The US

  • The U.S. Marine Corps Is Changing — and So Is Its Role in Japan

    Watching the current war with Iran, one striking feature is that U.S. Navy warships, particularly aircraft carriers, are staying away from the Strait of Hormuz—or perhaps are simply unable to get close to it. Presumably, the danger posed by mines, as well as Iranian missiles and drones, is simply too great. . If we transpose this situation to the Far…

  • Could U.S. Treasuries Take a Tumble in September?

    Simon and Garfunkel used to sing: August, die she must, The autumn winds blow chilly and cold, September, I’ll remember, A love once new has now grown old. Are the U.S. treasuries following a similar fate? . The amount of outstanding U.S. government debt has now grown to slightly more than one year’s GDP. When Treasury securities mature, the government…

  • The End of Oak Street: A Horror Story About America Today

    The day before yesterday, I went to see a new US movie The End of Oak Street. It is a horror movie in which an ordinary, middle-class suburban neighborhood is suddenly transported hundreds of millions of years into the past, leaving its residents to be chased by dinosaurs. The film was directed by David Robert Mitchell, born in 1974. .…

  • Rethinking Japan’s Place in a Rising Asia

    (This article appeared in Newsweek Japan on August 18.) On August 8, news broke that both South Korea and Taiwan had surpassed Japan in exports during the first half of this year. Since the mid-1990s, I had already grown weary of hearing the world sneer that “Japan is finished—even in Asia.” This latest news felt almost like the final blow.…

  • Is America’s Consumer Market, the Largest in the World, a Mirage?

    What enables the United States, for all its current troubles, to throw its weight around as much as it does is the fact that it still has by far the world’s largest consumer market—more than twice the size of China’s. Many countries depend heavily on exports to the United States to keep their own economies going. . But there is…

  • Where the Space and AI Investment Frenzy May End Up: Lessons from Britain’s Railway Mania

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public on June 12, raising the equivalent of roughly $80 billion in a single IPO. Although its share price has eased somewhat since then, the company’s market capitalization still stood at about $1.8 trillion in mid-July, making it one of the seven to ten most valuable companies in the world. For comparison, the ten largest companies…

  • 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…

  • Can AI Navigate the Chaotic Middle East with Theory Alone?

    Akio KAWATO Recently, “collaborating with AI” has become something of a trend. I decided to try it myself, using ChatGPT as a discussion partner to explore a question that has been bothering me: Is today’s tangled Middle East even something that can be meaningfully forecast? . This in fact is a question about methodology in international relations. Japan’s leading political…

  • 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…

  • A Sunshade for the Planet

    　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　.Akio KAWATO Summer is coming again, and with it the heat. After years of record-breaking temperatures, even COP—the annual United Nations climate conference—seems to be losing its sense of direction. The more desperately the world tries to cut CO₂ emissions, the more the thermometer appears to mock us by climbing ever higher. . As a result, some rather creative ideas…