East Asia Archive

Last month, after years of hedging on the issue, India agreed to include Japan as a permanent participant in its annual Malabar naval exercises with the United States, set this year for October. Japan has participated in the Malabar exercises before, but only as an invited observer. The decision to expand the Malabar exercises is a significant turning point not just for India’s role in the region, but also for the development of the trilateral relationship among the U.S., Japan and India. This long-underperforming trilateral partnership brings together the U.S. and the two largest and most influential democracies in the […]

Almost 70 years to the day after the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and four and a half years after suspending its entire nuclear energy program, Japan restarted a nuclear reactor today, the first to operate under new safety requirements adopted in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. While the news is noteworthy in and of itself, Japan’s historical approach to its civil nuclear program, as well as to nuclear weapons in particular, is especially instructive in light of the Iran nuclear deal. Many observers have suggested over the years that Iran could well aspire to the so-called Japan […]

During a session of the Angolan parliament late last month, members of the main opposition party, UNITA, boycotted a vote on a private investment law because of concerns over transparency. It was a rare display of dissent against President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, with some UNITA lawmakers questioning the details surrounding recent loan deals with China, struck during dos Santos’ visit to Beijing in June. “How much did our president get from China? Nobody knows. How will we pay for it? Nobody knows,” Raul Danda, a UNITA legislator, told his fellow parliamentarians. “We asked our president to explain what he […]

One of the hottest reads among Washington national security experts this summer is not the latest White House policy document or a big report from an influential think tank, but a novel by two of the national security community’s own: Peter Singer and August Cole. Their book, “Ghost Fleet,” is a riveting thriller in the Tom Clancy tradition. Much of the attention it is getting is due to its explanation of cutting-edge military technology, but it is also captivating—and important—because its core scenario is one that every policymaker and policy expert fears: a major war between the United States and […]