“Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told an international security gathering in Singapore, a catchphrase that speaks to the harsh lessons learned over the past few months.
Better deterrence and response capabilities, he told a room packed with defense officials and diplomats, is “absolutely essential if Japan is to learn to survive in the new era and keep speaking out as a standard-bearer of peace.”
Cranking up rhetoric, though, is the easy part.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has jolted the pacifist nation into making bigger promises on spending, security and a foreign policy that relies on