History is replete with examples in which one side won a war and benefited from doing so, but it also includes examples like the First World War, in which all sides lost far more than they gained. Two years into the Russia-Ukraine War, it is apparent that this conflict will be counted among the latter cases.
You might have heard the big news last month about Karolina Shiino, a Ukrainian-born Japanese citizen who won the title of Miss Japan. You have also heard earlier this month that she lost her crown due to allegations of her having an affair with a married man.
Tucker Carlson has been evolving into someone whose foreign policy views now run parallel with some tenets of the anti-imperialist left, even if his conclusions have sprung from a different intellectual and moral path.
The notion that non-Western powers might band together to resist the depredations of Europe and the United States has been around since the late 19th century, but only now has the power balance shifted to a sufficient degree that the era of Western global dominance is actually coming to an end.
The limited impact of economic sanctions on Russia represents an additional data point proving that the West, even when relatively united, no longer rules the world. Indeed, its losing streak in major 21st century military conflicts continues unbroken, and it serially overestimates its ability to shape global affairs.
Across the ideological spectrum, a consensus is emerging: Fumio Kishida is unlikely to last another year as prime minister, and even now, he is only lingering on because no credible and attractive alternative has appeared.
Recent polling indicates that supporters of the US Democratic Party are now far more likely to support an interminable war in Ukraine than either Republicans or independents.
Unable to reconcile the demands of its US security alliance with its long-stated diplomatic position in support of international law, the Japanese government has opted to pretend that it doesn’t really know what is happening in the Gaza Strip.
The US political and media establishment is beginning to wake up to the fact that, having lost the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, it is now on the path toward losing its proxy war in Ukraine as well.
Japan plans to massively increase its defense budget over the next four years, climbing into the ranks of the highest-funded national militaries. Depending on developments–and future currency exchange rates–there is even the possibility that Japan could soon rank as the No. 3 military in the world as measured by its budget.
