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Trump is tying his legacy to whatever happens in Venezuela

Possibly, just possibly, Donald Trump just scored a foreign-policy success that could define his legacy. By striking Venezuela and whisking away...

yesterday 40

The Japan Times

Andreas Kluth

AI must not ignore human rights

Last summer, the Trump administration held an event titled “Winning the AI Race,” where it unveiled its AI Action Plan. Like the billion-dollar...

yesterday 40

The Japan Times

Alexandra Reeve Givens And Karen Kornbluh

How democracies learn to goose-step

In January 1934, the New York Times published an essay by journalist Harold Callender on a new phenomenon sweeping Nazi Germany: Gleichschaltung....

friday 60

The Japan Times

Kaushik Basu

Repeat after me: Never, ever underestimate China.

From U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war to AI developments, 2025 has been full of dramatic twists and turns. One of the most consequential...

friday 60

The Japan Times

Shuli Ren

AI Is getting dangerously good at political persuasion

For some time now, scientists have tried to offer a glimmer of hope that artificial intelligence would make a positive contribution to democracy....

friday 50

The Japan Times

Parmy Olson

Buckle up for a volatile year of Trump-Xi, Taiwan and Kim

This is the season when columnists turn to prophecy and then congratulate themselves a year later for getting some of it right. I’m afraid I’m...

friday 60

The Japan Times

Karishma Vaswani

Science still made incredible breakthroughs while under attack

It was a tough year for science in the U.S. Thousands of research grants, including more than 3,800 from the National Institutes of Health and the...

31.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

F.d. Flam

Turning the Monroe Doctrine into 'Donroe' is awful geopolitics

The United States has bombed and sunk dozens of boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the waters near Venezuela, killing at numerous civilians...

31.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

Andreas Kluth

Chinese diplomacy goes to the dogs — literally

My parents’ first child was a dog. Fifty years after she died, I remain convinced that she was more special to them than me. (I’m not sure I blame...

31.12.2025 50

The Japan Times

Brad Glosserman

Give Ukraine back its future

For over a decade, much of the West has been pondering how to manage Ukraine’s inevitable subordination to Russia. Yes, we’ve said we stand with...

31.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

Chrystia Freeland

Five reasons the U.S. can be optimistic about the 2026 economy

One year ago, businesses — especially CEOs — were optimistic about the U.S. economy in 2025, expecting lower taxes and more market-friendly...

31.12.2025 50

The Japan Times

Allison Schrager

Building infrastructure for the AI age

The London Underground, the world’s oldest subway system, opened in 1863. Around the same time, London’s modern sewage system was designed by civil...

31.12.2025 40

The Japan Times

Diane Coyle

Europe faces some tough wartime decisions

It is past time that Europeans get serious about Ukraine. With Russian President Vladimir Putin posing the greatest threat to European security...

31.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

Mark Leonard

Gambling with the dollar’s future

Notwithstanding some ups and downs, the U.S. dollar has been the uncontested global reserve currency since the end of World War II. That status has...

31.12.2025 40

The Japan Times

Carmen M. Reinhart

What exactly does ‘off the record’ mean in Japan?

One of the most closely followed news stories in Japan this month was the so-called off-the-record nuclear armament remarks made by a senior...

30.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

Kuni Miyake

The positive climate news you may have missed this year

So much climate news comes out in any given week that it can be hard to keep up with it all. Much is gloomy, but there are positive developments...

30.12.2025 70

The Japan Times

David Fickling

Memo to liberal democracies: Beware ‘security autism’

In the hushed corridors of Tokyo’s security establishment, a taboo has been broken. For the first time since 1967, serious strategists are openly...

30.12.2025 70

The Japan Times

Stephen R. Nagy

Here’s the bad climate news you missed this year

It might have seemed in 2025 that every piece of bad news for the global climate and energy transition had some sort of connection to President...

30.12.2025 10

The Japan Times

David Fickling

Multilateralism is not dead yet

With conflicts raging in some 50 countries, tariff wars becoming the new (abnormal) norm, and global economic growth falling to its slowest pace in...

30.12.2025 50

The Japan Times

Gordon Brown

Asia adrift, Asia alone

Not since the Vietnam War has security in Asia seemed so fragile. By the time the United States withdrew after a decade of combat in Indochina, an...

29.12.2025 70

The Japan Times

Akihisa Nagashima

Takaichi, Mario, baseball and the Year of the Fire Horse

Every year, the Japanese public votes for a single Chinese character to sum up the past 12 months. In 2025, that was the kanji for "bear,” after...

29.12.2025 70

The Japan Times

Gearoid Reidy

The world is failing Cambodia (again) — and this time everyone is suffering

For years, it has been fashionable to describe Cambodia as stuck: locked in authoritarian stasis, impervious to pressure, immune to meaningful...

29.12.2025 8

The Japan Times

Jacob Sims