Ralph Cossa - The Japan Times

December 22, 2024

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Ralph Cossa

COMMENTARY / World

Mar 13, 2017

Dealing with Pyongyang

Any new U.S. policy approaches or initiatives must await the selection of a new South Korean president, and must then be closely coordinated with Seoul and Tokyo.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Nov 29, 2016

Divining the new U.S. Asia policy

Experience tells us to discount at least half of what is said during presidential campaigns. The challenge is predicting correctly which half to discount.

Japan Times

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 1, 2016

Here we go again with North Korea

The international community should agree upon the consequences of the next North Korean provocation, so that the next action brings it together rather than provides yet another opportunity for Pyongyang to divide and conquer.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Nov 9, 2015

Weighing Japan's options in the South China Sea

Rather than send Japanese ships to conduct freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea, Japan should continue to focus its efforts on maritime capacity building in Southeast Asia.

COMMENTARY / Japan

Jun 1, 2015

Abe and history: What's next?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe needs to dramatically and definitively address the 'comfort women' issue head on.

COMMENTARY / World

Dec 19, 2013

Hope for reform in North Korea may have died

The chances of Deng Xiaoping-styled reform in North Korea may have just died along with the regimes No. 2 leader, Jang Song Thaek.

COMMENTARY / World

Feb 8, 2013

Breaking past the tired old plot with Pyongyang

Stop me if you've heard this one before. North Korea decides, for whatever reason, that it is time to once again challenge the international community by conducting missile and nuclear tests. It announces a "satellite launch" and proceeds, despite international condemnation and warnings of dire consequences,...

COMMENTARY / World

Jan 23, 2013

Kim's second test is Xi's first

North Korea's new supreme leader Kim Jong Un conducted two missile tests last year. The first, in April, failed. The second, in December, was by all accounts a huge success. But it was not just a test of North Korea's ability to put an object into space. Kim's second test was also the first test of the...

COMMENTARY

Sep 8, 2012

Tokyo-Seoul: enough is enough!

Enough is enough! Obviously, the political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul never learned about the First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in one, stop digging. Each side seems to be going out of its way to make a bad situation worse, even while providing private assurances that it won't let the situation...

COMMENTARY

Aug 3, 2012

Pushing Seoul-Tokyo forward

There is an old Russian proverb that applies to current Japan-South Korea (ROK) relations: "Forget the past and lose an eye; dwell on the past and lose both eyes!"

COMMENTARY

Mar 24, 2012

China must rein in N. Korea

Now what? Just when we thought things were getting better, North Korea pulled the rug out from under everyone, including itself, by announcing a planned satellite launch to commemorate Great Leader Kim Il Sung's 100th birthday celebration.

COMMENTARY

Mar 9, 2012

Breakthrough is close, again

The recent "food for freeze" agreement between the United States and North Korea has been described accurately by the State Department as reflecting "important, if limited, progress" and inaccurately by the media as constituting a "breakthrough" in the seemingly endless march toward Korean Peninsula...

COMMENTARY / World

Jul 27, 2011

U.S. nukes to South Korea?

Support for the U.S.-South Korea alliance has never seemed stronger in South Korea. The two countries appear to be in lock step when it comes to dealing with the North and their two presidents seem to genuinely like and respect one another, thus permitting an unprecedented level of trust and cooperation....

COMMENTARY

Sep 1, 2010

Not China's coastal waters

Would someone please provide the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) spokesman with a map! Over the last few months, since it was rumored, then denied, and then confirmed that the George Washington aircraft carrier would be involved in naval "show of force" maneuvers off the west coast of South Korea,...

COMMENTARY

Apr 20, 2010

Between the lines of U.S. nuclear policy

HONOLULU — I have attended a number of discussions in recent years about U.S. nuclear weapons strategy and policy. All invariably begin with a presentation by a U.S. official or expert who proclaims that the United States, in the past decade, has significantly reduced the role and importance of nuclear...

COMMENTARY

Jan 7, 2010

Obama on track in Asia

With one exception, U.S. relations with East Asian countries are better today than when the Obama administration took office. This is no small accomplishment since the Bush administration left Asia in good shape.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2009

Taiwan poll's weight overhyped

HONOLULU — Voters in Taiwan went to the polls in 17 counties and cities recently to elect mayors and magistrates. The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party won 12 of the 17 seats and enjoyed an overwhelming victory in elections of county and city councilors and township chiefs. The opposition Democratic Progressive...

COMMENTARY

Sep 12, 2009

DPP scoring political points at Taiwan's expense

What's going on in Taiwan? A year ago, there were serious concerns about the viability of Taiwan democracy. The Nationalist Party (KMT) had achieved an overwhelming majority with a sweeping victory in Legislative Yuan elections and had regained the presidency as a result of a landslide victory by its...

COMMENTARY

Jun 4, 2009

The path with North Korea

What is North Korea up to? Is it trying to undermine the six-party talks in order to force Washington to deal with Pyongyang directly, as some experts claim? Or, as others maintain with equal certainty, is it sending a signal that it is not interested in talks at all, given current domestic political...

COMMENTARY

Apr 22, 2009

Nuclear disarmament: too much, too soon?

There is no country on Earth more committed to global nuclear disarmament than Japan. Ever since experiencing firsthand the horrors of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese government and people have been steadfast in calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons from the planet....

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By Alex K.T. Martin

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