Kirk Spitzer

TOKYO – If Chinese warships escalate from locking-on radars to actually pulling the trigger in the East China Sea, they’ll have lots to shoot at – and it won’t be just the Japanese.

With little fanfare, U.S. commanders …

TOKYO – Locked in an increasingly-tense territorial dispute with China, Japan announced this week it will boost defense spending for the first time in more than a decade. Coming from Japan’s conservative new government, that …

TOKYO – Japanese leaders are preparing to ease a decades-long prohibition against the use of combat troops overseas. That’s one result of last week’s terrorist raid in Algeria, in which at least nine Japanese citizens were …

TOKYO – U.S. and Japanese officials began talks Thursday to expand the role of Japan’s armed forces and loosen decades-old restrictions on how and when troops can be used. Sounds ominous, but the changes likely will be …

TOKYO – For a supposed nationalist and right wing hawk, Japan‘s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, doesn’t seem to have his heart in it. Count on Japan’s long-suffering and largely misunderstood public to keep things that way — …

TOKYO – A stronger military, a more assertive foreign policy and a bunch of new headaches for everybody – that’s what’s likely to come out of this weekend’s elections in Japan. Oh, and maybe a little more honesty about …

Keen observers know that Japan’s ugly territorial disputes with its neighbors aren’t really about fishing grounds or oil and gas reserves or ancient historical claims. What they’re about is that the Japanese still – still …

CAMP SENDAI, Japan – For evidence that the U.S. rebalancing in Asia is more than rhetoric, take a look at the shoulder patches that U.S. troops are wearing at a major war exercise here this week: the 25^th Infantry Division, 8^th …