World Trends

  • After America: What Middle Powers Can Still Build

    Iran ceasefire talks are now beginning. Had the war continued, Iran’s retaliation might well have threatened the very survival of Gulf civilization itself, while also exposing the limits of U.S. military power and potentially bringing an end to America’s unipolar dominance. The ceasefire has, at least for now, bought everyone some breathing room. . Even so, this latest attack on…

  • The AI Rush; But Does It Have To Be So Expensive?

    These days, whenever AI comes up—NVIDIA, xAI, all that world—people casually throw around figures in the tens of billions of dollars. It sounds almost surreal. Then again, maybe this is exactly how early 19th-century Britain must have felt when iron, railways, and chemicals suddenly replaced cotton as the engines of growth. Compared with spinning mills, the money required must have…

  • Dark Clouds Gathering on Putin’s Horizon: Russia’s September Parliamentary Elections

    The war in Ukraine has now entered its fifth year. Not only Ukraine but Russia itself—despite being a great power—has been badly worn down. The recent surge in oil prices caused by the war with Iran has given Moscow some temporary breathing room. Yet the underlying strains remain severe. Thousands of tanks and armored vehicles have been destroyed in Ukraine,…

  • Living in the Age of the Bully

    I finally managed to revive my blog, yet somehow I cannot quite summon the energy. In times like these, no matter what one writes about the world, Trump the realtor arrives like a bulldozer, flattening every counterargument and dissenting voice in his path. Even when he himself seems to hesitate, pressure from America’s evangelicals and MAGA forces (though those circles…

  • Israel’s Gamble, America’s Limit–The War on Iran

    War is always shrouded in a haze of rumor and information control. In this latest conflict with Iran , one could not help but be impressed—at least initially—by Israeli intelligence capabilities and American military prowess, especially with the reported killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Yet the response that followed has been strangely muted, as if something were being held…

  • How to Survive Trump’s Armageddon

    For some time now, analysts have been pointing to the possible end of the U.S.-led postwar order. With the Strait of Hormuz now facing the risk of closure, global stock markets, oil prices, and other indicators are swinging wildly. The atmosphere feels almost apocalyptic. ・ History shows many moments when an existing system of security and economic stability suddenly collapsed.…

  • Trump Lectures Europe on Freedom and Democracy

    Since the birth of the Trump administration, a strange argument has continued between Washington and the European Union. It often feels like the pot calling the kettle black. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2025, Vice President J.D. Vance made a speech, the essence of which can be summarized as folllows: “ The greatest threat to democracy is not…

  • Dialogue with the Late Professor Joseph Nye

    (This essay was originally written in March 2025. Since then, Professor Joseph Nye has passed away. The issues discussed here, however, remain urgent. I have therefore updated and reposted it.) On February 25, 2025, I read in Newsweek Japan an article by Joseph Nye, the architect of the concept of “soft power,” titled “Why America Holds the Advantage in a…

  • Twilight of the Modernity

    (This thesis was published last year, but the situation has barely changed) In China and India, various domestic factors hinder growth. But in this respect, the United States, the European Union, and Japan are not in a better position, either. The West is now deprived of many attributes of the modern era, which facilitated their economic growth. In Western European…

  • On the Restarting of This Blog

    This blog existed for approximately 20 years until December of 2024. After being offline for a year. Now it is restarted with the help of the Urban Connections Inc. team. The reason for its disappearance, as noted at the end, was due to technical factors. / Past data, as of November 29, 2023, has been preserved by the National Diet…