China: The View from Hawaii
Honolulu -- Visiting America’s Pacific-based military forces, one gets the clear impression that they feel their countrymen are finally catching up with their views on the growing Chinese threat to...
View ArticleTurkey and Japan at the Crossroads
In the 1960s, American political scientists became fascinated with political modernization in Turkey and Japan. They wanted in particular to discover the precedents that allowed two very different...
View ArticleBeware a Hollow Air Force
As the youngest of America’s military branches, the Air Force has sometimes suffered from an inferiority complex. Despite the popular images of the glamorous fighter jock or steel-nerved bomber pilot,...
View ArticleBack to Declinism
In the judgment of Yale historian Paul Kennedy, a world in which a shrunken America is just primus inter pares, “one of the most prominent players in the small club of great powers,” is all but...
View ArticleChina Is No Egypt
While it may be comforting to read in Hosni Mubarak's resignation the universal forces of people power and democratization, pundits who are beginning to contemplate breathlessly whether Egypt's...
View ArticleWhat the U.S. Can Do to Help Our Ally Japan
The long-standing U.S.–Japan relationship has come to perhaps its most important moment, as thousands of U.S. forces swing into action to help Japan recover from the devastating earthquake and tsunami...
View ArticleJapan's Long Haul
The scope of the recovery Japan needs is just starting to emerge, over a month after the earthquake and tsunami. Now, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant is saying they’ll need six to nine...
View ArticleIs Japan a Failed State? Does It Matter?
Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan has just publically written his political obituary. Desperately hoping to avoid a no-confidence vote that seemed to be gaining the support of dozens of members of his...
View ArticlePassing Through India
Calcutta, India— India, I was told, is an assault on one’s senses. In reality, it intensifies them even as it overwhelms, making more distinct that individual scenes one picks out of the kaleidoscope...
View ArticleWhat Makes for Liberty
“Liberty does not depend upon the institutions of a country, but upon the spirit in which they are administered. Democracy is not a constitution, but a state of mind.” --- J. M. Thompson, European...
View ArticleThe Final Frontier
Thirty years ago, on April 12, 1981, I watched the first launch of the space shuttle. That morning, as Columbia lifted off around 6 a.m. Chicago time, I could just remember watching Apollo 17 -- the...
View ArticleJapan's Lake Placid Moment
That's how the ESPN announcers described Japan's stunning upset of the United States in the FIFA World Cup Women's Championship. Not only was this the first finals appearance for the Japanese women,...
View ArticleDebt Diversion
Sometimes it's nice to take a break from D.C.’s relentless politics and remember there's more to life than the debt debate. In fact, there's the Flying Squirrel takedown.
View ArticleChina Riles Up Japan (and Everyone Else)
When a technologically advanced country with a $40 billion defense budget, a highly trained military, and a tight defense alliance with the United States calls you “overbearing,” maybe it’s time to...
View ArticleHow Societies Surrender: The British Version
As England is wracked by spreading mobs of anarchist youth, Britain's Home Secretary reveals the rot at the core of the modern entitlement state. Responding to calls for a firmer response to yobs...
View ArticleChina Doesn’t Have a Plan
Vice President Biden’s trip to China would have been as forgettable as most high-level U.S.-China dialogues were it not for the Beijing Brawl and the Press-Conference Pusher, which revealed the biggest...
View ArticleJapan Revives?!
One of the great weights around the neck of Japanese politics in the past decade has been the refusal of older party leaders to make way for a younger cohort of politicians who might have better ideas...
View ArticleGuns, Butter, and Global Stability
The biggest problem with summer travel is missing important posts like Reihan’s back in August, in which he raises some crucial questions related to the knock-on effects of a decline in the U.S....
View ArticleDay of Infamy
Seventy years ago today, America was thrust into the greatest conflict the world had ever known. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and Hickam Air Field by the Imperial Japanese Navy shattered...
View ArticleUp in the Air
There were a number of reasons last week to look up to the sky and wonder about the future of airpower. In a world in which the United States will have smaller ground and naval forces, we will likely...
View Article
