Russia

  • Is a So-Called “National Strategy” Necessary for Humanity?

    Yesterday, while listening to a discussion at a seminar, a thought occurred to me. People often complain that “Japan has no national strategy.” But the nation-state itself is something of a mirage. . Once a society begins producing a surplus—in other words, once it accumulates wealth—people emerge who take it upon themselves to use that wealth. They have no practical…

  • A Proposal for an Alternative Version of The Odyssey

    Yesterday, I went to see Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated film The Odyssey. It was superb. . That said, one line spoken by Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, caught my attention: “I hear that bands of marauders known as the ‘Sea Peoples’ have been attacking city-states everywhere. They would finish the civilization.” . In ancient times, the “Sea Peoples” attacked cities along the Mediterranean…

  • Secure the Strait of Hormuz by Charging Tolls

    Navigation is becoming dangerous not only through the Strait of Hormuz, but also through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea. This is intolerable for both oil-producing nations and trading nations. Nor does the United States military appear to retain the ability to secure these waterways by force. . If military force cannot solve the problem,…

  • Russian Anti-Americanism Is the Flip Side of “We Want to Do Whatever We Want, Just Like America”

    I just had an amusing conversation with ChatGPT, so I thought I’d post it here. . I said to ChatGPT: “I sometimes tease Russians about their excessive anti-Americanism. ‘Come on. What you really want is to be able to throw your weight around and do whatever you want, just like America. You’re anti-American because you can’t. Deep down, you actually…

  • The Postwar World and the Shifting Currents Beneath It

    (This is a slightly revised version of my article to be published in Newsweek Japan on September 8.) . The Post-Cold War Era and the Expansion of American Power . The international situation today can broadly be described as the “post-Cold War” era. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, which divided the world for decades…

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism　２

    (The source text of this series is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO. The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato . This installment of the series challenges the long-held belief that “the world’s civilizations emerged almost simultaneously in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus River…

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 1 Introduction

    I’m starting a new series here. The title is “A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism” The source text is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO. The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit (The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato). . Today is the first installment. Let’s start…

  • Putin’s Visit to Japan’s Northern Territories

    Yesterday, Putin visited Japan’s Northern Territories—the islands north of Japan that the Soviet Union seized by force at the end of World War II, expelled their Japanese residents from, and has refused to return ever since. The Japanese media went into an uproar. . It is embarrassing. All Japan accomplishes by making such a fuss is to advertise to the…

  • Japan should avoid unnecessarily provoking China－On the Occasion of the Renewal of the National Security Strategy

    Akio KawatoFormer Ambassador to Uzbekistan; Former DCM, Embassy of Japan in Russia . (Japan is currently conducting its once-every-few-years review of national security policy. As a result, the country’s three core strategic documents—the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense Buildup Program—are being revised. Recently, the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) published a collection of…

  • The Hollowing Out of American Pop Music

    　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Akio KAWATO Lately, pop music in many advanced countries seems increasingly mechanical, standardized, and overly technological. It feels very different from the American pop music of the late 1960s—artists such as Simon & Garfunkel, Joni Mitchell, and Carole King—or from Japan’s City Pop scene of the 1980s, represented by artists such as Eiichi Ohtaki, Minako Yoshida, and Taeko Ohnuki. The…