More than two centuries ago, one of America’s founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, famously said: ‘An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.’ At that time, he was talking about the need for more universal education …
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chair of IBM, famously said, ‘I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.’ Senior engineers at the corporation dismissed the future use of microchips. Scepticism of emerging …
France invented the attack helicopter in 1956. Sixty-seven years later, Japan has decided that the idea has had its day. ‘Elimination of obsolete equipment’ is the cruelly decisive headline above photos of a Bell AH-1 …
In December, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the most ambitious expansion of military power in Japan since the creation of the country’s self-defence forces in 1954. Japanese defence spending will rise to 2% of …
For decades, Japan has based its international clout on economic competitiveness, not military might. But, with China’s lengthening shadow darkening its doorstep, Japan now seems to be abandoning its pacifist post-war security policy—which capped defence …