Twenty five years ago, Japan's major foreign policy challenge seemed to be how to recycle its massive current account surplus. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the stagnation of the domestic economy, the nuclearization of North Korea and the rise of China, the world looks very different today than Japanese strategic planners anticipated. In Japanese Strategic Thought toward Asia, Rozman, Togo and Ferguson have assembled a top-rate team of scholars to assess how these three turbulent decades have shaped Japanese thinking about Northeast Asia and what coordinates might guide Japan's foreign policy under a new generation of more assertive leaders. - Michael Green, Associate Professor, Georgetown University Edmond A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and former Senior Director for Asian Affairs, the National Security Council