In 1991 Japan and America replaced the USSR as each other’s top threat

Evidence

The year 1991 marked the crucial turning point in the shift of public opinion out of its Cold War mold. In that year each country displaced the Soviet Union in the perceptions of the other. For the first time Americans rated Japan ahead of the Soviet Union as a threat to American security, and for the first time Japanese rated the United States ahead of the Soviet Union as a threat to Japan’s security. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 596

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Islam served neocons as a substitute Cold War enemy when the USSR collapsed — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 675