menu_open Columnists

The Japan Times

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Decoupling and South Korea’s new capitalism

Decoupling and South Korea’s new capitalism

South Korea’s economic performance appears to be decoupling from that of the United States. While economic growth in 2025 was around 1%, less than...

latest 30

The Japan Times

Keun Lee

The West is still getting Russia wrong

The West is still getting Russia wrong

Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Western observers still do not understand the Kremlin’s strategy. Some think there is...

latest 30

The Japan Times

Inna bondarenko — daniel sleat

Hungary’s shift unlocks new opportunities for NATO and Ukraine

Hungary’s shift unlocks new opportunities for NATO and Ukraine

The ousting this month of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a landslide electoral defeat has generated a flood of commentary. Much of it has...

latest 20

The Japan Times

James Stavridis

Trump has made the case for international law

Trump has made the case for international law

As the tragic consequences of U.S. President Donald Trump’s war of choice against Iran continue to accumulate, one hears a cry of desperation: Are...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

James A. Goldston

Social science’s low replication rate is not a crisis

Social science’s low replication rate is not a crisis

Let’s say you do a job that involves making predictions about human behavior — you manage money, you sell things, you write opinion columns. Just...

yesterday 40

The Japan Times

Justin Fox

Iran war is a renewable energy wake-up call

Iran war is a renewable energy wake-up call

Two months into the war in Iran, energy markets are still in turmoil — and nowhere has felt the havoc more acutely than Asia. Nearly 90% of the oil...

yesterday 30

The Japan Times

Sonia dunlop - takeaki masukawa

Finally, real progress against pancreatic cancer

Finally, real progress against pancreatic cancer

Every once in a while, an advance in treating cancer is so stunning that doctors get chills. Such is the case for Revolution Medicines’ pancreatic...

friday 40

The Japan Times

Lisa Jarvis

It’s up to SpaceX and Blue Origin to stick the moon landing

It’s up to SpaceX and Blue Origin to stick the moon landing

The Artemis II mission around the moon provided a conflicted nation with a much-needed wave of shared enthusiasm derived from achieving a lofty goal....

friday 50

The Japan Times

Thomas Black

Rethinking how Japan chooses its central bank governor

Rethinking how Japan chooses its central bank governor

As global attention focuses on the succession to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, an instructive contrast has emerged between the United States...

friday 50

The Japan Times

Kumiharu Shigehara

SoftBank is going all in on OpenAI, but at what cost?

SoftBank is going all in on OpenAI, but at what cost?

Would you buy OpenAI’s shares even though the transaction might expose you to a liquidity crunch? SoftBank Group Corp.’s founder Masayoshi Son did...

23.04.2026 40

The Japan Times

Shuli Ren

New AI tool reshapes the cybersecurity landscape

New AI tool reshapes the cybersecurity landscape

Be scared. Very scared. Readers captivated by cybersecurity developments have likely seen mention of Mythos, the latest version of the Claude...

23.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

Trump’s wartime strategy sparks coup concerns

Trump’s wartime strategy sparks coup concerns

The United States is six months away from the most consequential midterm elections in its history. Meanwhile, we are living in times when U.S....

23.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Timothy Snyder

War in the Gulf reveals the real risk to food security

War in the Gulf reveals the real risk to food security

For years, climate campaigners have claimed that our food supply is under grave threat from climate change caused by excessive fossil fuel use....

23.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Bjorn Lomborg

Israel’s Lebanon buffer zone is a fallacy and no path to peace

Israel’s Lebanon buffer zone is a fallacy and no path to peace

Territorial buffers rarely, if ever, deliver the peace and security their advocates promise. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was seen...

23.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Daoud Kuttab

Falling for Beijing’s anti-Japan propaganda is dangerously naive

Falling for Beijing’s anti-Japan propaganda is dangerously naive

A recent segment by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation characterizing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as “very hawkish” and a leader who wants to...

23.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Revising Japan’s arms export ban doesn’t make it a ‘militarist’ state

Revising Japan’s arms export ban doesn’t make it a ‘militarist’ state

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet on Tuesday made a landmark decision to abolish decades-old restrictions limiting military equipment...

22.04.2026 40

The Japan Times

Kuni Miyake

So what is the real oil price right now?

So what is the real oil price right now?

For all my reporting life, I’ve dreaded one question: What is the price of oil — the real one? Invariably asked during a crisis, it demands a neat...

21.04.2026 40

The Japan Times

Javier Blas

King Charles buries his brother over Epstein. America dithers.

King Charles buries his brother over Epstein. America dithers.

Born into unimaginable luxury and showered with honors, the man formerly known as His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, Duke of York, will henceforth be...

21.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Rosa Prince

Tell the U.S. that Japan is America’s indispensable ally

Tell the U.S. that Japan is America’s indispensable ally

Japan has remained largely immune to what is now the infamous wrath of U.S. President Donald Trump. To be sure, it did not receive special treatment...

21.04.2026 20

The Japan Times

Jio Kamata

Iran risks are smoke on the water for Takaichi

Iran risks are smoke on the water for Takaichi

As the Iran war prompts some countries to call for restrictions that hark back to the oil-shock era — Australia is urging people to take public...

20.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The world is learning how to work around America

The world is learning how to work around America

Even as Israeli bombs were still raining down on Lebanon, most of the world breathed a cautious sigh of relief when news broke that Pakistan had...

20.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Pedro Abramovay

How de-Stalinization may offer lessons for post-Putin Russia

How de-Stalinization may offer lessons for post-Putin Russia

An account of how Stalinism was dismantled in the Soviet Union, published more than seven decades after the tyrant’s death, should be one of those...

20.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Nina L. Khrushcheva

Don’t give up on getting World Cup tickets (yet)

Don’t give up on getting World Cup tickets (yet)

Less than 60 days before the start of the World Cup, I am already panicking: All my attempts to get tickets to see Argentina and Lionel Messi at...

20.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Juan Pablo Spinetto

Is Xi feeling stronger than Trump?

Is Xi feeling stronger than Trump?

U.S. President Donald Trump was supposed to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in April in what was to be a closely watched engagement between the...

20.04.2026 40

The Japan Times

Michael Macarthur Bosack

India, AI and the shrinking premium of college education

India, AI and the shrinking premium of college education

India has three good reasons to engage with one of the biggest open questions in economics today: the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs....

19.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Andy Mukherjee

Why economic security is central to U.S. national security

Why economic security is central to U.S. national security

While you wouldn’t know it from the recent U.S.-Israeli military confrontation with Iran, the latest U.S. National Security Strategy, made public in...

19.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Kazuto Suzuki

Has the death of the department store reached Japan?

Has the death of the department store reached Japan?

Has the demise of the department store finally arrived in Japan, which has held on to them longer than most? The news of the impending closure of the...

17.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The parent problem: When smartphone rules end at the school gate

The parent problem: When smartphone rules end at the school gate

Seventy-nine education systems worldwide have restricted smartphone use in schools. France banned them for students under 15 in 2018. South Korea...

17.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Waka Ikeda

Blockade as war: The perilous logic of strangulation

Blockade as war: The perilous logic of strangulation

A naval blockade is not merely a coercive tactic to prevent vessels from entering or leaving a country’s ports. It is an act of war. History points...

17.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Brahma Chellaney

The Iran war has exposed Taiwan’s Achilles’ heel

The Iran war has exposed Taiwan’s Achilles’ heel

In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline...

16.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

David Fickling

The case for ‘hardened engagement’ with America

The case for ‘hardened engagement’ with America

Across the capitals of America’s closest allies — from Ottawa and Tokyo to Brussels, Canberra and Seoul — a dangerous geopolitical narrative has...

16.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Rubber’s history could be a window into AI’s future

Rubber’s history could be a window into AI’s future

A 7,000-word piece of science fiction published on Substack by an obscure investment research firm helped trigger a worldwide market meltdown...

16.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Gautam Mukunda

Gulf oil crisis reveals shortcomings in government readiness

Governments around the world are struggling to deal with the economic impacts of the Iran war. That is somewhat understandable. They were blindsided...

15.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

U.S. prisons are emptier. Will psychiatric hospitals fill up?

A fact of American life that probably doesn’t receive enough attention is that the number of people in prison or jail in the U.S. has fallen by...

15.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Justin Fox

After Orban, Hungary faces an even harder battle

The Hungarian opposition’s decisive victory over Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz Party has been greeted with relief across the...

15.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Maciej Kisilowski

Are Japan’s youth really in ‘investment poverty’?

With everything that’s going on in global markets right now, who’d want to be an investor? The answer, increasingly, is Japanese young people, who...

14.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

Who’s whispering in your chatbot’s ear?

Algorithms are not value-neutral. Yet for over a decade now, we have allowed Big Tech to deploy them as the gatekeepers to our information ecosystem,...

14.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Marc faddoul

Ai is hastening the resume’s demise. Good riddance.

Artificial intelligence isn’t just being blamed for killing jobs; it’s exposing the fundamental flaw in one of hiring’s oldest tools: the...

14.04.2026 50

The Japan Times

Stephen Mihm

Trump, ‘The Art of the Deal’ and the ‘TACO’ myth

The drama following U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” just over a year ago seemed to confirm a simple theory. On April 2, 2025,...

14.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Andrew Capistrano

Taiwan opposition leader looks backward in Beijing trip

Kuomintang Chairperson Cheng Li-wun is living in the past, even though she believes that by engaging with the Chinese Communist Party on Beijing’s...

14.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Matthew Fulco

The Iran war just broke the petrodollar

The virtuous loop that has seen America underwrite stability in the Middle East in exchange for Gulf states recycling their dollar revenues into U.S....

13.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Aaron Brown

Trump’s apocalyptic promise: ‘A whole civilization will die tonight’

On the morning of April 7, as a fragile two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran was taking shape through Pakistani intermediaries,...

13.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Hussein banai

The Indo-Pacific price of a hasty war with Tehran

U.S. President Donald Trump recently took to the podium to air a familiar grievance, lambasting America’s closest allies including NATO members,...

13.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

How the Islamabad Accord allowed Trump to save face in Iran

The military confrontation involving the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran reached an unprecedented boiling point this week. U.S....

13.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Ronny P. Sasmita

The most valuable menopause fitness hack

Last year, I glommed onto a trend that is sweeping women of a certain age in the U.S.: I became a woman who lifts. Admittedly, describing myself as...

12.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Lisa Jarvis

How the Islamabad Accord allowed Trump to save face in Iran

This military confrontation involving the United States, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran reached an unprecedented boiling point this week....

10.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Ronny P. Sasmita

Should Tokyo apologize for an SDF officer’s break-in to the Chinese Embassy?

Last week, I received an interesting invitation from an online television station. They wanted me to discuss whether the Japanese government should...

09.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Kuni Miyake

Artemis II’s awe reminds us of science’s fragility and importance

Three words uttered yesterday from Mission Control to Reid Wiseman, commander of Artemis II, perfectly capture the groundswell of emotion many of us...

09.04.2026 70

The Japan Times

Lisa Jarvis

How soon would ‘friendly’ proliferation become unfriendly?

A few years ago, I had dinner with several former South Korean government officials, during which they urged me to encourage the United States...

09.04.2026 60

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

There’s method to China’s OpenClaw madness

Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for...

08.04.2026 80

The Japan Times

Catherine Thorbecke