Japan

Of all the countries to emerge from the wreckage of the Second World War, perhaps none overcame post-war adversity quite as successfully as Japan. By the time the country surrendered in 1945, it was in dire straits. It had lost some 2.8 million people during the war, 3.8% of its 1939 population. Thousands more were so severely maimed or ill that they would never resume productive… more

The view that sometime during this century a “changing of the guard” will occur, when China will displace the United States in much the same way as America did Britain, is widely held. It unites liberals and conservatives, optimists and pessimists, most of whom accept the proposition that “the East is back”, with China leading the pack. The debate is over when the shift will happen and what a world that currently bears an American stamp will look like after… more

Historian Ronald Spector documents the Allies occupation of the Pacific theater following the end of World War II. Mr. Spector says that the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945 did not usher in peace but rather marked the start of several regional battles as formerly occupied countries demanded their independence. Ronald Spector discusses his book In the Ruins of Empire with Steven Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program and senior fellow at the New America Foundation. Mr.… more

In 1913, a young Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote in a private letter that a war among the major European powers would be so deadly and destructive that it could not be imagined. In 1914, he learned differently.

There are so many historic examples of war being so unlikely, so terrible in its prospect that it just "could not" happen. And yet it did.

That is why, in the large sweep of history, people who want to see peace should never underestimate… more

In Japan (and the US perhaps), embarrassment and shame are so, well, 20th century. In the old days, a hot financial scandal or political defeat would lead at minimum to resignation -- and occasionally, to far worse self-inflicted circumstances, such as ritual suicide.

But none of that for Japan’s embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has accepted responsibility but refused to resign for the collapse of his government coalition’s standing in the upper house of Japan’s National Diet in last Sunday’s… more

OSAKA -- Despite Tokyo's pledge to remain nonnuclear and assurances from top U.S. officials that their most important Pacific ally will do just that, North Korea's apparent atomic test is expected to further weaken taboos about talk of a nuclear-armed Japan in both Washington and Tokyo.

Influential academics and researchers, as well as politicians on both sides of the Pacific, have long called for Japan to seriously consider developing a nuclear deterrent...

"Key American Japan-handlers are helping to coax politicians like (former… more

Michael Zielenziger's new book, Shutting Out the Sun, offers an intelligent, insightful look into the economic disquiet and disturbing social trends afflicting Japan. Though once on the verge of eclipsing the United States as the world’s dominant economic power, Japan failed to recover fully from the economic collapse of the early 1990s and now confronts a Japanese society and economy jeopardized by disaffected youth.

Exploring the reasons behind Japan’s status as the industrialized nation with the highest suicide rate and the… more

Anywhere else, it might have played out as just another low-stakes battle between policy wonks. But in Japan, a country struggling to find a brand of nationalism that it can embrace, a recent war of words between a flamboyant newspaper editorialist and an editor at a premier foreign-policy think tank was something far more alarming: the latest assault in a campaign of right-wing intimidation of public figures that is squelching free speech and threatening to roll back civil society.

On… more

Steven Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, which aims to promote a new American internationalism that combines a tough-minded realism about America's interests in the world with a pragmatic idealism about the kind of world order best suited to America's democratic way of life. He… more

This autumn events in Tokyo led many observers to believe that Japan was ready to restructure its profoundly dysfunctional banking system. These hopes were soon dashed, however, as the "forces of resistance" to economic reform marshaled their resources and persuaded Prime Minister Koizumi to eviscerate the banking program. A mood approaching dejection has subsequently fallen over Japan specialists in that country and around the world.

Robert Madsen contends that the temporary surge in optimism was unrealistic. Not only are the political… more