Speaking at GMF’s Japan Trilateral Forum, Michito Tsuruoka, a senior research fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo, explores common challenges facing Japan, Europe, and the United States. Tsuruoka contends that a country’s willingness to use force in geopolitics – at issue both in Russia with the annexation of Crimea and in China with the South China Sea dispute – is a salient challenge, and its opposition provides an avenue for trilateral cooperation. Moreover, Tsuruoka explains the nature of the U.S. rebalance to Asia, its impact on Europe, and the extent to which Japan expects the U.S. to play political and military roles in Asian contingencies.