BattlelandMilitary History
TOKYO – It’s not clear if anyone appreciates the irony, but Japan wants to help pay for a new U.S. military base on Tinian island, a former Imperial Army stronghold from which the atomic bombings of Japan were launched in …
BattlelandNuclear Weapons
TOKYO – It’s been a tough year for Japan, what with the earthquake and tsunami, North Korean nukes and China’s increasingly aggressive military. But there’s a silver lining for at least one part of Japanese society – …
BattlelandMilitary History
TOKYO – On a clear night in March 1945, more than 300 U.S. B-29 bombers launched one of the most devastating air raids in history. By dawn, more than 100,000 people were dead, a million were homeless, and 40 square kilometers …
BattlelandMissile Defense
TOKYO – Japan knows just what to do if North Korea goes ahead with a thinly disguised test of a new ballistic missile next month: shoot the @#$! thing down.
Japanese Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka told Diet members Monday …
BattlelandJapan
TOKYO – Nearly a year after one of the worst man-made disasters in history, Japan has decided who’s to blame: no one. Even as government and private reports reveal the full extent of the Fukushima nuclear power disaster — …
BattlelandMilitary History
TOKYO – It’s no secret that Japan remains deeply conflicted about its role in the Second World War. A new study finds that nearly seven decades after the war ended, there’s no agreement even on what to call it.
A …
BattlelandJapan
TOKYO – What were they thinking?
A plan that was supposed to ease the controversy over a noisy Marine Corps air base in Okinawa has instead infuriated local officials and galvanized opponents. And could hasten the removal of …
BattlelandPeople
TOKYO – Wars can attract some odd, fringe characters, but I never met anyone stranger or more out on the fringe than Jonathan Keith Idema, who died recently in Mexico of complications from AIDS.
A career con artist and military wannabe, Idema showed up early during the war in Afghanistan. He posed variously as a government …
BattlelandJapan
TOKYO – Japan’s new Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka seems to have done the impossible: He’s gotten off to an even worse start than his predecessor, who was fired after just four months on the job.
Tanaka is to meet with …
BattlelandJapan
TOKYO – More than six decades after U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Okinawa, it may finally be time for them to go home. Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday fired his defense minister, in part for missteps and verbal …
BattlelandKorea
TOKYO – Troops are not on high alert. Cities are not being evacuated. Leaders are not sprinting for fortified bunkers.
As odd and erratic as the North Koreans might be, they are not about to inaugurate new leadership by …
BattlelandTroops
TOKYO – Sixteen years after America’s top military commander in the Pacific was forced to resign over comments about a brutal rape in Okinawa, the incident is about to claim another top official and could complicate the …
BattlelandJapan
TOKYO – Japanese troops are being sent once again into the heart of the Fukushima radiation zone to battle contamination from the stricken nuclear power plant.
Specially trained troops will enter the 20-kilometer (12.4 miles) exclusion zone around the plant next month to decontaminate abandoned government buildings and …
