Nuclear Latency: Deterrent or Invitation to War?

How the War in Iran Reshapes South Korea and Japan’s Nuclear Strategy

by Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America, and APP Member. 

First Published March 13, 2026 on The Peninsula.

The Iran war has delivered a verdict on nuclear latency, or the strategy of possessing the capability to develop a nuclear weapons program while stopping short of crossing the weaponization threshold. There are significant implications for Northeast Asia, as South Korea and Japan are pursuing such a strategy amid eroding confidence in U.S. extended deterrence. And both may have latent capability close enough to alarm adversaries but insufficient to deter them.

However, if nuclear latency proves to catalyze rather than prevent conflict, the foundational assumptions underpinning nonproliferation strategy require a fundamental reassessment.

The Failure of Nuclear Latency in Iran

Nuclear latency is defined as having the capability to rapidly develop nuclear weapons—having the fissile material to make a bomb, the technology to construct a warhead, and the means to deliver the weapons—without crossing the threshold. In theory, nuclear latency acts effectively as a deterrent against external attack without ever paying the costs, both material and diplomatic, of acquiring nuclear weapons.

“The theory behind the threshold strategy had a certain appeal: maintain latent capability as a deterrent, avoid the diplomatic costs of overt weaponization, preserve the Supreme Leader’s fatwa against nuclear weapons, keep the door open to negotiations, and explore if you might be able to manifest non-weaponized nuclear deterrence effects of some kind,” Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Ankit Panda wrote of Iran.

But latent deterrence depends on two conditions—making your adversary believe you can rapidly cross the threshold if attacked and offering a diplomatic alternative to war. But Iran constructed what Panda described as the worst possible nuclear posture: proximate enough to a weapon to justify preventive attack, “yet unwilling to cross the threshold that might have actually prevented one.”

Parallel Paths in Seoul and Tokyo

Despite its singular historical experience as the only nation subjected to a nuclear attack, Japan has maintained a deliberate hedging strategy for decades. For example, it has a stockpile of forty-five tons of weapons-grade plutonium (eight tons of it held in Japan), the capability to enrich uranium, ballistic-missile technologies developed under its satellite-launch programs, and advanced fighter aircraft with nuclear delivery potential. A recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency observed that Japan’s latency hedges against regional threats while simultaneously functioning as diplomatic leverage against the United States—an implicit signal that weakening security guarantees could trigger rapid proliferation.

South Korea has long sought capabilities similar to Japan’s but has been thwarted by the 123 Agreement with the United States, a civil nuclear pact that restricts Korea’s ability to produce fissile material and develop potential delivery systems. The Lee Jae Myung administration is negotiating changes to the agreement, specifically regarding uranium enrichment to build nuclear-powered submarines. What was once a predominantly conservative aspiration now spans the political spectrum.

For both South Korea and Japan, the unstated driver for nuclear latency is not only the threat from China, North Korea, and Russia, but increasing doubts about the reliability of the U.S. commitment to provide extended deterrence.

“The U.S. role in the world is changing in fundamental ways as Washington takes deliberate steps away from the rules-based order that it helped build in the years following World War II,” states a joint report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, published in February 2026. “These shifts…have also yielded new questions regarding the enduring nature of the U.S. commitment to the alliance.”

The Erosion of Restraint

Historically, two forces constrained South Korean and Japanese nuclear ambitions: a credible U.S. nuclear umbrella and a U.S. non-proliferation policy that actively opposed any steps in this direction. Both of those restraints are now in question.

Extended deterrence “was never completely credible to the Japanese which is why they keep going back to ask for us to give them more assurance,” Richard Samuels, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has written extensively on this issue, told this writer. “We would be foolish to imagine that the Japanese are not having second thoughts,” Samuels warned, drawing a direct parallel to conversations in Germany and France.

Former Lieutenant General Noboru Yamaguchi, a senior government advisor, went further. “It is impossible to prove extended deterrence is valid,” he explained to this writer. “Deterrence is about how we feel. It was questionable during the Cold War. Now I don’t believe in any kind of deterrence.”

If the Donald Trump administration no longer opposes allied proliferation, as Trump himself has signaled at times, then both South Korea and Japan can move more openly down the road of a robust nuclear latency without triggering the consequence of diplomatic isolation.

“Suppose you don’t get the blowback from the Americans,” former Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory Siegfried Hecker told this writer, “that takes away a lot of the negatives for South Korea, and for Japan.”

The Window of Vulnerability

The critical question is whether adversaries might act as the United States and Israel have done and attempt to destroy South Korea and Japan’s nuclear capability before it crosses the threshold.

“At the end of the day, the people you have to convince are not the Japanese or the Koreans,” comments Professor Samuels. “The people you have to convince are the adversaries—the Chinese and the Russians. We might have been looking in the wrong place.”

Nuclear expert Panda wrote that China and Russia may initially resort to gray-zone tactics. These could include cyberattacks such as those launched against Iran previously. If the United States maintains a limited nuclear umbrella, he told this writer, they might want to stop short of the use of force.

The biggest problem will be what analysts call the “window of vulnerability,” the gap in time between when South Korea and Japan clearly move toward weaponization and when they cross that threshold. That window widens significantly if the goal is tangible deterrence that requires a survivable arsenal with submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Japan holds a substantial advantage. Hecker, a plutonium metallurgist by training with deep knowledge of China, North Korea, and Russia’s nuclear programs, assessed that Japan could direct the assembly of a uranium weapon in six months to a year. A plutonium weapon would likely take up to two years. South Korea faces a longer timeline, according to the former Los Alamos director—two-plus years to produce fissile material alone. But they may be further along in the technical research needed to construct a working weapon, Panda added.

One unconventional scenario includes a South Korea-Japan partnership where South Korea contributes weaponization expertise and Japan supplies fissile material. “It would be a marriage made in heaven,” says Panda.

Conclusion

Nuclear latency may prove to be an accelerant to precisely the conflicts it was designed to prevent. “The North Koreans may pull the Russians in to do something,” suggests Hecker, if South Korea and/or Japan move toward a weapons threshold. “China will be incensed…if there is one thing that gets the Chinese exercised, it’s Japan and a potential nuclear program,” he added.

But the question is whether policymakers in South Korea and Japan will read Iran as a cautionary tale or conclude that, with eroding alliance guarantees and a deteriorating threat environment, they have no better option.

The Russian-North Korean Alliance

For Moscow, the North Korean Alliance With Russia Takes a Turn

By: Daniel Sneider

This essay first appeared July 29, 2025 in 38 North.

The three-day visit earlier this month of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan marked a noticeable intensification of a strategic relationship between the two neighbors. The sheer trappings of the visit—from lavish treatment at newly opened resort to a tête-à-tête aboard North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s yacht—sent that message. And it was accompanied by other symbols of tightening ties, from renewed rail and air flight links to ballyhooed visits of Russian tourists to the resort and the dispatch of North Korean artificial intelligence (AI) researchers to Russia.

As a result of signing a treaty in June 2024, Lavrov told Russian reporters, “we became allies.” But now there is a “deepening of ties…rooted not only in our geographic proximity but also in our alignment on key issues,” not least on the Ukraine war and on countering American presence in the Indo-Pacific. Lavrov spoke about a “brotherhood of arms,” about Russian readiness to defend North Korea and “jointly resist the hegemonic aspirations of extra-regional players.”

While the war with Ukraine served as the catalyst for this “brotherhood,” as the North Koreans stepped up to provide Russia with crucial supplies of men and material at a moment last year when their campaign was faltering, it is by no means the only driver of their growing bilateral cooperation. Their shared mission to resist Western dominance and the mutual economic and political benefits that are forming between these two countries may serve as a cornerstone for a new world order.

Growing Russia-North Korea Cooperation

The massive transfer of North Korean weapons and the deployment of more than 11,000 troops to the Ukraine frontlines is the most visible sign of their alignment. North Korea provided a crucial influx of millions of artillery rounds as well as more than 100 ballistic missiles which have been raining down on Ukrainian cities. It is a two-way street, with sharing of Russian military technology, particularly drones, in return.

Russian oil and food flows freely, effectively nullifying the United Nations (UN) sanctions regime. This is documented in a recent detailed report on “Unlawful Military Cooperation including Arms Transfers between North Korea and Russia,” issued in late May by the 11-nation Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team.

Less strategic, but increasingly important, is the flow of North Korean workers to Russia, also in violation of UN sanctions. According to an investigative report by the émigré Russian journal “The Insider,” some “thousands of North Koreans are entering Russia, posing as students on ‘practical training,’ but instead coming to labor under slave-like conditions.” In the Russian Far East, “North Koreans are very much back,” at levels not seen since before COVID-19, according to a Russian scholar based in Vladivostok, in an email exchange.[1]

Deeper Than Arms

The illicit transfers are significant but there are other shifts in Russian policy that may be even more consequential.

Russia, once a stalwart protector the nuclear non-proliferation regime, has now nakedly endorsed the legitimacy of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, something even China has balked at doing.

Asked by Russian reporters to comment on what conclusions Pyongyang may have drawn from the US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the veteran Russian diplomat gave the nuclear status of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) a blanket approval:

The DPRK leadership drew its conclusions regarding national defence long before the recent US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is precisely because those conclusions were made in a timely manner that no serious actor contemplates a military strike against the DPRK today. Nevertheless, we are witnessing ongoing military buildup around the Korean Peninsula, driven by the United States in coordination with South Korea and Japan. We caution against the misuse of alliances and partnerships as tools of confrontation, including any efforts to direct them against the DPRK or the Russian Federation.

The technologies applied by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are a result of efforts by North Korean scientists. We respect the DPRK’s actions and understand the reasons why they carry out their nuclear programme.

While the Russians have avoided direct aid to the North Korean nuclear program, they have cleared the way to assistance and technology transfer to assist nominally civilian satellite development and launch efforts. “The provision of technologies and know-how related to the satellite program is not completely prohibited in the eyes of Russia, since the exploration of outer space, from the point of view of Russia, is the legal right of the DPRK,” wrote leading Russia Korea expert Georgy Toloraya following the Lavrov visit.

Perhaps equally important, the Russians have embraced Kim Jong Un’s policy shift toward abandonment of unification as a goal and opposition to any sustained engagement with South Korea.

“Russia has de facto recognized the legitimacy of Kim Jong-un’s concept of the existence of two separate, unfriendly states on the Korean Peninsula and the rejection of the idea of ​​the unification of Korea, under the slogan of which South Korea has been planning to absorb the North for decades,” wrote Toloraya. The relationship with Pyongyang “lays the foundation for building a new Eurasian security system.”

For Russian strategists, North Korea has now acquired a status that is similar to Belarus, its military and political ally in the West. “This is precisely how the Kremlin sees North Korea these days: as an easternmost strategic bulwark of the Russia-led anti-Western security bloc,” says Igor Torbakov, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Moscow’s backing only serves to reinforce the hardline coming out of Pyongyang toward the US, particularly their fierce rebuff of new overtures from the progressive Lee Jae Myung administration that has come to power in Seoul.

“No matter how desperately the Lee Jae Myung government may … pretend they do all sorts of righteous things to attract our attention and receive international attention, there can be no change in our state’s understanding of the enemy and they can not turn back the hands of the clock of the history which has radically changed the character of the DPRK-ROK relations,” Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, said this week.

Russia Over China

On the surface, the Russian alliance with North Korea exists in parallel, and even reinforces, the long-standing alliance with China. It may even be seen as a tripartite axis in which all three countries share a goal of reducing the American presence and in countering the security cooperation structure of South Korea, Japan and the US.

But analysts have pointed to signs that Beijing is less than happy with the burgeoning Moscow-Pyongyang ties, avoiding direct comment on them and signaling indirectly their less than enthusiastic response.

“Beijing does not want North Korea to start a war or trigger increased US military deployments to the region, even though it may see North Korea as a useful way to distract the US-South Korea-Japan alliance from its focus on the PRC,” a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War concluded. “Moscow has less interest than Beijing in maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula and may embolden North Korea to increase its bellicosity.”

Russian analysts counter that their alliance is a force for stability, not a spur to North Korean adventurism.[2] Russian assistance to North Korea’s conventional warfare capability strengthens the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region, they argue.

But Russian experts also provide support to the idea that there is a rivalry with Beijing at work.

Compared to the security ties with Russia, the long-standing alliance with China, formalized in a 1961 treaty, offers little in terms of security and is a faux alliance, argued Russian scholar Artyom Lukin from the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.

“China will likely remain Pyongyang’s main economic partner and benefactor, but there is little reason for Beijing to empower Pyongyang with large-scale military assistance,” Lukin wrote in a paper presented on July 17th to a conference at Seoul National University. “For one, Beijing does not want to antagonize Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo by transferring weapons and military-related technology to Pyongyang.”[3]

Lukin suggests that Chinese interest in North Korea as an ally is waning and that they may even abandon it in favor of South Korea.

It’s not inconceivable that Beijing might eventually conclude a Korea unified under Seoul—provided it remains friendly or at least neutral toward China—is preferable to a divided peninsula with its constant risk of major conflict. Pyongyang cannot but suspect that, sooner or later, Beijing will throw the Kims under the bus. Regardless of what is going to happen in the future, the 1961 alliance of China and North Korea has long been hollow.

The Russian scholar, a widely cited expert on geopolitics and the region, as well as US foreign policy, also points to another advantage held by Moscow—the close personal relationship between Kim Jong Un and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “Kim feels at ease with Putin, even though he shows due respect to the Russian czar,” he told the South Korean conference. “He will never be comfortable with the Chinese emperor.”

North Korean confidence in their Russian ally may have taken a hit from Moscow’s failure to come to the defense of Iran. But North Koreans may also feel this pact is much more substantial and, in any case, their nuclear capability gives them protection that Iran lacked.

Implications of the Russia-North Korea Alliance

What are the implications of the alliance for the future of the Korean peninsula? Does it make North Korea more adventurous, or more confident in its power? Does it create better conditions for Pyongyang to engage in diplomacy with the United States and Seoul? Or the opposite?

Some analysts have argued that the alliance with Russia is essentially transactional, fueled by Moscow’s need for Korean weapons and soldiers to prosecute the war in Ukraine.

“Most immediately, North Korea’s current level of trade with Russia is unlikely to last after hostilities in Ukraine end,” Andrei Lankov, a respected Russian analyst long based in South Korea, wrote in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs. “Indeed, Moscow’s financial flows to Pyongyang could wind down almost overnight. Aside from munitions, there isn’t much of a trade opportunity between the two countries; the two economies are fundamentally incompatible.”

In this view, North Korea, worried about its dependence on China, could then seek ties with the US, even South Korea, responding to overtures from both the Trump administration and the new administration in Seoul.

The deepening of ties and the Russian embrace of Kim Jong Un’s concept of a permanent division of the Peninsula, along with a dramatic reversal of their support for denuclearization, suggest otherwise. For the foreseeable future, Russia has become a backer of a status quo marked by hard lines of division globally, and in Korea. And in its most visionary terms, Russians see this as a cornerstone of their bid to create a viable alternative to the US-led international system.

As Toloraya concluded, “the Russian-North Korean alliance could become a factor in the creation of a new system of security and cooperation in Northeast Asia.”

[1] Daniel Sneider, email exchange with author.
[2] Artyom Lukin, “The New geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula and Beyond: a view from Russia,” (paper presented at Far Eastern Federal University to the CR Life Foundation Special conference “The Global Context Surrounding the Korean Peninsula and Korea’s Choice for Peace,” Seoul, Republic of Korea, July 17, 2025).
[3] Ibid.

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The Nightmare Of Trump Returns

Can Asia Manage What Is Coming?

By Daniel Sneider, Lecturer, International Policy at Stanford University, APP Member
First published in The Oriental Economist, November 7,2024
In Japanese

Donald Trump has regained power in the United States, riding a wave of fear and anti-incumbent desire for change. For Americans, it is now the greatest test of its democratic and constitutional order since the Civil War.

But for the rest of the world, it is no less a traumatic moment. The United States is now poised to retreat from its leadership of the postwar liberal order.

What does Trump’s return mean for Asia and for American allies in Japan, South Korea, and the Pacific?

Japanese and Korean leaders may be reassured by soothing words from some American security experts, including would-be advisors to Trump. Nothing will change in the Indo-Pacific under Trump, those experts counsel.

“U.S. foreign policy in this region is likely to remain constant,” Derek Grossman, a RAND specialist on Asian security and former intelligence official, wrote just before the vote in The Diplomat. Trump may be “a more transactional and unpredictable leader,” but he left alliances in the region intact. No matter what happens, he wrote ahead of the vote, “the China factor will foster the continued development of the U.S. alliance network.”

These views ignore the abundant evidence, mostly in Trump’s own words, of his intention at the end of the first term to abandon much of those alliance commitments.

As his former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and National Security advisor John Bolton documented in their memoirs, he planned to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea, to complete the unfinished bargain with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un which would leave his nuclear forces intact, and to demand massive payments from Japan to pay for the American defense role.

It also brushes past Trump’s repeated intention to impose massive across the board tariffs on foreign goods – not only aimed at China but also at allied nations in Europe and Asia.
More importantly, the idea that foreign policy in Asia can be distinct and separate from what happens elsewhere, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, is an illusion.

As Japan’s own National Security Strategy made clear, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally altered the security situation in East Asia. It has created a close military alliance between Russia, China, and North Korea, threatening the stability of the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and all of East Asia.

Trump made it repeatedly clear, as did his running mate J.D. Vance, that he intends to cut off military aid to Ukraine and push it to accept the surrender terms offered by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

He also threatened to abandon the security commitment to NATO, opening the door for Putin to retake control of parts of the Soviet empire, beginning with the Baltic states and threatening Poland.

“Trump will feel like he has an electoral mandate to do these crazier things,” predicts Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and director of Stanford University’s Institute for International Studies.

“If he wins again when it comes to things like NATO or our allies in Asia, he thinks that the American people support him in saying to Putin do whatever the hell you want. I think history shows that when we are strong, the United States of America when we exhibit peace through strength, we have more peaceful outcomes. When we signal weakness, when we try to appease dictators, that's when bad things can happen.”

Trump was constrained from pursuing those goals during his first term, in large part due to the presence of responsible figures from the Republican national security elite and by his own incompetence and unfamiliarity with the levers of power. Those restraints will no longer be present.

“In his first term, he relied on traditional Republicans to fill his foreign policy team, people like (former Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo, (former) Secretary of Defense (James N.) Mattis, (former national security advisors) H.R. McMaster and John Bolton,” McFaul told the Kyiv Independent.

“They most certainly stopped Trump from doing some of the craziest things that he proposed – pulling out of NATO being at the top of that list. What's going to be different this time around is that none of those people are going to be in the Trump administration; he's disparaged all of them.”

What about China? And North Korea?
Despite these concerns, it is assumed Trump will at least continue to see China as the principle adversary of the United States, particularly in the realm of trade and economic policy. For that reason, Japanese policymakers, and to a lesser extent those in South Korea, believe the alliances in Northeast Asia will continue to have value to a Trump administration.

Even if this is true, that does not mean smooth sailing for Tokyo, or for Seoul. It may lead to increased demands on both allies to spend vastly more on defense and to join in export controls and other curbs on trade and investment with China that would cause potentially severe consequences for their economies.

“The Trump administration is going to twist a lot of arms and they better be ready for that,” says Tobias Harris, the founder of Japan Foresight, a respected advisory organization. Trump's advisors have already pushed Japan to greatly increase its defense spending beyond the 2 percent GNP target and to be responsible for its own defense.

The Trump tariff policy may pose an even greater problem, argues Harris:

“If Trump follows through, even partially, on threats to impose off-the-board tariffs on US imports, plus significant imports on US tariffs from China and Mexico, it will have a significant, immediate impact on Japan’s largest manufacturers, prompting them to consider whether to shift manufacturing to the US, back to Japan, or to other markets. Japanese companies may also have to grapple with greater pressure from Washington on technology export controls with China, though as Trump’s vocal opposition to Nippon Steel’s bid for US Steel suggests, they will also have to navigate political and national security considerations if they opt to shift investment into the US in response to the Trump administration’s policies.”

It may be premature, however, to assume that Trump will want to line up Japan and South Korea for a grand confrontation with China. Some analysts suggest that Trump instead may opt for a grand bargain with Xi Jinping, one that could even include abandoning Taiwan.

The President-elect made several comments during the campaign about Taiwan, complaining that their firms have destroyed the U.S. semiconductor industry and questioning whether the U.S. should come to its defense.

“Making China a key target or centerpiece of his second incarnation is unnecessary and possibly unlikely,” a former senior intelligence official and long-time China hand told me.

“There is likely to be little immediate payoff for him or his minions. He will bluster, threaten tariffs, and brag about his relationship with Xi, but probably not come out swinging.”

Trump’s new primary backer, billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk, has extensive business ties in China, where over half of the company’s global car production takes place at their massive Shanghai factory.

The other target of Trump’s affection may be North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump continues to speak about his warm relationship with Kim and lament the missed opportunity to forge a peace deal with him.

That bargain was almost reached at their second summit meeting in Hanoi, but faltered due both to Kim’s overly grand demands and due to opposition from within Trump’s own administration, backed by the intervention from then Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

There will be no such resistance within the new administration. And Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru does not have any such relationship with Trump, nor is he likely to be able to create one. The most serious obstacle to a deal, one which would seal in North Korea’s nuclear capability and the missile systems that can reach Japan, may come from Kim himself.

Trump may claim Kim is waiting for him with open arms, but the North Koreans have since forged a close military alliance with Russia, marked by the deployment of 12,000 troops to the Ukraine front. An opening to North Korea would likely have to follow a Trump-Putin embrace, and even then Kim is likely to use his new power to ask for a far greater payoff from Trump.

What is more likely, however, is a breakdown in U.S.-South Korean ties, demands to renegotiate defense cost-sharing payments from Korea, and to begin withdrawal of the some 28,500 U.S. forces based there.

“Trump has given no indication he values South Korea as an ally, and quite the contrary, seems set to redefine it either through withdrawal or demanding South Korea take more responsibility for its own defense vis-a-vis North Korea as U.S. forces are reoriented to directly confront China,” Benjamin Engel of Seoul’s Dankook University told NK News.

Whither Japan?
For Japan, the shocking events in the U.S. came just after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in last month’s election, and Prime Minister Ishiba is facing the unusual task of forming a minority government. As a veteran observer of Japan put it to me, “internal political paralysis in Tokyo is limiting the ability of Japan to navigate this new, extremely dangerous situation.”

Ishiba has promptly congratulated Trump and, as one would expect, expressed hope in the continuation of the postwar security alliance as a foundation of the U.S.-Japan relationship.

But suppose Trump goes deeply down the road of undermining that alliance or even forcing an unwanted confrontation with China. In that case, Japan may be compelled to look for alternatives, including improving ties with Beijing while flattering the newly powerful American autocrat.

“Japanese are not going to end the alliance,” says Japan expert Harris. “But they are going to have to learn how to do things on their own more.”

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BIOPOLITICAL ENTANGLEMENTS: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY AND NATIONALIST IMAGINARIES OF CHINA'S GENETIC DATA TROVES. 4/22, 12:15-2:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Weatherhead Center for International Relations, Harvard University. Speaker: Abigail Coplin, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Science, Technology and Society, Vassar College.

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE WORLD: LOOKING BEYOND THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 4/22, 2:00-3:30pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Georgetown University. Speakers: Verónica Gago, Professor of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires and the National University of San Martín; Mohsin Hamid, Acclaimed British Pakistani, Author; Ece Temelkuran, Turkish Novelist, a Political Thinker, Leading Analyst; Ben Rhodes, Writer, Political Commentator, and National Security Analyst; Leonard Benardo, Senior Vice President, Open Society Foundations.

THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON’S NATO SUMMIT USIP EXPERT STUDY GROUP REPORT ON NATO AND INDO-PACIFIC PARTNERS. 4/22, 2:15-3:45pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: United States Institute of Peace. Speakers: Lise Grande, President, CEO, U.S. Institute of Peace; Kurt M. Campbell, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Mirna Galic, Chair, USIP Expert Study Group on NATO, Indo-Pacific Partners.

ENGAGING WITH SOUTHEAST ASIA: THE AMBASSADORS’ PERSPECTIVE. 4/22, 2:30-3:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Asia Society. Speakers: Hon. Marc E. Knapper, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam; The Hon. Edgard D. Kagan, U.S. Ambassador-designate to Malaysia; The Hon. Heather Variava, U.S. Ambassador to Laos.

SINO-TURKISH RELATIONS AND THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE. 4/22, 3:00-4:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: SFS Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University. Speaker: Burak Gürel, Associate Professor of Sociology, Co-director of the Center for Asian Studies at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Monday in Washington, February 6, 2017

THE MCCAIN INSTITUTE HUMAN TRAFFICKING SYMPOSIUM. 2/6, 8:30am-4:00pm. Sponsor: McCain Institute. Speakers: Molly Gochman, Artist and Creator, Red Sand Project; Ronny Marty, Council Member, U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking; Mary Mazzio, Director, I AM JANE DOE; Cindy McCain, Human Trafficking Advisory Council Chair, McCain Institute; Emanuel Medeiros, CEO, International Center for Sport Security, Europe and Latin America; Bradley Myles, Executive Director and CEO, Polaris Project; Andrea Powell, Founder and Executive Director, FAIRGirls; Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel-Civil and Human Rights, Google; Shandra Woworuntu; Council Member, U.S. Advisory Council on Human Trafficking.

RENEWING AMERICAN STRENGTH ABROAD. 2/6, 1:30-2:30pm. Sponsor: AEI. Speaker: Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), Member, Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Moderator: Frederick W. Kagan, AEI.

STRESS AND TRAUMA IN THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMUNITY. 2/6. 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsors: Una Chapman Cox Foundation; International Peace and Security Institute; Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Speakers: Amb. Charles Ries (Ret.); Beth Payne, Director, Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience, Foreign Service Institute; Rachel Karioki, Regional Team leader, office of Transition Initiatives, USAID; Andres Martinez-Garcia, Program Director, International Programs, International Peace and Security Institute.

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AN EXTRAORDINARY TIME: THE END OF THE POSTWAR BOOM AND THE RETURN OF THE ORDINARY ECONOMY. 2/6, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: History and Public Policy Program, Woodrow Wilson Center (WWC). Speaker: Marc Levinson, Independent Historian, Economics, Former Editor, Finance and Economist, The Economist, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations.

MISSING OPEC? THE UNWELCOME RETURN OF BOOM-BUST OIL PRICES. 2/6, 5:00-7:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: SAIS, Johns Hopkins. Speakers: Author Bob McNally, Crude Volatility - The History and Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices; Kevin Book, Managing Director, Clearview Energy Partners.

SUBVERSIVE AND DISRUPTIVE CHALLENGES TO U.S. ALLIANCES AND PARTNERSHIPS. 2/6, 6:00-8:00pm. Sponsor: Rethinking Seminar Series, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins. Speaker: Peter Wilson, Senior National Security Analyst, RAND Corporation. 

Three reports about Japan

1. Japan’s Payout Most Among U.S. Allies. Yomiuri Shimbun, November 16, 2016. 

        The Japanese overnment plans to ask U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider the comments he made during his campaign demanding that U.S. allies, including Japan, spend more to host U.S. forces, according to sources. Tokyo believes Japan already bears a large share of the costs. In addition to its host nation support, Japan has been sharing other expenses, including those for relocating U.S. forces. Its financial contribution comes to about ¥760 billion a year, the highest among U.S. allies, according to the Defense Ministry’s internal calculations.

According to the report [not published], Estimated Amount of Host Nation Support for Stationing U.S. Forces (in billions of US dollars)

	Japan	6.88
	South Korea	0.91
	Germany	1.7
	Italy	0.4
	Britain	0.26
	Spain	0.14
	Saudi Arabia	0.06

   

1b. New webpage created on Japanese PM website to explain GSDF’s new duties, Yomiuri, November 19, 2016         

Defense Minister Tomomi Inada issued an order on Nov. 18 assigning the new duties of “rushing to the rescue” and “joint defense of camps” to the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) troops to be sent to South Sudan for UN peacekeeping operations (PKO). In light of the uncertain security situation in South Sudan, the people are still concerned about these new duties. Therefore, the government created on the same day a special webpage on the new GSDF duties on the Kantei (Prime Minister’s Official Residence) website for the purpose of dispelling such concerns.

The new webpage uses videos, photos, and graphics to explain the significance of the SDF mission in South Sudan and details of the new duties. In answer to concerns about increased risks faced by SDF members, the webpage says that the new duties “will only be performed within the scope of the SDF’s capability while ensuring safety.” 

2. Japanese Back Global Engagement Despite Concern About Domestic Economy: Roughly half see U.S. as a threat, majority see U.S. in decline by Bruce Stokes, Director, Global Economic Attitudes, PewResearch Center, 10/31/16, 24 pgs. 

 A telephone survey conducted April 26 to May 29, 2016 of 1,000 respondents in Japan found that a majority (58%) believe that it is a good thing for Japan to be economically involved with the world. 59% of the Japanese public also support aiding other countries in dealing with their own problems. Looking outward is juxtaposed against the 62% who say Japan should limit its military role in the Asia-Pacific region, and the merely 30% who believe economic conditions in their country are good (down 7% from last year).

 Views of longtime ally the United States and regional rival China remain consistent: 72% of Japanese have a favorable view of the United States, while 86% express an unfavorable opinion of China. However, this optimism does not translate into faith in US hegemony. About 61% say the U.S. plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today compared with 10 years ago. The survey also found that only 9% of Japanese polled have confidence in Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in world affairs; an overwhelming 82% expressed no confidence.

 Japanese are divided on the state of their country: 47% are satisfied and 45% are dissatisfied. Yet contentment with the country’s direction today is at its highest since 2002. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe draws generally positive reviews; 52% approve of his handling of the economy, and 74% give a positive grade to Abe’s handling of relations with the United States

2b. Report     Data

2c. See also: Commentary: Japanese among most outward looking by Bruce Stokes, PewResearch, Nikkei Asian Review, November 2, 2016

3. Japan among Worst Performers in Fighting Climate Change: Germanwatch. Japan Times, November 17, 2016.

Japan remains one of the world’s worst-performing nations in tackling climate change, think tank Germanwatch said Wednesday. Japan was deemed the second-worst performer of 57 countries and Taiwan, this year’s Climate Change Performance Index report showed. The report said Tokyo’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions center on reactivating nuclear energy as more or less the only alternative to fossil fuels, “instead of sufficiently promoting renewable energy.”

The performance of the world’s two largest emitters, USA (43) and China (48), is still rated "poor" in the CCPI. The United States lost some ground in almost every Index category and as a result dropped several places. The election results in the USA might pose risks to the speed of the ongoing transition. The election of Donald Trump as president has however not yet had any influence on the policy evaluation presented in CCPI 2017. Despite China being rated “poor”, positive developments are seen thanks to shrinking consumption of coal globally, which resulted in China stopping the construction of 30 coal fired power plants the last year.

Press Release: https://germanwatch.org/en/13119

About Climate Change Performance Index: https://germanwatch.org/en/CCPI

Full Report 2016: https://selectra.co.uk/sites/selectra.co.uk/files/pdf/Germanwatch-2016.pdf

Monday in Washington, November 28, 2016

HOW CAN FINANCE MINISTRIES SUPPORT A SUSTAINABLE HIV RESPONSE? 11/28, 10:30am-Noon. Sponsor: Center for Global Development. Speakers: Deborah L. Birx, Ambassador-at-Large, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy, U.S. Department of State; Ramin Toloui, Assistant Secretary for International Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury; A.K. Nandakumar, Professor of the Practice, Director, Institute for Global Health and Development, Brandeis University, Chief Economist, Global Health, U.S. Agency for International Development; Mike Ruffner, Deputy Coordinator, Financial and Programmatic Sustainability, Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Health Diplomacy; Laura Trimble, Associate Director for Budget and Financial Accountability, Office of Technical Assistance, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Moderator: Amanda Glassman, Vice President, Programs, Director, Global Health Policy, Center for Global Development.

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ALLIANCES AND AMERICAN LEADERSHIP PROJECT LAUNCH. 11/28, 2:00-3:30pm. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers: Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair, CSIS; Andrew Shearer, Senior Adviser on Asia-Pacific Security; Admiral Gary Roughead, Former Chief of Naval Operations, USN (Ret.); Heather A. Conley, Senior Vice President for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic; and Director, Europe Program, CSIS; Jon B. Alterman; Senior Vice President, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and Director, Middle East Program, CSIS; Kathleen Hicks, Senior Vice President; Henry A. Kissinger Chair, Director, International Security Program, CSIS.

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MESSENGERS OF THE RIGHT: CONSERVATIVE MEDIA AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS. 11/28, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsors: National History Center, American Historical Association; History and Public Policy Program, Wilson Center. Speakers: Author Nicole Hemmer, Contributing Editor, US News & World Report, Columnist, The Age, Australia; Moderators: Eric Arnesen, GWU; Christian Ostermann, Wilson Center. 

WHAT'S NEXT, FOR AMERICA AND ISRAEL? CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD. 11/28, 4:30-6:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: SAIS, Johns Hopkins. Speakers: Ambassador Ron Dermer, Ambassador of Israel to the United States; Moderator: Laura Blumenfeld, Senior Fellow, Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. 

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE: AN OPTIMIST'S GUIDE TO THRIVING IN THE AGE OF ACCELERATIONS. 11/28, 7:00pm. Sponsor: Synagogue at Sixth & I. Speaker: author, Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times.