famously named "a rupture, not a transition" in the post-World War II order. The conference took place as Carney was in the midst of an Indo-Pacific trip, visiting Australia, India, and Japan to forge "middle power" trade alliances, and as the United States joined Israel in a war against Iran.

“For Indo-Pacific countries, the question is no longer just how to balance between Washington and Beijing,” said APARC Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui in his welcome remarks, “but how to understand and respond to the emergence of a multipolar world in which the United States is less predictable, less committed to multilateral frameworks, less invested in alliance maintenance, and more willing to pursue narrowly defined national interests at the expense of broader international stability.”

The panelists agreed that, while the U.S. retreat from the eight-decade-old international order it had previously championed creates multiple opportunities for China, Beijing is not naturally filling the vacuum, and regional powers are not pivoting toward it but instead scrambling to diversify security and economic partnerships. The consensus is that the international system is moving toward multipolarity and the world toward an increasingly unstable period, and no one knows yet what will replace the disintegrating post-WWII order.

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China Sees Opportunity in Multipolarity

To commemorate the legacy of the late Michel Oksenberg, a renowned scholar of contemporary China and a pioneer of U.S.-Asia engagement, the Oksenberg Conference, an annual tradition sponsored by APARC and led by the center’s China Program, gathers individuals who have advanced U.S.-Asia dialogue to examine pressing issues affecting China, U.S.-China relations, and broader U.S. Asia policy.

At this year’s convening, the first panel, moderated by Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, focused on how China perceives, interprets, and responds to the new vulnerabilities and opportunities in the international system.

Speaking via video link from Beijing, Da Wei, a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University and the director of its Center for International Security and Strategy, said China views the current moment as neither ideal nor catastrophic but better than recent alternatives.

China has experienced three scenarios, Da explained. First, from the 1990s through the Obama era, China benefited greatly from the U.S.-led liberal order, but was increasingly criticized by the West. Second, during Trump's first term and the Biden administration, while facing mounting pressure of decoupling in a bipolar system, China was forced into a camp with Russia, which Da characterized as Beijing’s “worst scenario.” Now, under Trump's second term, the shift toward multipolarity has redirected pressure away from China and onto multilateral institutions and U.S. allies – "the least bad option" from Beijing’s perspective.

Da argued that “culturally, China has a very low appetite for global governance or leadership.” China sees itself primarily as a regional power, he said. Rather than filling the vacuum left by the U.S. withdrawal from international institutions, "we want to be powerful and respected in the region. I don't think China has a very big appetite for leadership in faraway regions, except for economic interests." He contrasted this “Emperor's perspective,” demonstrated by China’s foreign policy, with the U.S. “boss perspective.”

Susan Shirk, a research professor at the University of California, San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center, noted that China's response to Trump's trade war has been robust, muscular, but disciplined. "The Xi Jinping administration was operating in a more disciplined manner than it had previously," she said, contrasting this approach with what she called Xi's "rash reactions” to Japan and failure to engage Taiwan diplomatically.

Shirk stated that, while Trump's alienation of U.S. allies through extreme tariffs and military interventions has created clear opportunities for China to expand its influence and further divide Washington from Europe and Asian partners, Beijing has only modestly exploited these openings.

She emphasized that Xi's support for Russia in its war against Ukraine represents "self-defeating overreach" that undermines China's ability to improve relations with Europe. "Russia represents an existential threat to Europe," she said. "Xi Jinping really doesn't grasp how important this is."

Mark Lambert, a recently retired U.S. State Department official who served as China coordinator and deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, contrasted the Biden administration's China strategy with the current U.S. policy vacuum.

The Biden approach, he explained, was rooted in U.S. relations with five Asian treaty allies plus NATO and positioned China as the only country with the means and capabilities to reshape the post-World War II order. It required "all hands on deck" to address this challenge through what U.S. officials called a "lattice work of relations": the Quad involving India, AUKUS with Australia, the Camp David summit between South Korea and Japan, and strengthened linkages between NATO allies and East Asian partners. China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine unified Europeans in understanding the China challenge in ways never seen before. The administration also successfully reframed Taiwan's importance, emphasizing that Taiwan's chip dominance was vital to global prosperity.

Today, Lambert argued, the United States either has no China strategy or “one so classified that neither our allies nor our practitioners know what it is.” On security, trade, technology, and international cooperation, the United States has given China “fantastic opportunities,” he noted.

Allies’ Transactional Coping Strategies

The second panel, moderated by Laura Stone, a retired U.S. ambassador and APARC's inaugural China Policy Fellow, turned to other regional states – South Korea, Japan, Russia, and India – and how they read the geopolitical landscape and devise strategies to shape the regional order.

Victor Cha, the D.S. Song-KF Chair and professor of government at Georgetown University and president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), noted that "every U.S. ally around the world is looking at a Plan B," pointing out that, in the first year of the second Trump administration, allies were not acting on these plans, but that "we’re now at a threshold where many of them are executing their Plan B's."

Cha identified seven types of behavior that U.S. partners have adopted when dealing with the Trump administration. These are drawn from a recent CSIS project on ally and partner responses to the paradigm shift in U.S. foreign policy. First is prioritizing face-to-face meetings with Trump himself, "because there's a recognition that the policy process in the United States is broken,” Cha said, “and that policy making is not being informed, as it traditionally has been, by foreign policy professionals. It's all happening at the leader level."

Other strategies include minimizing risk to avoid what Cha called "the Zelensky moment" – the public humiliation Ukraine's president suffered in the Oval Office in February 2025 – and preparing "trophy deliverables," such as South Korea's promise to buy Boeing airplanes and Japan's commitment to purchase Ford trucks.

“The America First policies have effectively put the custodial burden of maintaining the alliance on the partner,” Cha said. “Whether it's Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, or whoever it might be, the burden traditionally has been on the United States, but now it's on the partner. They're the ones who have to try to maintain this relationship. So it's about minimizing risk.” 

South Korea's recent summit with Trump yielded a $350 billion investment package, yet soon after, U.S. immigration authorities raided a Hyundai facility, and Trump threatened 25% tariffs on Korea.

"Why take all this abuse?" Cha asked. His answer: South Korea and Japan see no alternative to the United States on security, and they secured previous concessions in areas such as nuclear submarines, ship building, and enrichment and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, which they do not want to renegotiate. 

One positive outcome, Cha pointed out, has been the unexpectedly warm bilateral relationship between Japan and Korea. Despite having leaders who would normally clash – a far-right conservative in Japan and a progressive in South Korea – the uncertain geopolitical environment has brought the two countries together.

He predicted China would eventually use economic coercion against South Korea over the U.S.-Korea nuclear submarine agreement, just as it did during the 2016-17 THAAD dispute and is currently doing to Japan. "It's not happening now because I don't think China wants bad relations with Japan and Korea at the same time, but it's coming," he said, adding that this development will likely push South Korea closer to the United States and Japan.

Japan Reconsiders Alliance Dependence as Its "Too Big to Fail" Status Proves No Shield

Katherine Monahan, a 2025-26 visiting scholar and Japan Program Fellow at APARC and a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State, said Japan's relationship with the United States is "too big to fail," but that has not prevented serious strain between the two allies.

Having served in Tokyo as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Japan until April 2025, Monahan shared that, when Trump's Liberation Day tariffs hit Japan with a 25% rate, the Japanese could not believe that was the figure next to their name, while other allies were at 20% and 15%. They wondered, “Don't we have any special relationship at all?”

Monahan called attention to a recent Foreign Affairs article by Masataka Okano, Japan's former national security advisor, in which he argues that Japan needs to take strategic autonomy more seriously. When made by a former Japanese official, such a statement represents a significant shift in the nation’s mindset, she said. 

Japan is also reconsidering previously used language around "de-risking" from China in favor of diversifying trade with multiple partners, including China, Canada, and Europe. This shift is happening on the backdrop of the current war with Iran, as 90% of Japanese oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz. “Japan has to start balancing sources and supply chains,” Monahan argued.

Russia Exploits American Unreliability

Russia expert Kathryn Stoner, the Satre Family Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, said America’s unpredictability under Trump represents pure opportunity for Vladimir Putin.

"Putin knows Trump. He gets him," Stoner said. "They have a not-completely dissimilar worldview." Trump's red carpet welcome for Putin at last year's Alaska summit, despite the Russian leader's indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, sent a powerful message, Stoner asserted. So did Trump's lack of concern for democratic values and his criticism of U.S. allies.

She reminded the audience that Putin has been in power for 26 years and has watched multiple U.S. presidents come and go, adapting successfully to each. Putin wants multipolarity, she said, and Trump’s actions have emboldened him. Putin’s goal is to “reclaim Imperial Russia as a global power and restore what he views as its proper sphere of influence,” extending through Ukraine and Belarus into Poland, up to German borders in the west and to the south, through Moldova, Serbia and Bulgaria, to the Black Sea in the east, all the way to the Kamchatka Peninsula. 

According to Stoner, the Russia-China relationship is significantly more durable than many believe. The relationship between the two powers extends beyond oil sales to investment, defense coordination, and sophisticated military exercises. “It kind of doesn't matter whether there's love lost or not. There's an opportunity to be gained on both sides."

"Russia's economy is actually not on the verge of collapse," Stoner added. "It has completely retooled toward the military."

India Feels Betrayed

Emily Tallo, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, who studies how political elites structure foreign policy debates in democratic countries, especially in India, explained that New Delhi felt especially betrayed by Trump's foreign policy pivot.

The first Trump administration had centered India as a key partner against China. In May 2025, however, when an India-Pakistan conflict flared up, Trump claimed credit for brokering peace, but India took issue with his threat of trade measures to bring an end to the conflict. He then hosted Pakistan's army chief at the White House and signed deals with Islamabad. "This was a twist of the knife for India," Tallo said.

Trump also imposed 50% tariffs on India, including a penalty for buying Russian crude oil, which was not applied to China, and backed out of a QUAD summit in New Delhi.

India now views China as its primary security threat, and the recent India-Pakistan crisis, in which China supplied all of Pakistan's weapon systems and possibly intelligence, made New Delhi’s two-front threat fears a reality. "India is really sensitive to any hints of U.S. retreat in the Indo-Pacific, and any acceptance of Chinese Hegemony in the region," according to Tallo.

She concluded that, like other regional powers, India is committed to preserving the U.S. partnership but is diversifying and seeking a “Plan B.” It finalized free trade agreements with the European Union and the United Kingdom, agreed to purchase French Dassault Rafale jets, and conducted a pragmatic reset with China, citing U.S. unreliability as cover to stabilize a difficult bilateral relationship.

“India wants to be a regional power aligned with but not allied with the United States [...] They want to be considered as the United States’ main partner in Asia and a major counterbalance to China.”

Headlines about foreign companies establishing a foothold in China only to fail years later no longer surprise anyone. But why does this keep happening? Kenneth Wilcox, former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) from 2001 to 2010 and author of The China Business Conundrum: Ensure that Win-Win Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice, argues that the answer comes down to mental models and preparation.

In a recent lecture hosted by the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, Wilcox explained that we all develop mental models — internal frameworks that help us interpret and navigate the world around us. We carry these models with us wherever we go, applying them instinctively to new situations and environments. The trouble, Wilcox argues, is that a mental model only holds up if the new environment resembles the one it was built for. And American mental models, more often than not, simply don't hold up in China.

Wilcox knows this firsthand. After a decade leading SVB, he and his wife moved to China in 2011 to open a Chinese branch of the bank. Things started smoothly enough — he secured a partnership with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and obtained the necessary license — but it quickly became clear that the rules he'd spent his career following no longer applied. The license, for instance, permitted him to open the bank but barred him from conducting any business in renminbi, China's national currency, for the first three years. For a bank, this created an obvious problem: how do you pay staff, let alone operate, without access to local currency? The government's solution was a subsidy to cover operating costs during that period, along with an invitation to meet regularly with other banks and business leaders to share SVB's model and approach. After many such meetings, Wilcox's Chinese partners told him they had been so impressed with what they'd learned that they planned to open their own bank modeled on SVB's approach.

This, Wilcox explained, is a pattern that plays out with striking regularity in China. Foreign companies are lured in with the promise of a vast new market and eager local partners. They are then entangled in regulations and bureaucracy, kept afloat with subsidies while they wait for permission to operate more freely — all while their technology and intellectual property are quietly absorbed. Eventually, the foreign company is left with little choice but to close up and leave. Some companies see it happening but look the other way. Others don't recognize it until it's too late. Many never fully understand why they failed at all.

Wilcox traced all of this back to the limitations of mental models. American businesses tend to arrive in China assuming the environment will function more or less like home: keep your head down, stay out of politics, focus on the business, and you'll be fine. But that assumption doesn't hold in China, where the government and the Communist Party exert control over virtually every aspect of commercial life. The most powerful players routinely hold simultaneous roles — party member, bank executive, government official — all at once. It is precisely these unexamined assumptions, Wilcox concluded, that set so many Western ventures up to fail before they've even begun.

What’s the most exciting finding from your research, and why does it matter for democracy and development?

In the mid-1990s, I worked in the U.S. government at the State Department and the National Security Council, focusing on Russia and European security. One of the major issues at the time was whether NATO should expand to include countries in Central and Eastern Europe. I later wrote a book on that decision, which was published in 1999.

One of the most important things I found was that NATO enlargement didn’t come from a single formal decision by the president and his cabinet. Instead, it developed gradually, driven by individuals who believed strongly in the policy and worked to move it forward over time. It was a much more incremental and contested process than people often assumed.

What was especially significant was that policymakers saw NATO enlargement as a way to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe. By offering countries the prospect of membership, they hoped to encourage democratic reforms and political stability. I think NATO enlargement had a profound impact on democratic development in the region, and my research helped explain how and why that policy came about.

What have been some of the most challenging aspects of conducting research in this field, and how did you overcome them?

Much of my work sits at the intersection of political science and history, and one of the biggest challenges is studying relatively recent events, where records are often incomplete. When you study earlier historical periods, you have access to archives and official records, but when you study more recent foreign policy decisions, much of that material is still classified.

Because of that, I’ve relied heavily on interviews with policymakers and officials. Interviews are incredibly valuable, but they also have limitations. People remember events differently, and often present events in a light that best reflects their own role or perspective, which is why it’s important to interview multiple people and compare their accounts to develop a more accurate understanding of what happened.

I’ve also used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain declassified documents, although that process can take many years. Some requests I filed for my 1999 book didn’t produce results until I was working on later books in 2003 and even 2008. But over time, those documents helped confirm and strengthen my understanding of how key decisions were made. Doing this kind of research requires patience, but it’s essential if you want to understand how foreign policy actually develops.

How has the field changed since you started, and what gives you hope?

The field has changed quite a bit since I finished my PhD in 1990. One major shift was that after the Cold War ended, there was less emphasis on area studies and regional expertise. When I was trained, people were expected to combine theoretical work with deep knowledge of particular regions, which is now less common. 

What gives me hope is the current generation of students. Many students today are highly capable of integrating knowledge of politics and history with technological expertise. Especially at places like Stanford, students have the opportunity to combine social science knowledge with new technologies. I think that combination will shape the future of the field.

What gaps still exist in your research, and what projects are you currently working on?

I’m currently working on a project with Michael McFaul and Elizabeth Economy on great power competition, focusing on how major powers try to influence the foreign policy orientation of smaller states. It’s an important issue, especially given the current international environment.

I’ve also continued working on NATO enlargement and its long-term consequences. When I published my book on NATO expansion in 1999, I didn’t expect that these issues would still be so central decades later. But NATO enlargement continues to shape relations between Russia, Europe, and the United States, particularly in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Hence, understanding how those earlier decisions connect to current events remains a major focus of my work.

What advice would you give to students interested in this field?

Students should focus on topics that genuinely interest them. You can’t predict what will be important five or ten years from now. Choosing a topic solely because you think it will be important in the future isn’t a good strategy if you’re not truly interested in it. Instead, study subjects that motivate you and that you feel compelled to understand. Unexpected events can suddenly make your area of interest highly relevant. Passion and curiosity are essential for meaningful research.

What book would you recommend to students interested in international relations?

I recommend Robert Jervis’s Perception and Misperception in International Politics, published in 1976. Jervis was one of the most brilliant scholars in international relations and had a major influence on the field.

His book explores how leaders interpret and misinterpret the world, and how those perceptions shape international relations. It combines insights from politics, psychology, and history, and helps explain why cooperation between states is often difficult. It’s an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand the role of leadership and perception in international politics.