Threats from North Korea

North Korea's fat little dictator is threatening Japan. Read and view more here.

A visit to Japan

Bookworm has just returned from a visit to Japan. She writes about it and supplies some photos. Her last two paragraphs:

Japan is such a high functioning society. It’s clean, well-organized, hard-working, polite, beautiful, productive, safe, and harmonious. In each of those ways, it really is an apex of civilization.

There are downsides, of course: A stifling conformity (or at least stifling by American standards), a high suicide rate, the seemingly sad and almost desperate lives of salarymen, the weird sexlessness of Japanese life, and, perhaps as a consequence of that sexlessness, a dramatic population decline. Still, comparing these problems to the poverty, dirty, despair, crime, violence, etc., found in so many other parts of the world . . . well, I think Japan comes off looking pretty darn good.

Read the whole thing here.

North Korea fires missile over Japan

Fox News reports on North Korea's firing of an unidentified missile over northern Japan today.

North Korea fired a missile over Japan for the first time in eight years, the Pentagon confirmed on Monday, as the rogue nation sent a message of defiance to the U.S. and its allies in the region.

"We are still in the process of assessing this launch. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America. We are working closely with Pacific Command, Strategic Command and NORAD and will provide an update as soon as possible," the Pentagon said.

A senior U.S. official said that there had been some movement suggesting an intermediate missile was being prepped.

The South Korean military said the missile flew about 1,700 miles with a height of 341 miles. That's lower than the 2,300 miles into space an intercontinental ballistic missile traveled in late July. North Korea’s July 4 ICBM traveled some 1,700 miles into space.

The missile was fired from the area of Sunan in Pyongyang shortly before 6 a.m. and flew east, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, according to Yonhap News Agency. It traveled over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and appeared to be the first to soar over the country since 2009, South Korean officials added.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga labeled it an "unprecedented grave threat."

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said that the Japanese government alerted the public to take cover in northern areas of Japan but that the Japanese military did not attempt to intercept it.

South Korea's presidential office convened a National Security Council (NSC) session quickly after the missile was fired.

The move came after North Korea fired three short-range missiles on Saturday -- all deemed successful despite initial reports suggesting failure, according to the U.S. military.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles fired during the weekend from North Korea's eastern coast flew about 155 miles. North Korean missile launches have been happening at an unusually fast pace this year, and some analysts have said the North could have viable long-range nuclear missiles before the end of President Donald Trump's first term in early 2021.

U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military exercises last week, an effort that Pyongyang claimed was a rehearsal for war.

Japan's military has been practicing deploying anti-missile batteries at three U.S. bases in Japan. The U.S. military says the drills will test the ability of Japanese and U.S. forces to work together and assess firing locations at the bases. They will also allow Japan to practice rapid deployment of its PAC-3 anti-missile system.

Earlier this month, Trump claimed that the North would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if threats from the rogue regime continued.

North Korea has conducted a series of test launches to develop its missile capability and recently threatened to send missiles over western Japan and into waters near the U.S. territory of Guam.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had recently said that he was "pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we've not seen in the past."

Asked to address those comments on Fox News Sunday, Tillerson said he wanted to continue a "peaceful pressure campaign."

The missile was the 18th to be launched this year by North Korea. This is the third time North Korea has fired a missile over Japan. The last time was in 2009.

A missile was also fired over Japan in the 1990s.

Japan will deploy Patriot missile systems to “several” U.S. military installations in the next few days, the U.S. military said.

Trump's team can pull it off!

Sundance is optimistic about Trump being able to negotiate with Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan to convince Kim Jong Un to end his nuclear program.



Read his thoughts here.

Demographics

43 per cent of people aged 18 to 34 from the island nation of Japan say they are virgins.

And what about the United States? Ariana Eunjung Cha reports in the Washington Post,

According to provisional 2016 population data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, the number of births fell 1 percent from a year earlier, bringing the general fertility rate to 62.0 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. The trend is being driven by a decline in birthrates for teens and 20-somethings. The birthrate for women in their 30s and 40s increased — but not enough to make up for the lower numbers in their younger peers.

Read more here and here.

"United in defense of democracy and the rule of law"

Sundance asserts that TPP has a new meaning: Trump Pence Partnership! Japan's investment in America's economy stands at over $400 billion dollars. "We seek trade that is free and fair, said Pence. Pence speaks just after the 6-minute mark.

Read more here.

Japan's demographic crisis

Business Insider has seven signs that Japan faces a demographic crisis.

What to do about North Korea?

Tillerson: "We welcome Japan's increased commitment to a relationship that is fair for both of our countries. The United States calls on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missiles program. We have twenty years of a failed approach to North Korea. The level of spending the State Department has undertaken in recent years is simply not sustainable. As time goes by there will be fewer military engagements that the US is involved in. China has long stated that it also wants North Korea to develop a different approach regarding nuclear and missile programs."

Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Japan and South Korea in early February

John Hayward reports at Breitbart,

The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Japan and South Korea in early February, on his first overseas trip since confirmation.

“The trip will underscore the commitment of the United States to our enduring alliances with Japan and the Republic of Korea, and further strengthen U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea security cooperation,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis.

...CNN reports the trip is scheduled to last four days, and will include meetings with Mattis’ opposite numbers in Japan and South Korea. There are currently about 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in the former nation and 28,000 in the latter.

Read more here.

Kerry blames “nuclear weapons” — rather than Japan’s fanaticism and nihilism — for Hiroshima.

David Harsanyi writes in The Federalist about John Kerry's visit to Hiroshima and the upcoming Obama trip to Japan.

If the Obama administration is intent on historical score-keeping there’s plenty to talk about. Japan aligned itself with one of the great murderers of the 20th century (though it needed no help initiating genocide) and launched numerous invasions and a war that cost the U.S. hundreds of thousands of lives and billions in treasure, both fighting Japan and helping it create a stable, liberal state after the war.

It’s not like the Japanese have ever truly apologized for the butchery, mass rape, destruction, and aggression that made Hiroshima a reality. Has any Japanese foreign or prime minister strolled through the gut-wrenching exhibit about the Nanking massacre? The first time any Japanese official apologized for the Bataan Death March was 2009 — and then only an ambassador.

...our motto the past eight years has been, “Strength Through Moral Equivalence.”

...Now, it’s a shame evil regimes start world wars that other nations are forced to win. But without the use of atomic weapons, World War II would likely have been prolonged. I realize historians debate how many Americans would have been saved, but at the very least, Truman’s intention was not to murder civilians indiscriminately, but to end the war in the Pacific.

Most reasonable people, even those who believe a war is wrong, mishandled, or fought poorly, can probably concede that since the start of the 20th century, the U.S. does not enter into conflict with an intent to steal oil or exact revenge on civilians or to drop atom bombs for kicks. We’re far more inclined to fight wars to try to create democracies or spread freedom — however misguided and botched those efforts are sometimes. And post-war Japan is proof that Americans, unlike most other places around the world, don’t really hold grudges. So, though we are imperfect, we are not equally culpable. Not even close.

Read more here.

A passionate defense of Harry Truman

Bill Whittle has a video up at PJ Media that is a must see, explaining how the atomic bombs we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima saved millions of lives.

Is this 1939 or 2015?

Victor Davis Hanson writes in Jewish World Review to show us how Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan all first forged new empires before Hitler started World War II by invading Poland in September 1939.

The contemporary world is starting to resemble the 1930s, and maps again must be redrawn.

The Islamic State plans to take Baghdad to make it the capital of a radical Sunni caliphate from what is left of Syria and Iraq.

Its enemy, theocratic Iran, is forging its own Shiite empire. Through its proxies, Iran now effectively runs much of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. When Teheran gets a nuclear bomb, it will urge on Shiite minorities to overthrow the Sunni monarchies in the rich, oil-exporting Persian Gulf nations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks he can reconstitute the empire of the czars and the later Soviet Union. American "reset" diplomacy green-lighted his annexation of the Crimea and his occupation of areas of Ukraine. Should Putin wish to absorb Estonia or other Baltic States, NATO probably would not stop him.

China is vastly increasing its strategic air force and navy -- and reminding its neighbors from South Korea to Australia of its new military clout. It has recently instigated various territorial disputes with Japan, Malaysia the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. As a clever way to control key sea lanes and oil-rich areas in the South China Sea, the Chinese are building new military bases by turning small coral reefs into islands of sand.

Is this 1939 or 2015?

In 1945, after some 60 million had perished in World War II, the Western democracies blamed themselves for having appeased and empowered fascist empires. That sadder but wiser generation taught us two lessons: Small sacrifices now can avoid catastrophic ones later on, and dictatorial regimes on a roll never voluntarily quit playing geostrategic poker.

If the present trajectories continue, a reconfigured Middle East will be bookended by radical Islamic empires -- the Islamic State caliphate and a new Persian empire. China will control most of the Pacific and adjudicate trade, commerce and politics west of Hawaii and to the south and east of India. The client states of a new Russian empire will border central Europe and be under constant pressure to leave the EU, NATO or both.

How does all this end? One of two ways.

America and its allies can reawaken, gradually restore deterrence and re-establish the old postwar order without a global war.

Or the United States will not be bothered -- at least until this new generation of dictators bothers us at home.

Read more here.

Latest beheading

The New York Times has a headline that reads:

Video Appears to Show Decapitated Body of a Japanese Hostage of ISIS.

Read the story here.

Things not looking good for Japan

David Stockman chronicles the Keynesian folly engaged in by Japan in the 1990s:

the Keynesian disease insinuated itself, and it came naturally to a ruling party—the LDP—-that had presided over Japan’s state-driven development model of the post-war years. The machinery of Japan’s politics was all about distribution of construction, credit and corruption among the LDP’s constituencies.

After 40 years of boom and the final BOJ bubble, Japan had reached a condition of “peak debt”. Already by 1990, total credit market debt—public and private—-exceeded 350% of GDP, and by now it has soared to in excess of 500%.

Yet prodded by mainstream economists in the US government and international institutions, Japan had dismantled its tax base in one effort after another to stimulate short-term investment. Its nominal revenues consequently fell continuously for nearly two decades. There is nothing like it in developed world experience.

This untimely collapse of the savings rate will prove especially destructive for the retirement colony that comprises Japan’s demographic future. Saddled with towering public debts and rapidly shrinking work force, Japan will swiftly consume its accumulated savings as its retirement rolls soar. A decade or two down the road it will become an international pauper.

Read more here.

The decline of American power

Claudia Rosett believes that the most underreported foreign news story of 2013 is the decline of American power.

This past year saw many parts of this story covered in detail. There has been endless print about the U.S.-led diplomatic dalliance with Iran, from which Iranian officials emerged to announce their “inalienable right” to enrich uranium, while America officials advertised as an achievement a half-baked short-term nuclear deal that has been neither clarified nor implemented. Not only has the U.S. failed to stop the “unacceptable” Iranian bomb program; America has gone far to erode its own credibility in denouncing as unacceptable — yet de facto accepting — everything from rogue nuclear programs to the theft of massive amounts of information from its own National Security Agency. Where does this go?

There’s also been plenty written about the rise of Putin’s increasingly despotic and ambitious Russia — looming over Ukraine, and reasserting itself in the Middle East. This year brought the U.S. climbdown over Syria, in which the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons translated into gains for Moscow and irrelevancy for Washington. Another story was China’s territorial jockeying, along with Japan’s growing worry about the reliability of the old U.S. defense umbrella. On North Korea, there has been plenty of copy devoted to young hereditary tyrant Kim Jong Un conducting his maiden nuclear test — North Korea’s third since 2006 — while the U.S., alerted in advance, looked on.