January 12, 2023
Ukraine, Japan and the Korean War’s 21st-Century Parallel
When Russian forces surged into Ukraine in February 2022, the conflict seemed to spell calamity for the U.S.-led order in Asia. Just as Washington was turning its attention to the Indo-Pacific, a conflagration in Europe promised to distract America from the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. But nearly a year later, the Ukraine war hasn’t doomed the balance of power in Asia; instead, it may be stabilizing it.
Rather than foreshadowing deadlier and more destructive wars to come, Ukraine’s struggle could provide the path to averting them.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Japan, whose prime minister, Fumio Kishida, visits the White House Friday following historic changes in Tokyo’s national-security and military strategies. Among the bold moves announced last month: a pledge to double defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027 and to add powerful new capabilities such as long-range missiles to its arsenal. This means that Japan, currently the world’s ninth-largest military spender, could move to third place within five years, behind only the U.S. and China. Already this year its defense budget is due to grow more than 25%.
Read the full article from The Wall Street Journal.
More from CNAS
-
India-EU Trade Deal: A New Superpower Pact | PM Modi Holds Talks With EU Leaders
Video
Lisa Curtis, Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, joined CNN News18 to discuss the recent India-EU trade deal. Watch the f...
By Lisa Curtis
-
Japan Wants Calm, China Not So Much
Commentary
This article was originally published in Asian Military Review. One of the most serious China-Japan diplomatic crises in recent years unfolded in November after Chinese offici...
By Derek Grossman
-
America Must Salvage Its Relationship With India
Commentary
The longer the current crisis lasts, the harder it will be to restore the relationship and the more likely it is that the two countries will lose an entire generation of progr...
By Richard Fontaine & Lisa Curtis
-
Podcast
Indo-Pacific Security / Technology & National Security
AI and Policy, Both Foreign and DomesticIn an episode recorded just before Christmas, Darren interviews Janet Egan, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS, about AI...
By Janet Egan
