Just as the thumping victory by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party under Shinzo Abe in December 2011 over the ‘progressive’ Democratic Party of Japan is good for Japan–Australia relations, the thumping victory by the Liberal–National …
Abe’s recent trips to Southeast Asia show that Japan is turning once again to the region. Abe travelled to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam in January — his first foreign tour since his re-election as prime …
Benjamin Schreer offers some important qualifications to Radford’s initial remarks about the relevance of Japan’s new carrier, Izumo, both for the JMSDF and in relation to naval developments and ramifications for naval politics in Northeast …
Recent commentary, including by Phil Radford here on The Strategist, has argued that Japan’s new Izumo (DDH22) ‘flat top destroyer’ is in fact the Maritime Self-Defense Force’s (MSDF) first, ‘mid-sized aircraft carrier’ since the Second …
Aircraft carriers have a habit of denying what they really are. In the 1970s, Britain’s new Invincible class carriers were officially christened ‘Through Deck Cruisers’, to reassure the nation’s bookkeepers that its Navy really had …