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Brad GlossermanThe Japan Times |
Maybe distance isn’t so tyrannical after all. Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida liked to say that “Ukraine today is Asia tomorrow,” a pointed...
Everyone knows Japan’s demographic woes. Already the oldest, “grayest” nation on the planet, the nation’s population will plummet as fertility...
Few observers were surprised — or troubled — when Germany overtook Japan earlier this year as the world’s third-largest economy. The...
When Russian and Chinese jets violated Japanese airspace last month, many assumed that the actions were coordinated. A pillar of the “partnership...
The warning could not be clearer. Europe faces “an existential crisis.” “Over time, we will inexorably become less prosperous, less equal, less...
In a world marching ever closer to some form of nuclear conflict, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty should be an essential tool in efforts to...
Have we commenced a new Cold War with China? While the question feels abstract, it has implications for foreign policy and has, as a result, triggered...
Ever since then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unveiled his Indo-Pacific vision, much of the geographic focus has been on India. That is understandable...
Two days of discussions last week at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego about Japan’s future role...
War gaming is in. Rising tensions around the world — and the conflicts they have triggered — have obliged military establishments to scrutinize...
For most governments, the primary concern when thinking about new and emerging technologies is their potential defense applications and the fear that...
Nearly 60 years ago, on Oct. 16, 1964, China exploded its first nuclear device. That very same day, Beijing announced that it would “never at any...
International cooperation and collaboration is the backbone of modern science. It’s key to solving new and enduring problems in Japan and throughout...
The “blue screen of death” that appeared last week on an estimated 8.5 million PCs and servers around the world running Microsoft software...
Last Friday marked the eighth anniversary of the Philippines-China South China Sea arbitral tribunal ruling. That decision was a win for Manila, but...
As tensions rise in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, it would be comforting to think that there are communication tools in place to help...
They call them “critical minerals” for a reason. Cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel and the tongue-twisting assortment of rare earth elements (REEs)...
As Japan modernizes its national security policies and defense capabilities, most of the attention has focused, understandably, on warfighting....
While there is a pretty solid consensus in the United States about how to think about China — a view that is spreading throughout the developed...
It’s only natural that we think of ourselves as “the good guys.” It’s hard to get out of bed when you know, deep down in your heart, that...
Every now and then, I come across analysis so incisive, intelligent and unsettling that I’m forced to stop and take a deep breath. Historian Philip...
After reading last week’s column on the modernization of command and control in Japan’s military and the resulting need for a similar updating of...
Japan has been engaged in the steady — some would say “relentless” — modernization of its national security policies and processes for over a...
Can you feel the ground shifting? I’m not referring to the temblors that recently struck Japan. Rather, I’m talking about what looks like a...
The U.S. House of Representatives got its act together last week and passed legislation that provided $95 billion in military aid to Ukraine, Israel,...
Last week’s Japan-U.S. summit has been rightly called historic and the beginning of a new era. It was a big deal for Tokyo and the alliance — if...
The world dodged a big one last month. Either bend an elbow or bow your head (depending on your preferred mode for giving thanks) to Andres Freund,...
While attention has been focused on rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the real tinderbox in Southeast Asia is Second Thomas Shoal, a spit of sand...
A simple question hangs over China’s relations with the West: What does Beijing want? Chinese officials insist that they want a world in which all...
Traveling through China a number of years ago, I was buttonholed by an earnest young man who spent the morning trying to convince me that Taiwan was...
“I was surprised by the Chinese side’s focus on survivability, on ensuring that it has a second-strike capability,” said the smart young Chinese...
Semiconductors are again a focus of the Japan-U.S. alliance. Unlike the first time this happened — in the 1980s and ‘90s when the two governments...
Imagine a barbell. That is, in my mind, the future shape of the global economy. Two separate spheres, one the economies of the West and the other...
For the record, the author of “Peak Japan” — me — gets no satisfaction from reports that Japan has been overtaken by Germany in global...
It's hard to tell if Donald Trump's recent comments about his readiness to disregard treaty obligations if U.S. allies didn't live up to their...
This year could be very bloody. There is ongoing conflict in Ukraine, a vicious fight against Hamas and Iran's other proxies in the Middle East and...
I confess: I’ve never heard a Taylor Swift song. I can’t name or hum one of her tunes. I do know that she is a billion-dollar music machine, a...
The European Union last week released a package of measures that put meat on the bones of its economic security strategy. Like many governments,...
Finally. After years of talk about deglobalization, decoupling and derisking, there is at long last evidence of substantive change in global economic...
There is a brilliant "Saturday Night Live" skit from the show's early years featuring the late John Belushi as a manic meteorologist, in which he...
It is hard to appreciate how strong the Japan-U.S. relationship is right now. The two governments regularly refer to “the unprecedented strength of...
Warning: What follows is pure speculation, untainted by “informed sources in Nagatacho” or a lifetime of study of the intricacies of habatsu...