Japan Steps Up

Japanese leaders seem to have reached a foreign policy watershed of sorts recently. From a new defense policy to a firmer stance on North Korea and Taiwan, Japan seems anxious to defend its own interests in the region more assertively. And that policy seems tightly intertwined with American policy.

I've mentioned this closeness previously when discussing the "shared values" between the United States and Japan (as opposed to the shared values assumed to exist between America and its European allies). The strategic relationship between America and Japan is based more on old-fashioned Realpolitik than on the sort of shared cultural ideas often discussed as drawing us to Western Europe. Which relationship is more valid?

Considering recent German cuddling with Russia and French courting of China as possible counterweights to US power, I think that answer is becoming increasingly evident....