Japan To The Rescue? Kissing Biden. Acceleration. General Milque Toast.

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 Will Western Democracies ultimately be saved by a war like Japanese Dynasty which once worshipped an emperor?

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Global Tensions Spur a Sea Change in Japan

By Walter Russell Mead

Riots in China, deepening war in Ukraine, continuing upheavals in Iran: It’s been a dramatic week in world affairs. But the quiet revolutions sometimes matter more. Japan is one of the stablest countries on earth, and there are no crowds in the streets as bureaucrats shuffle papers and write reports.

Nevertheless, what is in those reports will have a massive impact on world politics—and could well determine the outcome of the U.S.-China competition.

Germany’s Zeitenwende, or historical turning point—the abandonment of appeasement as the basis of Russia policy and a shift toward greater military spending—has received more attention. But as I learned on a recent visit to Tokyo, the shifts taking place in Japan go further and rest on a wider consensus than anything happening in Berlin.

The pandemic years saw a steady increase in political and military tension in Japan’s neighborhood. Fiery rhetoric from China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats was frequently aimed at Japan. North Korea stepped up its missile program. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked a public firmly committed to the post-World War II framework of international law based on the United Nations Charter. China’s support of Russia’s invasion stunned Japanese observers and drove home the danger that China could launch an attack on Taiwan.

A new national-security strategy is expected to be released before the end of the year, and Japanese and foreign observers alike expect it to be a scorcher. Japan is on course to double defense spending, embrace “counterstrike” weapons that would give Japan-based missiles the ability to strike targets on mainland Asia, develop a world-class arms industry based on cutting-edge technology, and upgrade its self-defense forces into one of the world’s most powerful militaries.

Japan turned a corner during the past three years. Public opinion, once resolutely pacifist, has shifted. Polls now show more than 60% support for higher military spending. Officials who previously sought to avoid characterizing China as a threat now speak candidly about the need to counter China and, if necessary, to defend Taiwan. Diplomats and military analysts agree that Chinese control of Taiwan and the surrounding waters would seriously damage Japan’s global position. Several people told me that China’s next step after occupying Taiwan would be to press claims to Okinawa. Others said that control over Taiwan and the surrounding waters would give China a strategic chokehold on trade routes vital to Japan.

Many expected Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in the Diet, to embrace a less activist course than his predecessor, Shinzo Abe. But in part because of his previous reputation as a dove, Mr. Kishida has so far pushed the envelope further while encountering less resistance than Abe’s sometimes brash approaches. Even traditional pacifists like longtime Liberal Democratic Party coalition partner Komeito have softened their opposition to a stronger military.

What happens in Tokyo matters. Japan is America’s single most important ally, and the strategic bond between the two powers is the foundation of America’s position in the Indo-Pacific. Japan’s decision to double down on its American alliance while building up its own capabilities is a major setback for China’s effort to reshape East Asia. In the Philippines and Southeast Asia, Japanese investment and trade help counter China’s economic power. Japanese diplomacy, less hectoring and more culturally sensitive than America’s sometimes abrasive preaching on issues like human rights, is often more effective in Asian capitals. The steady development of closer Japanese relations with India and Australia has been a major factor behind the rapid evolution of the Quad.

Much remains to be done. Japanese-Korean relations, despite some improvements under South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, remain difficult. Japan itself, with a stagnant economy and the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, will be hard put to sustain the necessary military buildup.

But at this point it is the U.S. that must do more to secure the peace of East Asia. Given the long military supply lines across the Pacific and the likely difficulty of providing supplies if hostilities break out, the U.S. should position substantial quantities of weapons and supplies in the region. American as well as Taiwanese and Japanese officials told me that current stockpiles are woefully insufficient.

Beyond that, Washington still needs a regional economic strategy. Expanding economic integration between the U.S. and friendly Asian economies is an essential dimension of any long-term policy for the Indo-Pacific.

America’s unique ability to attract powerful allies around the world remains critical to our national security and the values we cherish. The Japanese strategic awakening is historic, and Americans should do everything we can to support it.

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Biden kisses another dictator.

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Biden’s Man in Venezuela

The U.S. eases sanctions on Maduro in return for political promises.

By The Editorial Board

In negotiating with oil-producing dictators, the Biden Administration has a consistent strategy: Make concessions in hope the other side will return the favor. It hasn’t worked with Iran, and now the White House is trying with the thugs who run Venezuela. What could go wrong?

The U.S. lifted Trump-era sanctions on Caracas over the weekend, renewing a license for Chevron to pump oil again in its joint ventures with the state-owned oil company PdVSA. The U.S. will also unfreeze $3 billion in Venezuelan assets for what it says will be “humanitarian” needs. In exchange, dictator Nicolás Maduro is promising to negotiate free and fair elections in talks with the opposition in Mexico City.

Venezuela once produced 3.4 million barrels of oil a day and was the richest nation in Latin America. But two decades of socialism have degraded petroleum infrastructure and exiled human capital. PdVSA now pumps fewer than 700,000 barrels a day, and Mr. Maduro relies on narcotics trafficking to pay his military.

Mr. Maduro wants to produce more oil, and the Biden Administration also wants more oil to replace Russian supplies reduced by the Ukraine war. Easing permitting rules on U.S. federal land offends the Democratic Party’s climate donors. So the Administration has gone hat in hand to OPEC and the Saudis and now Venezuela. It’s mind-boggling to see the U.S. go begging to dictators when the U.S. has huge untapped reserves.

Oil analysts say that even with new licenses Venezuelan output is unlikely to increase by more than about 0.2% of world demand in the next year or two. So the Administration now says the sanctions relief for Caracas is unrelated to oil and instead is a carrot for talking with the opposition about returning to democracy.

Venezuela has made similar overtures before, only to rig the next election. Why would Mr. Maduro change now that he has the sanctions concessions he wants? The opposition is going along more or less because it has few other options, and the U.S. made an offer it couldn’t refuse.

The U.S. says Venezuela won’t benefit because the oil license stipulates that Chevron may not pay taxes or royalties to Venezuela or dividends to PdVSA and must sell the oil in the U.S. market. But there is sure to be leakage in a joint venture majority-owned by the regime. PdVSA will use the oil shipments to repay the hundreds of millions of dollars it owes Chevron, which will reduce Venezuelan debt. The $3 billion in unfrozen assets is supposed to go to a fund managed by the United Nations, but the money will help the regime sustain itself in power.

The deal welcomes Mr. Maduro back to the world community as a respectable ruler rather than a rogue who has impoverished his country and unleashed millions of refugees on his neighbors. The U.S. says the six-month lease with Chevron won’t be renewed if Mr. Maduro doesn’t negotiate in good faith with his opponents. Maybe if Texas declared itself to be a dictatorship, President Biden would negotiate and allow more U.S. oil production.

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Recently, Jason Riley, whose writing and thinking I admire, wrote the attached Op Ed.  My response is,  if the four biggest cities in our nation now have black mayors, based on empiric evidence,  America's continued decline will accelerate.

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Black Mayors in the Four Biggest Cities. Is That a ‘Big Deal’?

Ethnic political clout may be more of a hindrance than a boon when it comes to economic success.

By Jason L. Riley

When Karen Bass is sworn in next month as the new mayor of Los Angeles, the nation’s four largest cities will be led by blacks simultaneously for the first time.

Ms. Bass, a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, joins Eric Adams, who became New York’s second black mayor in January; Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who took office in 2019; and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who was first elected in 2015 and is now serving in his second term. Like most black voters, all four are Democrats, but liberals are celebrating more than another partisan victory.

A widely held view on the left is that racial and ethnic political clout is essential to a minority group’s economic advancement. “When you have the top four cities at the table, with the administration, I think that the conversation is definitely going to land where it needs to be,” said Phyllis Dickerson, CEO of the African American Mayors Association, in an interview with CNN. Frank Scott, the mayor of Little Rock, Ark., and president of AAMA, was similarly optimistic in his comments to Politico. “Anytime we get a new mayor, it’s exciting,” he said. “But to have another mayor, a black woman, who’s going to lead one of our nation’s major cities? That’s a big deal.”

Historically, however, more black political clout hasn’t been a big deal, if the measure is black upward mobility. Black leaders increased their focus on electing more black officials following passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since 1970, the number of black elected officials has grown from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000. Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967, the same year Richard Hatcher was elected in Gary, Ind. In 1973, Tom Bradley won in Los Angeles and Coleman Young won in Detroit. “From 1967 to 1993 blacks were elected mayor in eighty-seven cities with a population above 50,000,” the political historian Michael Barone wrote in “The New Americans.”

Nearly all these black elected officials were liberal Democrats who enacted policies—higher taxes, more government spending, a larger welfare state—similar to their white counterparts. In addition, they pushed for racial quotas and set-asides for minority city contractors. Nevertheless, political integration didn’t translate into a boon for the black underclass. The well-connected did fine, but the black poor became poorer.

In Coleman Young’s Detroit, the focus was on securing federal grants to provide government jobs for black supporters. Meanwhile, crime rates exploded, the tax base fled the city, and Detroit’s population fell from about 1.5 million to less than one million on Young’s watch. Marion Barry’s Washington in the 1980s likewise featured government preferences for minorities, bloated city payrolls, high crime and a declining population. Between the late 1960s and the early 1990s—a period that includes not only the proliferation of black elected officials but also massive expansions of the welfare state and the implementation of racial preferences—incomes for the poorest blacks fell at more than double the rate of comparable whites.

Anyone familiar with the experience of other ethnic groups, such as the Irish, won’t be surprised that black political influence—including the election of a black president—hasn’t translated into more black socioeconomic advancement.

No other ethnic group enjoyed greater political success in the U.S. than the Irish of the mid-19th through early 20th centuries. Irish political machines controlled cities in the Northeast (New York, Philadelphia), the Midwest (Chicago, Milwaukee) and the West Coast (San Francisco). Yet during this period not much of an Irish-American middle-class existed. Despite their political prowess, the Irish were the slowest to rise economically of the European ethnic groups. Notably, it wasn’t until the decline of these patronage machines beginning in the 1940s that an Irish-American middle class emerged.

“Well into the twentieth century, Irish-Americans lagged behind the national average in income and wealth,” Mr. Barone wrote. “The prevalent attitude that the larger society was illegitimate produced high crime rates and predatory political machines that worked against upward mobility and economic growth. It also produced low levels of educational achievement, which sharply limited opportunity.” Thanks largely to the efforts of nongovernment entities—the Catholic Church, temperance societies, charitable organizations—that mindset changed. Today, Irish-American poverty rates are far below the national average, while incomes are far above it.

Two centuries of enslavement and another century of Jim Crow obviously make the black experience in America unique, but that doesn’t mean no lessons can be drawn from the experiences of others. One lesson is that cultural habits can change. Another is that the development of attitudes, skills and behaviors conducive to economic advancement is far more important for lagging groups than electing people who share their racial or ethnic background.

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How can one maintain confidence in a military run by a general whose behaviour and words are synonymous with milque toast?

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Americans Are Losing Trust in the Military

The rise of woke politics has undermined public confidence in the brass.

By The Editorial Board

The current era is marked by fading trust in U.S. institutions, but confidence in one pillar has held up: the military. But now even that is eroding, and the question is whether the brass will get the message.

The Reagan Institute releases an annual survey of public attitudes on national defense, and this year only 48% reported having “a great deal of confidence” in the U.S. military in results first detailed here. That’s down from 70% in 2018, and within the margin error of last year’s 45%.

This is consistent with other surveys. Pew Research this year noted a 14-point drop since 2020 in Americans who said they had a great deal of confidence in the military to act in the public’s interest.

The Reagan poll asked Americans what is driving the decline. It isn’t the ability to carry out missions or win in a fight. It is “things going on outside the core competencies of the military,” says Reagan’s Roger Zakheim. “Call it politicization, call it wokeness,” but that’s where “you can connect the dots.”

Some 62% said “military leadership becoming overly politicized” reduced their confidence some or a great deal. That includes trust in civilians who give the orders. Americans offered some of the worst ratings for decisions made by Presidents, and the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan comes to mind.

Some 52% also had reduced confidence in uniformed officers. Half cited “so-called ‘woke’ practices undermining military effectiveness.” Some of these episodes—a brouhaha over maternity flight suits—are overblown. But others are revealing: An admiral suggested last year that to increase diversity the Navy should consider reviving the practice of looking at photos in promotion boards—i.e., to make decisions based explicitly on race.

General Mark Milley’s speech to Congress last year that he wanted to understand “white rage,” in response to reasonable inquiries about whether cadets at West Point should be learning critical race theory, was a lapse in judgment. Many Americans think the military is no longer an institution that runs on excellence, merit and individual submission to a larger cause.

The Pentagon denies this is a problem, but it surely is if half the public believes it. The military relies on young Americans to sign up amid many other career opportunities. Fewer are doing so. Americans on the left have their own reasons for declining confidence in the military: 46% cited right-wing extremism, even though this scourge has been wildly overstated.

This drop in confidence comes at an ominous moment, as the public seems to know. Some 75% in the Reagan survey viewed China as an enemy, up from 55% in 2018, and the percentage of those worried about Russia has doubled. Some 70% are concerned China might invade Taiwan within five years, and 61% support increasing the U.S. military’s Pacific footprint.

The good news is that these trends can be reversed, as they were in the years after Vietnam. As GOP Rep. Mike Gallagher put it to us, the poll is helpful in narrowing “what our failures are,” and it isn’t the rank-and-file or even the equipment. “Ukraine has been one long advertisement for American weapons systems.” But “it seems to be the leadership.”

Americans want their military to focus on preventing or winning the next war, not on serving the latest political fashion.

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