Analysis: Trump, Iran, and an international order in disarray
International politics expert Fujiwara Kiichi explains how unpredictable US policy and fracturing global consensus could mean the world is sleepwalking towards war.
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NHK
6 hours ago
- NHK
Analysis: Trump, Iran, and an international order in disarray
International politics expert Fujiwara Kiichi explains how unpredictable US policy and fracturing global consensus could mean the world is sleepwalking towards war.
NHK
14 hours ago
- NHK
Japan, US companies in Russia eye post-conflict opportunities
Japanese and US companies operating in Russia held talks on Wednesday to discuss what the future might hold beyond the conflict in Ukraine. The Japanese Business Club and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia hosted the event in Moscow. Russian officials were among those mingling with business leaders. Japanese Business Club Owatari Kozo said, "The public and private sectors need to consider joint efforts with an eye on future changes in the situation in Russia." The US group signaled cause for optimism, pointing to dialogue that President Donald Trump recently launched with Moscow. American Chamber of Commerce in Russia Robert Agee said, "We've been encouraged by the renewed US-Russia dialogue which completely stopped during the previous administration." The Japanese group cited a recent survey of about 130 member companies. The results show 63 percent regard Russia as an important market. But 78 percent said doing business there holds risks for a company's reputation.
Japan Times
15 hours ago
- Japan Times
NATO spending deal creates new standard — for Indo-Pacific allies
NATO countries have pledged to spend big on defense, and while this move may largely appear to be a European issue, its consequences could ultimately play out in the Indo-Pacific. Members of the world's largest military alliance on Wednesday agreed on a spending target of 5% of gross domestic product by 2035, effectively enabling the U.S. military to shift more strategic attention and military resources to the region as it zeroes in on containing China. But Washington's aspired pivot to the Indo-Pacific will likely only be incremental and drawn out, experts warn, as Europe moves slowly amid political fragmentation, substantial defense-industrial bottlenecks and ongoing dependence on U.S. logistical support. The two-day summit in the Netherlands, which was skipped by three leaders of NATO's four Indo-Pacific partner countries, including Japan, had one major takeaway: securing the allies' agreement to the new 5% target. The deal will see alliance members ramp up defense-related spending to a total of 5% of GDP by 2035, with 3.5% dedicated to core needs such as troops and weapons and 1.5% to security-related investments in cybersecurity, infrastructure and other areas. The hike will be a steep increase from NATO's current 2% target. No alliance member currently hits 5% — not even the United States at 3.4% — though Poland has tracked just over 4% of GDP. Pleasing Trump The move was seen by many as existential for the alliance in terms of keeping the United States engaged in NATO while enabling the allies to modernize their armed forces and improve their military capabilities to deter Russia. In doing so, the summit also seemed to help change long-held American perceptions of unfair European burden-sharing that have always bedeviled NATO and cast doubt on the credibility of the U.S. security guarantee. U.S. President Donald Trump was the first to express this, suggesting NATO was no longer a rip-off. 'It's a monumental win for the United States because we were carrying much more than our fair share. It was quite unfair actually. But this is a big win for Europe and for actually Western civilization.' France's President Emmanuel Macron (far left), NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (left), Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (center left), Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer (center), Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (center right), Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk (right) and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday | Pool / via REUTERS Given that NATO summits are mainly about displaying unity, analysts such as Paal Sigurd Hilde, from the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, point out that this year's gathering was primarily about Trump and keeping him happy. 'Having a short summit with lots of pomp and circumstance and limited substance for the leaders was clearly aimed at pleasing Trump at the same time as limiting the chance Trump would have had to cause havoc and scandal,' the expert said. 'In this sense, the summit was clearly successful: Trump is happy and U.S. commitment is secured.' As a result, there is a growing expectation that leading European powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland will take on a greater security role. Creative diplomacy But while the spending agreement was framed as historic, NATO had to resort to traditional creative diplomacy to achieve consensus, particularly after Spain threatened to opt out, in a reflection of an alliance trying to hold itself together under pressure, experts say. The language that NATO leaders approved stresses that 'allies commit' to the 5% target, rather than 'we commit' — a subtle but important linguistic tweak that gives Spain, and possibly others, the political flexibility to spend slightly less so long as it still meets NATO's capability targets for individual nations, said James Black, deputy director of defense at Rand Europe, part of the nonprofit Rand Corp. Gorana Grgic, a senior researcher in Euro-Atlantic Security at ETH Zurich's Center for Security Studies, even argues that consensus was achieved largely by deferring the specifics. NATO agreed on the 5% figure but left the details, especially around the 1.5% nontraditional portion, to be determined on a case-by-case basis, Grgic said. 'This vagueness allowed flexibility while still securing headline agreement.' Nevertheless, with an agreement now in place, alliance planners and individual allies can apply constant pressure on other member states to move closer to the 5% target. Setting a new standard This means the agreement could have knock-on effects for Japan and other U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, which Washington has said must also meet a new 'global standard' of spending 5% of GDP on defense. 'The U.S. will almost certainly use the latest NATO deal to up defense spending pressure on the IP4 countries (Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand),' said Nate Fischler, Asia-Pacific analyst at U.S.-based geopolitics and intelligence firm RANE. 'A standard for U.S. allies has now been established, and Washington will want the IP4 to meet said standard.' U.S. President Donald Trump, flanked by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (left) and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during a news conference at the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday | AFP-jiji While countries like Japan and Australia have already pushed back, Washington is likely to keep asking for 'more equitable' burden-sharing as it wants regional allies to play a greater role in countering China. The U.S. has long indicated a desire to free up forces and resources to focus more on the Indo-Pacific theater to deter any future aggression from China, and this is no different under the Trump administration. In this context, the NATO spending deal marks an important step in this direction as it will strengthen Europe's own capabilities to counter Russia, including against Ukraine. However, experts warn that this transition will take time as Europe is likely to move slowly for a number of reasons, including political fragmentation and their short-to-mid-term dependency on a number of cutting-edge U.S. technologies and capabilities. 'The actual pace will depend on how quickly European allies can credibly assume more of the deterrence burden,' Fischler said, noting that Washington cannot yet meaningfully disengage from the transatlantic theater. Pivot will take time Any intensification of U.S. focus on China will be incremental, constrained by competing obligations and assurances that regional allies as well as front-line partners like Taiwan and the Philippines are willing and able to share the load, he added. It will also depend on whether Washington can maintain its focus on Asia and avoid being strategically distracted in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rand Europe's Black has a similar view, arguing that in the short-term, the increase in European defense spending and capabilities will not radically change the equation for U.S. defense planners. What it will do is enable the Pentagon to continue shifting its focus toward deterring China, especially in terms of how it thinks about posturing its air and maritime forces, and its high-value assets. Longer-term, a more capable and resilient European pillar within NATO would be better able to deter and, if necessary, defeat Russia without needing as much American support, Black said. This would reduce the risk that the U.S. might be pulled into a global conflict involving simultaneous threats from Russia, China and Iran in different parts of the world. That said, not all experts are convinced that drawing clear lines between European and Indo-Pacific allies' security responsibilities is the best way forward. They argue that such an approach would fail to utilize the force-multiplying power of allies working across regions. 'The U.S. would be stronger making its allies work cross-regionally rather than in a regionally-siloed way,' Grgic said. After all, Washington's rivals are 'connecting across theaters' as highlighted in the deepening cooperation between Russia and China and Russia and North Korea, she added.
