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 now appear increasingly fractured) keeps pushing events toward further uses of military force.
After helping make passage through the Strait of Hormuz more difficult in the first place, Washington now effectively tells its allies: if you want safe passage through the strait, send your own warships. If you do not, then pay the United States to do it for you.
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In such an age, what are small and middle powers—and the thinkers and policy intellectuals within them—supposed to do? Whatever they do, America itself is unlikely to change.
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So perhaps the only realistic course is not to panic, but simply to do what can be done within the limits of one’s own strength—and to do what ought to be done.
That likely means tightening ties among small and medium-sized nations, speaking in concert where possible, and at home undertaking a wholesale restructuring of bureaucracies (In Japan the bureaucracy has been the bullwark of stability under populist politics) that have fallen behind social change.
Yet this is exhausting work, and to be honest, it is not the sort of task that easily stirs my spirit.