Asia Policy Events, Monday June 8, 2026

JAPAN'S CRACKDOWN ON FOREIGN BUSINESS OWNERS. 6/8, 1:30-2:30pm (JST), 12:30-1:30am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ). Speakers: Sakura Uchikoshi, Member of the House of Councillors; Kazuki Yuda, Touch Immigration Law Firm.

2026 JAPAN–PHILIPPINES FRIENDSHIP YEAR COMMEMORATIVE SYMPOSIUM. 6/8, 2:30-6:00pm (JST), 1:30-5:00am (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Sasakawa Peace Foundation Tokyo. Speakers Include: H.E. Mylene J. Garcia-Albano, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of the Philippines; H.E. Shinjiro Koizumi, Minister of Defense, Member of the House of Representatives; Sen. Juan Miguel Fernández Zubiri, Senator, the Republic of the Philippines; Yoshiaki Wada, Member of the House of Representatives, Japan; Maryjun Takahashi; Shun Ohno, Affiliated Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University; Ines Yamanouchi Mallari, School President, Philippine Nikkei Jin Kai International School, School President, Mindanao Kokusai Daigaku.

PETRO DIPLOMACY 2026: ENERGY IN CRISIS. 6/8, 9:00am-4:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Arab Gulf States Institute (AGSI). Speakers: Phillip Cornell, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council; Mason Hamilton, Vice President of Economics and Research, American Petroleum Institute; Ben Cahill, Nonresident Fellow, AGSI; Ambassador William Roebuck, Executive Vice President, AGSI; Sarah Ladislaw, Founding Director, New Energy Industrial Strategy Center, Former Senior Director for Climate and Energy, U.S. National Security Council.

GAZA UPDATE: REALITIES, RISKS, AND THE ROAD AHEAD. 6/8, 11:00am-Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Middle East Institute (MEI). Speakers: Jaser Abu Mousa, Senior Fellow, MEI; Natan Sachs, Senior Fellow, MEI; Moderator: Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, Senior Fellow, MEI.

THE END OF TURKEY'S DEMOCRACY?: ERDOĞAN'S ATTEMPTS TO NEUTER THE LAST OPPOSITION PARTY. 6/8, 3:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). Speakers: Amb. Eric Edelman, Distinguished Scholar, JINSA, Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey; Svante E. Cornell, Scholar, Director, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, JINSA; Blaise Misztal, Vice President for Policy, JINSA. Exclusively for JINSA National Leaders in good standing, program participants, congressional and administration staff, U.S. military, press, and select members of the policy community.

FRAGILITY, CONFLICT, AND THE FUTURE OF AID IN TURBULENT TIMES. 6/8, 4:00-5:00pm (EDT), HYBRID. Sponsor: Global Development Department, CSIS. Speakers: David Miliband, President and CEO, International Rescue Committee (IRC); Rabih El Chammay, Head, National Mental Health Programme, Ministry of Health, Lebanon; Roya Rahmani, Director of Global Engagement, World Bank Group; Moderator: Enoh T. Ebong, President, Global Development Department, CSIS.

FROM YORKTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA: GEOPOLITICAL IMPERATIVES AND THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. 6/8, 6:30pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Hillsdale College [MAGA]. Speaker: Paul A. Rahe, Professor of History, Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair, Western Heritage, Hillsdale College.

KOREAN PENINSULA ISSUES AND US NATIONAL SECURITY. 6/8, 7:00-8:15pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Institute for Corean-American Studies (ICAS). Speaker: Xavier Brunson, General Commander UNC/CFC/USFKs, United States Army.

FISCAL POLICY FORUM: THE ROLE OF FISCAL POLICY DURING GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISES. 6/8, 8:00-9:30pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsors: Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University, School of Public Policy and Management at Korea Development Institute. Speakers: Tom Ramage, Fellow/Economic Policy Analyst, Korea Economic Institute of America; Tami Overby, Partner, DGA Group Government Relations; Taesuk Lee, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Public Finance and Social Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI); Younghyun Kim, Director, Budget Communication Cooperation Division, Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Planning and Budget; Moderator: Celeste Arrington, Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University.

Monday in Washington, January 22, 2018

CHARTERING A NEW COURSE FOR THE INDUSTRIAL BASE. 1/22, 10:00-11:30am. Sponsor: CSIS. Speakers include: Eric Chewning, Deputy Assistant, Secretary of Defense, Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy (MIBP); Frank Kendal, Former Under Secretary of Defense of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Department of Defense (AT&L); John Luddy, Vice-President, National Security, Aerospace Industries Association; Andrew Philip Hunter, Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group and Senior Fellow, International Security Program.

ENDING CIVIL WARS: HOW CAN WE SUCCEED WITH LIMITED OPPORTUNITIES? 1/22, 2:30-4:00pm. Sponsor: Policy, Learning and Strategy Center, US Institute of Peace (USIP). Speakers: Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, Stanford University; Nancy Lindborg, President, USIP; Steve Krasner, Professor, Stanford University; Stephen Biddle, Professor, GWU; Susanna Campbell, Professor, American University; Clare Lockhart, Director & Co-Founder, Institute for State Effectiveness; Paul Wise, Professor, Stanford University.

BROADENING THE LENS BEYOND SECURITY: THE NEXT FEW DECADES OF U.S. PAKISTAN RELATIONS. 1/22, 3:00-4:30pm. Sponsor: Project on Prosperity and Development, International Security Program, CSIS. Speakers: Daniel F. Runde, William A. Schreyer Chair in Global Analysis, Director, Project on Prosperity, CSIS; HE. Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the US; Dr. Seth G. Jones, Harold Brown Chair, Director, Transnational Threats Project, CSIS.

THE BURNS-NOVICK VIETNAM WAR FILM: A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. 1/22, 4:00-5:30pm. Sponsor: Institute of World Politics (IWP). Speakers: Dr. Lewis Sorley, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, Author, Thunderbolt: General Creighton Abrams and the Army of His Times, Honorable Warrior: General Harold K. Johnson and the Ethics of Command, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s LAst Years in Vietnam, Vietnam Chronicles: The Abrams Tapes, 1968-1972, The Vietnam War: An Assessment by South Vietnam’s Generals; Dr. Robert F. Turner, Director of Research, National Student Committee for Victory in Vietnam; Dr. Mark Moyar, Director, Project on Military and Diplomatic History, CSIS, Author, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965; Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam. 

1917: LENIN, WILSON, AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW WORLD DISORDER: BOOK DISCUSSION. 1/22, January 4:30-6:15pm. Sponsor: Hudson Institute. Speaker: author, Dr. Arthur Herman, senior fellow at Hudson Institute.

Can Trump make feminist history - unlikely

Women, peace and security: Trump can make feminist history by signing this bill

Allison Peters, Opinion,  international consultant focused on gender and the prevention of violent extremism and countering terrorism. She is the former Director of Policy and Security Programs at the nongovernmental organization Inclusive Security and previously served as a foreign policy and defense adviser in the U.S. Senate. 

USA Today,  Oct. 3, 2017

Women are vital to keeping the world stable and prosperous. This law would make sure they participate in U.S. policy-making at home and abroad.

As North Korea ratchets up its threats, conflicts rage from Syria to Yemen and terrorists launch attacks on innocent civilians, Congress just quietly passed historic legislation calling for more women to be involved in peace and security efforts.

That could not come soon enough.

Under the bipartisan Women, Peace and Security Act (S. 1141) by law it would be a core priority for U.S. diplomatic, development and military personnel to include women in preventing and resolving conflicts.

This bill has been over five years in the making and is perhaps needed now more than ever. Between 1992 and 2011, only 9% of negotiators at official peace talks were women. Women still make up less than 5% of police and military forces in many places around the globe, and at the local level are rarely consulted in security initiatives.

These dismal figures have not improved significantly in recent decades, even though the way we build and maintain peace is clearly not working. In the last nearly two decades alone, 90% of conflicts occurred in countries that had already experienced a previous conflict. Terrorism continues to pose a serious threat to global stability as does food scarcity, weak governance, climate change and beyond.

It’s time for a change.

Congress passing this bipartisan bill was a strong first step, and President Trump should immediately sign it into law. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), must hold leaders at all levels in their departments accountable for its implementation.

A new law like this would signal to women around the globe that their voices are being heard by Congress even in rocky political times. While the proof will be in how it's carried out, the bill not only mandates that women's participation be a priority for relevant federal agencies, it requires personnel for these agencies to consult with women on the ground in regions affected by conflict and to receive proper training to do so. Importantly, this bill also strengthens the ability of Congress to oversee this work.

The U.S. has had a national strategy on women’s participation in peace and securityprocesses since former president Obama instituted one by executive order in 2011 and it was updated in 2016. This bill would ensure a strategy remains the law of the land in the Trump administration and its successors.

Critics might note that the U.S. is dealing with numerous foreign policy challenges and security threats and argue that focusing on women’s participation would be a “soft” distraction from these priorities. However, research shows us time and again that gender diverse groups are more likely to effectively prevent and resolve conflicts in the long-term.

Afghanistan is a strong example where the U.S. should learn from its mistakes. Back in 2001, U.S. and allied NATO forces put billions of dollars into stabilizing the country and assisting in reconstruction. But with little strategy at first for consulting with Afghan women and including them in decision-making, the rollout was an almost entirely all male affair.

Women were often left in homes while all-male circles of soldiers and tribal elders discussed their fate. Existing norms and stereotypes prevailed, and the men were hindered in their ability to gain access to a range of views in communities where terrorist groups and insurgents had embedded.

Women had a deep understanding of community needs and their participation in emerging government and security institutions is critical for long-term stability. But their contribution was initially left untapped. Over the years, NATO saw firsthand the importance of including women and has since documented numerous examples where engaging with Afghan women led to better results.

Similarly, the International Peace Institute found peace accords are 35% more likely to last at least 15 years if women participate in their creation. This is because women often bring up issues related to the underlying causes of conflict and structural barriers that contribute to violence.

The evidence is so obvious, it's no wonder Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate and House worked tirelessly to pass this bill.

However, staff at the working level in our government cannot make progress on these issues without support from senior leadership. Congress would be wise to press political appointees during confirmation hearings on how they will implement the mandates in this bill. A formal inter-agency coordinating structure is also critical. It is inefficient for each of these agencies to be working to promote women’s leadership without meeting regularly to discuss their efforts.

Finally, Congress must see to it that resources are committed. In the budget submitted to Congress in May, the Trump Administration requested to cut by more than half the miniscule amount of foreign aid requested the previous year for women, peace, and security efforts. Congress must correct course and ensure any funding bills moving forward explicitly protect resources for these important initiatives.

Women's engagement at all levels of peace and security efforts is essential. Failing to invest in this agenda endangers our national security and hurts our efforts to advance our foreign policy priorities.

Monday in Washington, June 27, 2016

AFTER BREXIT: A NEW WORLD ORDER? TELECONFERENCE. 6/27, 11:00am-Noon. Sponsor: Wilson Center. The results of the June 23 UK referendum, in which British citizens voted to leave the European Union by a margin of 52% to 48%, shocked the markets and political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. How long until economic and political stability returns? What kind of deal will Britain get as it forges new relationships with its European neighbors? Can the country retain its “special relationship” with the U.S.? Join BY PHONE as Wilson Center experts discuss the long-term global implications of this unprecedented vote.
Toll Free #: 800-369-1772
International #: +1-210-839-8631
Conference Passcode: 13304
Speakers: James Hollifield, Public Policy Fellow;  Michael J. Geary, Global Fellow; Michelle Egan, Fellow; Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO, Wilson Center; Kent Hughes, Public Policy Fellow.

REFUGEES WORK: A HUMANITARIAN INVESTMENT THAT YIELDS ECONOMIC DIVIDENDS. 6/27, 12:30-2:00pm. Sponsor: Center for Global Development (CGD). Speaker: Philippe Legrain, Founder, Open Political Economy Network (OPEN), Senior Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics European Institute (LSEEI).

RESTORING NATO'S POWER AND PURPOSE. 6/27, 1:30-2:45pm. Sponsor: Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council. Speakers: Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns (Ret.), Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Former US Ambassador to NATO; General James L. Jones, Jr., USMC (Ret.), Chairman and Board Director, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council, Founder and President, Jones Group International, Former National Security Advisor and Former Supreme Allied Commander Europe; Damon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Programs and Strategy, Atlantic Council, Former Senior Director, European Affairs, National Security Council; Moderator: Dr. Evelyn Farkas, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, Atlantic Council, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, US Department of Defense.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT TO IMPROVE THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN ARMED CONFLICT. 6/27, 3:30-5:00pm. Sponsor: Stimson. Speakers: Tom Perriello, Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa; Victoria K. Holt, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State; Bruno Stagno Ugarte, Deputy Executive Director, Human Rights Watch; Lise Grande, Deputy Representative of the Secretary-General to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq.

LEADERS SPEAK: NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORS. 6/27, 5:30-7:00pm. Sponsor: National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Speakers: Stephen J. Hadley, Principal, RiceHadleyGates LLC; Former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; Robert “Bud” McFarlane, National Security Advisor to President Ronald Regan; Moderator: Steve Orlins, President, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Historical Trauma

University of Montana

SYMPOSIUM
NOVEMBER 4–5, 2015

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA, MISSOULA

Co-organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and the University of Montana’s African-American Studies Program, this interdisciplinary symposium explores current and emerging research on historical trauma in Holocaust studies, Native-American studies, African-American studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies.

By bringing together scholars, teachers, students, and community members, the Mandel Center’s outreach symposia seek to enrich campus dialogue and forge connections with diverse audiences that will ensure the vitality of Holocaust studies in an increasingly interdisciplinary and multicultural academic landscape.

The symposium is a component of the University of Montana’s DiverseU, a campus-wide series of events focused on topics of diversity. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members discuss, present, perform, and exhibit art throughout the program.

The symposium will be held in Room 332-3 of the University of Montana’s University Center. This program is free and open to the public. RSVP.

This symposium has been made possible by a generous grant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation and by the University of Montana’s African-American Studies Program, College of Humanities and Sciences, Davidson Honors College, Department of Anthropology, Department of Communication Studies, Department of History, Mansfield Library, Native American Studies Department, President Royce Engstrom, University Center, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program.

Highlighted in red are programs of interest to those who work on issues of Japanese war crimes.

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4

1:30 p.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks
Royce Engstrom, President, University of Montana
Robert M. Ehrenreich, Director of University Programs, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

2 p.m. Reframing Knowledge Production
Moderator: Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis), Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program, University of Montana

Digging Through the Rubble: Romani Women’s Holocaust Testimony and What It Tells Us about History
Ethel Brooks, Associate Professor, Departments of Women's and Gender Studies and Sociology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

“Reflecting the World Increasingly Made Right”: From Response to Action in Public Libraries
Julie Edwards, Associate Professor, Mansfield Library, University of Montana

The Healing Power of Truth-Telling: Undoing the Many Wrongs and Harms of Colonialist American Historiography
George Price (Wampanoag), Lecturer, African-American Studies Program, History Department, and Native American Studies Department, University of Montana

3:30 p.m. Break

3:45 p.m. Keynote: The Inheritance of Trauma across the Disciplines: A View from Holocaust Studies
Sara R. Horowitz, Professor of Comparative Literature, York University and 2009 Mandel Center Fellow

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5

9 a.m. Children and Historical Trauma
Moderator: Tobin Miller Shearer, Associate Professor, History Department, and Director, African-American Studies Program, University of Montana

“War . . . ain’t Nuthin’ But Hell on Dis Earth”: Children in the Civil War South
Anya Jabour, Professor, History Department, University of Montana

In the Pipeline: Children and Families in the Displaced Persons Camp
Adam R. Seipp, Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M University

Early Education Experiences and Health Later in Life in Older American Indians
Steven P. Verney (Tsimshian), Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico

Psychological and Health Consequences of Historical Trauma in Native Communities
Gyda Swaney (Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation), Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Montana

10:30 a.m. Break

11 a.m. Justice and Historical Trauma
Moderator: Kathryn Shanley (Fort Peck Nakota), Professor, Native American Studies Department, and Special Assistant to the Provost for Native American and Indigenous Education, University of Montana

Victim’s Justice: Holocaust Legacies of Reparations
Kathy L. Powers, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty, Africana Studies Program and School of Law, University of New Mexico and 2014 Mandel Center Fellow

Victimized But Not Victims: Narratives of Homelessness in Rural Areas and Small Towns
Daisy Rooks, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Montana

Historical Trauma's Impact on American Indians in the Legal System
Maylinn Smith, Director, Margery Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic, Alexander Blewett III School of Law, University of Montana

12:30 p.m. Break for Lunch

1:30 p.m. Gender, Sexuality, and Historical Trauma
Moderator: Christine Fiore, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Montana

Afterlives of the Catastrophe: Women, Sex, Gender in the Wake of World War II
Neni Panourgiá, Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, New School for Social Research and 2011 Charles H. Revson Fellow for Archival Research

Applying the Concept of Historical Trauma to LGBT Individuals
Bryan Cochran, Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training, Department of Psychology, University of Montana

Confronting Rape Culture: Analyzing the Historical Erasure of the Perpetrator
Elizabeth A. Hubble, Director, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, University of Montana

3 p.m. Break

3:30 p.m. Roundtable on the Pedagogy of Historical Trauma
Moderator: Krista Hegburg, Program Officer, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

C. Richard King, Professor, Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Washington State University

Gillian Glaes, Visiting Associate Professor, History Department and African-American Studies Program, University of Montana

Betsy Bach, Professor, Department of Communication Studies, University of Montana

COMMEMORATING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATOMIC BOMBINGS

ENDGAME: AUGUST 1945 IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

August 6, 2015

8:30am-7:00pm

Institute for the Study of Strategy and Politics 

U.S. Navy Memorial

 Burke Theater

701 Pennsylvania Avene, NW

Washington, DC 

Speakers

Richard C. Thornton, Professor, George Washington University; James D. Perry, Ph.D.; F. Charles Parker, Ph.D., Author, Vietnam: Strategy for a Stalemate; David M. Glantz, Editor, Journal of Slavic Military Studies; D. M. Giangreco, Author, Dear Harry and Hell to Pay; Norman Friedman, Naval Analyst; John T. Kuehn, Professor, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

The end of the Japanese Illusion

The moment the sky over Nagasaki lighted up, 

I made a bet with my fellow POW that we would soon be set free. I was right.

By 

LESTER TENNEY

Wall Street Journal, Aug. 5, 2015
Japanese

What does it mean to fight to the end? In April 1942, it meant fighting until my tank battalion and I were forced to surrender at the Battle of Bataan. For everything else that followed I only fought to survive: the Bataan Death March, brutal transport aboard a “hell ship” to Japan and slave labor in a Mitsui coal mine.

For my imperial Japanese enemy, in contrast, to fight to the end meant to give his life in a presumably noble and glorious fashion. He would die for the emperor—who ruled by divine right—confident that he would be enshrined with his ancestors for his efforts in defense of a mythic civilization. There could be no surrender and no negotiated peace. Death itself was beautiful, and death alone was honorable.

click to order

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, upended this belief. The bombs showed the Japanese the devastating and ultimately inglorious outcome of their fight. The bombs offered no true opportunity for confrontation and no chance of death with honor; they promised only obliteration.

Like its erstwhile ally Nazi Germany, Japan was fighting an ideological war. A superior race was destined to guide those less graced. Death for the empire earned a blessed afterlife in their emperor-god’s eternal favor. For a loyal subject, surrender was a betrayal of everything that sustained the empire’s system of patriotic values. The only option in the face of certain battlefield defeat was to fight to the death.

Japan tried to keep fighting long after any chance of victory was gone. On the mainland, women, children and the elderly were armed with sharpened bamboo sticks. Beginning in May 1945, schools for disabled children were ordered to organize military units and women ordered to serve in volunteer combat units. Young men were recruited by the hundreds for kamikaze missions aboard wooden gliders or small boats.

The country’s infamous biological-weapons research program was hard at work concocting flea-borne plague agents to float by submarine and balloon towards populated American shores. By late-spring 1945, some incendiary explosives called fugo had already landed on the West Coast.

On Okinawa during the 82-day battle from early April to mid-June 1945, the Japanese military instructed civilians to fight and die rather than surrender to the advancing U.S. forces. Civilian households, comprised almost entirely of women and children, were given grenades and encouraged to destroy themselves along with any Americans they might encounter. Many did.

In late spring 1945, I saw that the cruelty with which we prisoners of war were treated was only increasing. Our guards told us that Japanese units facing attack had received orders to kill all military and civilian POWs in their custody. They were to unburden themselves to focus on the fight. The executions were to begin Aug. 17.

click to order

No Japanese soldier or civilian was preparing to surrender that August.

Early* on the morning of Aug. 9, from the POW camp where I was held some 30 miles across a bay, I saw the sky over Nagasaki change. It glowed red and the air turned warm against my skin.

Until then, red was the color of my subjugation. My Japanese guards were certain that red had a uniquely Japanese meaning. It wasn’t just the central color of their flag, it was viewed as emotionally representative of their pure spirit and sincerity. The red sky over Nagasaki ended those illusions.

At that moment, I made a bet with a friend that soon we would all be set free. I was right.

Japan’s surrender saved us. The dropping of the bombs, as Emperor Hirohito himself acknowledged, was the only thing that made that surrender possible. As he explained to his subjects, “Should we continue to fight, it would only result in the ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation.” The bombs’ indiscriminate, total devastation, as no battle or bombing before it, showed the consequences of trying to fight to the end. The bombings destroyed hope and glory, past and future.

It’s also true that the bombings were acts of tragic and unprecedented violence. The bomb—this “cruel weapon,” as the stunned emperor recorded in his surrender message on Aug. 15—ruined two cities, brought suffering and death to many tens of thousands of people and drastically altered landscapes and ecologies. Its use also transformed the nature of modern warfare and erased the last faint lines separating civilian and military, illegitimate and legitimate targets.

We POWs—men who were starved and tortured, who suffocated in the holds of hell ships, who were beaten at will, who died for lack of medical care and who saw friends worked to death—have no doubt that the atomic bombs ended the war. The bombs took away all the justifications for Japan to continue to fight.

The visual obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed that Japan could soon cease to exist. Or as the emperor concluded, “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.” There would be no glorious end.

Mr. Tenney served in the 192nd Tank Battalion of the U.S. Army.

*actually late morning, 11:01am in Nagasaki.

Monday in Washington, July 1

CHINA FINANCIAL CENTRE DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT. 7/1, 7:30-11:45am Sponsor: Economic Strategy Institute. Speakers: Clyde Prestowitz, President, Economic Strategy Institute; Feng Yueqiu, Director, China Development Institute (CDI); Dr. Guo Wanda, Executive Vice President, CDI; Zhou Guoyou, Director, Issuer Marketing, Department of Shenzhen Stock Exchange; Dr. Zhang Jiansen, Director of Center for Financial Studies, CDI.

REBUILDING IRAQ: LESSONS GOING FORWARD. 7/1, 8:30-10:00am. Sponsor: Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Speaker: Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Author, Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience.

RETHINKING NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATIONS. 7/1, Noon-1:00pm. Sponsor: Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliot School, George Washington University (GWU). Speaker: LTC Kiwan Shin, Republic of Korea Army, Visiting Scholar, Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School, GWU. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS (JOYEUX NOËL) 7/1, 6:30-9:00pm. Sponsor: Goethe-Institut Washington, Goethe Forum. Film viewing and discussion of the 2005 film that expands on an actual Christmas Eve during world War I, where the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity.