United States

The United States of America (USA or U.S.A.), commonly known as the United States (US or U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federation of 50 states, which also includes a federal capital district (Washington, D.C.), and 326 Indian reservations. Outside the union of states, it asserts sovereignty over five major unincorporated island territories and various uninhabited islands. The country has the world's third-largest land area, second-largest exclusive economic zone, and third-largest population, exceeding 334 million. [w]

2024年06月22日

Japan Self Defense Forces Increasing Collaboration With Foreign Militaries

Shimpei Kawakami from Nikkei:

European countries are sending more air and sea forces to Asia for defense exercises with Japan, bringing them closer to what remains a distant security challenge: China.

A destroyer from Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force held an exercise with a Turkish navy corvette on Sunday. Earlier this month, a Dutch frigate participated in the Netherlands' first joint exercise with an MSDF destroyer before heading to the upcoming U.S.-led international Rim of the Pacific exercise off Hawaii.

Regardless if anyone will say it out loud, but Japan is clearly a hub for a greater Pacific alliance of western nations against China, Russia, and North Korea. The real question is if Abe's dream of expanding the SDF into a military will become reality within this framework.

2024年06月21日

Japan Back on US Currency Manipulator List

From The Mainichi:

It is the first time since June last year for Japan to be on the "monitoring" list. In its biannual report to Congress, the department also placed six other economies on the list -- China, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Back on the naughty step.

2024年06月19日

Exhibition About Nurses in Battle of Okinawa Touring Internationally

From Kyodo:

The story of a group of young women who were drafted from high school to the front lines of the Battle of Okinawa as Imperial Japanese Army nurses is being told through a traveling exhibition, with the many who tragically died serving as a lesson on the horrors suffered by Japanese civilians in the conflict.

Personal stories about civilians in a horrendous battle overshadowed by the atomic bombings just a few months later.

2024年06月18日

US Marine Relocation to Guam to Start at Year's End

From Kyodo:

The transfer of U.S. Marine Corps troops stationed in Japan's Okinawa to Guam will start in December, a Marines official said Sunday, the latest development in a long-agreed Japan-U.S. forces realignment plan aimed at reducing the southern island prefecture's base-hosting burden.

The plan to move 4,000 of the approximately 19,000 Marines currently in Okinawa, agreed upon in 2012, is set to be completed by around 2028, according the Congressional Research Service and other sources.

About 50 years too late and it is only a small portion of the total military based in Okinawa, but it will be a welcome improvement.