Mar 01,2018 Open Forum With Friends Like These: Japan-ROK Cooperation and US Policy Although they share a common ally, history and politics keep Japan and South Korea at arm’s length and severely limit their defense cooperation. Since at least the mid-1990s, American realists—and not a few Japanese and South Korean analysts—have anticipated that the regional environment, growing steadily more dangerous, would bring these status quo democracies closer together, […] Eric Heginbotham Richard Samuels comfort women , Dokdo/Takeshima , GSOMIA , Three Eyes , Yasukuni