Japan – The Scholar's Stage

Fear the First Strike

18 June, 2021Dogs of War, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

The closing days of the First World War gave birth to modern combat. Previous to these developments, advances in firepower made titans of the trenchworks. For four years the trenches were assaulted: for four years storms of steel mowed all offensives down. But as the war reached its end tactics were developed to storm through the gauntlet. Stephen Biddle has called these tactics, and what evolved out of them, “the modern system of battle.” The closing developments of the 1918 made offensives possible again—but the playing field remained tilted towards the defender.

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All Measures Short of a Cross Straits Invasion

03 March, 2021Dogs of War, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

Much of what I have written about Taiwan defense issues assumes that the primary challenge facing Taiwanese forces and their allies is defeating (and thus deterring) a proper amphibious invasion. Two recent reports argue—convincingly, I think—that this assumption is wrong. In his testimony to Congress a few weeks ago, former DIA analyst Lonnie Henley asks […]

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Do Not Choose Susan Rice

19 November, 2020Bargaining and Balancing, Entangling Alliances, Japan, Southeast Asia, The Middle Kingdom

Image source There is a grand tradition in American politics of bashing the other side’s nominees. In the spirit of that tradition, I have a new piece out in the American Conservative that questions whether Susan Rice is fit to be the Biden administration’s nominee for Secretary of State. Rice is a controversial figure for […]

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Japan’s Achilles Heel?

06 May, 2020Bargaining and Balancing, Dogs of War, Japan

Infographic from the International Gas Union. Two months ago I wrote a post with the title “Losing Taiwan Means Losing Japan.” It described how the loss of Taiwan to the PRC would put Japan in a geopolitically untenable position, as the PLA Navy would then be capable of choking Japan into submission if conflict ever […]

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Losing Taiwan Means Losing Japan

26 February, 2020Japan, Military Affairs, The Middle Kingdom

Image Source The United States could bounce back from the fall of Taiwan to Communist rule. It would have far more dire consequences for Japan. Consider this post a short, informal primer on why this is so. Ian Easton explains the PLA’s view: The Course Book on the Taiwan Strait’s Military Geography is a restricted-access […]

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At What Point is Defending Japan No Longer Worth It?

04 September, 2019Dogs of War, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

Image source I have a new piece out in Foreign Policy. It takes a look at the changing balance of power between Pacific Command and the PLA, with a special focus on the vulnerabilities of US Forces Japan. This section describes the problem: The threat posed by China to forces stationed in Japan is real: […]

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The Old G-2

19 May, 2016Entangling Alliances, Futuristics, Japan, Wealth

Image Source. On the recommendation of Tyler Cowen I picked up Taggart Murphy’s book Japan and the Shackles of the Past. This book has impressed me; there are enough interesting ideas in it to make up several different posts. But today I’ll limit myself to one thought provoking excerpt: By the fall of 1989, all this […]

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Why Do We Know So Little About China’s WWII?

12 February, 2016Dogs of War, History, Japan, The Middle Kingdom

Japanese soldiers approach the walls of Nanjing By Sweeper tamonten,China Incident Photograph Album, Vol 2, published in 1938 by Asahi Shimbun., Public Domain, accessed at Wikimedia Commons. In a recent column Peter Harmsen asks “Why do we know so little about China in World War Two?” To quote: We know hardly anything about the war in […]

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How to Be a History Blogger

06 February, 2016History, Japan, Narrative

By unknown photographer, 1934 — original calligraphy of Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1604 via Wikimedia Commons There are a few times and places in human history whose events are so dramatic, characters so colorful, and dilemmas so tragic that I weep to think that William Shakespeare never heard of them. I get all misty eyed because I […]

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East Asian Military History – A Few Historiographical Notes

18 December, 2015Dogs of War, History, Japan, Korea, Narrative, The Middle Kingdom

Recently the Samurai Archives devoted a few episodes of their podcast to dissecting the relationship between military history and Japanese studies. The lead discussant on the program is Nathan Ledbetter, who blogs once a year or so at Sengoku Field Manual but comments regularly at the Samurai Archives forums. In these episodes his focus is […]

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Category Archives: Japan