Princeton's G. John Ikenberry has a long guest post at the Washington Note addressing Kishore Mahbubani's arguments in The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. Not having read Mr. Mahbubani's book yet, I can't speak directly to his argument, but I do want to address the points raised by …
Tag: US foreign policy
Japan just as invisible as always
MOFA has released its latest Gallup-conducted poll of American public and elite attitudes concerning Japan. (English summary here; more detailed Japanese documents available for download here.)Gallup conducted a telephone poll of 1500 Americans over age 18 in February and March of 2008, and telephone interviews with 250 "opinion leaders" in "the fields of government, business, …
Komori on US China policy
Komori Yoshihisa, veteran correspondent and Washington-based editor of the Sankei Shimbun, was invited to speak to Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Study Group" last Friday, where he explained the reality of US China policy and contemporary attitudes in Washington towards the US-Japan alliance.He provides a summary of his remarks at his blog.For the most part, …
Recommended Book: The Peninsula Question, Yoichi Funabashi
In the year since Funabashi Yoichi, editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun, finished The Peninsula Question, the US and North Korea made an agreement that restarted the Six-Party talks, overcame the Banco Delta Asia obstacle, and issued a joint statement with the other parties that included a promise by North Korea to account for its nuclear …
Continue reading Recommended Book: The Peninsula Question, Yoichi Funabashi
To a second-rate Japan
Continuing the theme of Japan's vanishing global presence discussed in this post (and this post by Gen Kanai last week), it's worth looking at what may be this year's hot foreign policy article-turned-book (cf. Paul Kennedy, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kagan), "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony" by Parag Khanna, a fellow at the New America …
Haass on allies and rivals
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, had an op-ed in the Financial Times this week (excerpted from a forthcoming article in The National Interest) in which he reconsiders the nature of US relationships with traditional allies and perceived enemies.Calling it the emergence of a "Palmerstonian moment," Haass wrote, "We are entering an …
A dangerous word
AEI's Michael Auslin, weighing in on the feud over China's denying US Navy ships access to Hong Kong at Contentions, argues that US credibility has suffered from a failure to respond to China's behavior other than by sending the USS Kitty Hawk back to Japan via the Taiwan Straits.He says, "A number of my Asia-wonk …
Fukuda should mention Iran
In the past week, the Bush administration has raised the intensity of its rhetoric on Iran to dangerously absurd levels.Last week, President Bush suggested that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons could lead to World War III, which White House press secretary Dana Perino later played down as suggesting nothing more than the seriousness with which …
The vanishing ally
Candidate Clinton has penned her contribution on foreign policy for the ongoing feature in Foreign Affairs on the foreign policies of the major presidential contenders.I haven't found much of value in the contributions thus far, and Senator Clinton's is no exception. Her world view essentially emphasizes "power and principle." I'm not entirely clear how that …
Recommended book: The End of Alliances, Rajan Menon
If there is one affliction that is all too common in all places and times, it is "presentism." People latch on to reality as they know, and refuse to even conceive that another way of doing things might just be possible and even likely. Inertia governs humanity.Rajan Menon's The End of Alliances (OUP, 2007) attempts …
Continue reading Recommended book: The End of Alliances, Rajan Menon
Tobias S. Harris 