The US

  • Much Ado About U.S. Imports of Russian Diesel

    On October 9, Trump spoke with Putin by phone. The call was supposed to mark Putin’s birthday on October 7, but the time difference and Putin’s overseas travel pushed it back to the ninth. Trump probably expected that they could agree on—and announce—a date for resuming trilateral talks among Ukraine, Russia, and the United States on a ceasefire in Ukraine.…

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 11 The Formation of the Modern Nation-State 3

    （A modern nation-state is a massive tax-collection apparatus. Parliament oversees it, while the government and bureaucracy manage its expenditures. The central bank maintains the stability of the currency that underpins domestic economic circulation. Law enforcement agencies guarantee the stability of power and society. The military and intelligence agencies are responsible for national security. And on the international stage, the nation…

  • AI Says: Ukraine Is Becoming a Modern Hundred Years’ War

    Akio KAWATO The war in Ukraine has now lasted four and a half years since Russian forces invaded in February 2022. That alone makes it longer than World War I, which lasted a little over four years and three months. But the conflict actually began when Russian troops seized Crimea in March 2014, so it has already been going on…

  • U.S.-China Rapprochement Is Good for Japan

    Akio KAWATO Former Japanese diplomat . Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to the United States on September 23–25. In Japan, there was considerable commotion over President Trump greeting him at the airport and emphasizing in his welcoming remarks that the United States and China had been allies during World War II. Some people even rushed to conclude…

  • SI for President

    President Trump says AI (SI) is both excellent and safe. Great. Well then, why doesn’t the president become an AI from now on? If it’s both excellent and safe, there couldn’t be anything better for the United States—and the world.

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 9

    （This is a continuation of Part 8 “What Was the Modern Nation-State?“. Here, we will examine the process by which the modern nation-state—with its defining characteristics such as national borders, a single ethnic group, and a single language (though these are, to a large extent, artificial constructs)—took shape in Britain from the 17th century onward. At the same time, we…

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 8

    What Was the Modern Nation-State? （The modern world has been built around the “nation-state.” It has borders, a dominant national group and its language, and sovereignty over its territory. We were taught in school that the seventeenth-century Peace of Westphalia established these principles and that sovereign states stand as equals. Today, however, this idea of the modern state is being…

  • 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,…