The second article in this series ended with a word that has almost disappeared from the centre of security debate: détente. Yet it would be too simple to see its retreat as a pure loss. In the meantime, the vocabulary has become more precise: de-escalation, dialogue, risk reduction, confidence-building measures, crisis prevention. This specialization has helped distinguish different problems and design more verifiable policies.
The question for this third article therefore needs greater care: as we gain precision, do we still keep visible the overall direction in which the individual tools are meant to lead?
Precision is not the problem
The list used in the second article first needs ordering. Dialogue is mainly a means. Risk reduction and de-escalation describe narrower functions or objectives. Common security is a broader principle about how security can be built.
This is not a terminological nicety. Without the distinction, debate risks confusing “by what means?” with “to what end?”. Confidence-building measures developed in Europe show the value of precision: advance notification, information exchange, observation of military activities and consultations turn a general orientation into verifiable practices.
A problem already discussed
The problem of bringing individual tools back into an overall vision is not new. David Baldwin stressed conceptual clarity; Kydd, Booth and Wheeler, Kupchan, Steinberg and O’Hanlon have examined, from different angles, trust, the security dilemma, transformation of rivalries and strategic reassurance.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Theory is not lacking: the question is how explicit this overall measure remains when we judge a concrete foreign policy.
Common security likewise starts from the idea that no country can obtain lasting security solely through unilateral decisions about its own military strength, because its security also depends on the adversary’s reactions.[7] Trust, prevention and risk management have also entered the language of international institutions. The United Nations’ New Agenda for Peace emphasizes preventive diplomacy, rebuilding trust and multilateral cooperation.[8]
What question still needs to be made explicit?
A hotline can reduce the risk of error without changing political hostility. De-escalation can stop a crisis without changing the relationship that will produce the next one. A transparency agreement can improve predictability without, by itself, making the relationship more cooperative.
The same applies to deterrence. “Was the adversary deterred?” and “Has the relationship become less prone to conflict?” remain two different questions.
What does it mean to face reality?
Here a strong objection arises. If the security environment deteriorates and a potential adversary increases military or coercive capabilities, stronger deterrence may be necessary; obvious weakness can invite coercion or opportunistic calculation. Ignoring that in the name of dialogue would indeed be unrealistic.
But realism cannot stop at the first step. Our response also changes the environment: it is observed, interpreted and incorporated into the other side’s decisions. This is the classic security dilemma: measures one state sees as defensive can reduce the other’s perceived security and trigger countermeasures that then affect the first state’s security.[9] Facing reality therefore means looking both at what the threat leads us to do and at what our response leads the other side to do.
The conclusion is not that military strengthening is always destabilizing, nor that it is always stabilizing. The more demanding question is what combination of deterrence, reassurance, rules and crisis channels increases overall security.
To distinguish these effects, it is useful to consider three dimensions of security: state, human and relationship. The second was made central by UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report; the third is used here, cautiously, as a working concept.[10]
The three dimensions do not exclude one another. A policy may strengthen state security without improving human security, or reduce an immediate risk without making the relationship safer. The third is not a new theory but a lens: are there communication, predictable rules and mechanisms able to stop a crisis, or does every incident feed mutual fears?
What, then, remains of détente?
There is no need to restore the word détente or turn the 1970s into a model. Its value here is heuristic. It reminds us that arms control, dialogue, exchanges and crisis management can be judged not only separately, but also by the political direction they jointly help — or fail — to produce.
The synthetic question can therefore be asked without nostalgia: does effective diplomacy merely make the state better able to manage a rivalry, or does it also help make that rivalry less dangerous over time?
Precision of tools and an overall measure are not alternatives. The first prevents vagueness; the second prevents the success of a single measure from being confused with the success of the overall strategy. The recent debate on nuclear risk reduction also shows how a pragmatic framework can be useful for specific measures yet too indeterminate, on its own, to define a political direction.[11]
There is one more form of coherence: the criterion we use. The “rule of law” is often contrasted with the “rule of force”. But the distinction becomes even clearer from the perspective of less powerful states.
In his address to the 81st United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2026, Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah invoked sovereignty, international law and human dignity, adding that the international order should not be reduced to a world in which weaker states must simply accept the decisions of the stronger.[12] This is not the literal wording of the UN Charter, but from the perspective of a less powerful state it politically translates the principle of sovereign equality.[13]
The rule of law is therefore not merely a criterion for judging adversaries. It can prevent differences in power from automatically becoming differences in rights or voice. That is precisely why it gains force only if it can also be applied to ourselves, our allies and our partners. Otherwise it risks turning from a general principle into bloc rhetoric.
Returning to Takaichi’s foreign policy
With these clarifications, the fourth and final article can return to the foreign policy of the Takaichi government. The question will be concrete: beyond strengthening alliances and capabilities, does Japanese policy make relations with adversaries more predictable and less conflict-prone over time? And can the “rule of law” still apply when doing so is uncomfortable for one’s own camp?
In this limited sense, the old word détente can still help: not as a model to restore, but as a reminder to connect means, objectives and the overall direction of a relationship.
Main sources
[1] David A. Baldwin, “The Concept of Security”, Review of International Studies 23 (1997), pp. 5–26.
[2] Andrew H. Kydd, Trust and Mistrust in International Relations, Princeton University Press, 2005.
[3] Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler, The Security Dilemma: Fear, Cooperation and Trust in World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
[4] Charles A. Kupchan, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace, Princeton University Press, 2010.
[5] James Steinberg and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Strategic Reassurance and Resolve: U.S.-China Relations in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton University Press, 2014.
[6] Nicholas J. Wheeler, Trusting Enemies: Interpersonal Relationships in International Conflict, Oxford University Press, 2018.
[7] SIPRI, Policies for Common Security, 1985, on the concept developed by the Palme Commission.
[8] United Nations, A New Agenda for Peace, Policy Brief 9, 2023.
[9] Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma”, World Politics 30(2), 1978, pp. 167–214.
[10] UNDP, Human Development Report 1994, United Nations Development Programme, 1994.
[11] Benoît Pelopidas and Kjølv Egeland, “The false promise of nuclear risk reduction”, International Affairs 100(1), 2024.
[12] Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, “81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly — Remarks by the Rt. Hon. Balendra Shah, Prime Minister of Nepal”, New York, 24 September 2026.
[13] United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, Preamble and Arts. 1–2.
*Article based on publicly available materials consulted through 6 October 2026.*