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On April 16, 2021, Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide became the first foreign head of state to visit US President Joe Biden’s White House. The reason for Biden’s choice is no mystery. Quite simply, Japan is Washington’s most important ally in containing the threat from China, America’s foremost strategic competitor.
Of the common interests and concerns enumerated in the Japan-US Joint Leaders’ Statement issued on that occasion, what jumped out most conspicuously were the references to “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and “peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.” It was the first time in more than a half century that the leaders of the two countries had broached the topic of Taiwan in a joint statement.
Militaries around the world are under pressure to rapidly reduce their own outsized carbon "bootprint" to help limit global heating and future climate conflict.
Russia, Iran, China and the U.S. are among the world’s leading practitioners of cyberwarfare state-on-state hacking to gain strategic or military advantage by disrupting or destroying data or physical infrastructure. Unlike combat with bullets and bombs, cyberwarfare is waged almost entirely with stealth and subterfuge, so it’s hard to know when and where it’s occurring, or whether full-scale cyberwar is on the horizon.
By Richard Walker
Turkey has ignored calls from Washington and European capitals to abandon plans for an invasion of Syria and to stop targeting the Kurds, who are allies of the West and Russia against Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has warned Turkey and Saudi Arabia they will have to go it alone if they invade Syria to create what they claim would be a “safe zone” for refugees. Russia has put Turkey on notice that an invasion would be a breach of Syria’s territorial integrity and a crime in international law. Russia would, as Syria’s ally, respond militarily at the behest of the Syrian leadership.