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Ralph Cossa
For Ralph Cossa's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2017
Dealing with Pyongyang
Any new U.S. policy approaches or initiatives must await the selection of a new South Korean president, and must then be closely coordinated with Seoul and Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 29, 2016
Divining the new U.S. Asia policy
Experience tells us to discount at least half of what is said during presidential campaigns. The challenge is predicting correctly which half to discount.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2016
Here we go again with North Korea
The international community should agree upon the consequences of the next North Korean provocation, so that the next action brings it together rather than provides yet another opportunity for Pyongyang to divide and conquer.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 9, 2015
Weighing Japan's options in the South China Sea
Rather than send Japanese ships to conduct freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea, Japan should continue to focus its efforts on maritime capacity building in Southeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 1, 2015
Abe and history: What's next?
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe needs to dramatically and definitively address the "comfort women" issue head on.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2013
Hope for reform in North Korea may have died
The chances of Deng Xiaoping-styled reform in North Korea may have just died along with the regimes No. 2 leader, Jang Song Thaek.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2013
Breaking past the tired old plot with Pyongyang
Stop me if you've heard this one before. North Korea decides, for whatever reason, that it is time to once again challenge the international community by conducting missile and nuclear tests. It announces a "satellite launch" and proceeds, despite international condemnation and warnings of dire consequences, to test its long-range missile capabilities.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013
Kim's second test is Xi's first
North Korea's new supreme leader Kim Jong Un conducted two missile tests last year. The first, in April, failed. The second, in December, was by all accounts a huge success. But it was not just a test of North Korea's ability to put an object into space. Kim's second test was also the first test of the new Chinese leadership.
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2012
Tokyo-Seoul: enough is enough!
Enough is enough! Obviously, the political leadership in Tokyo and Seoul never learned about the First Rule of Holes: When you find yourself in one, stop digging. Each side seems to be going out of its way to make a bad situation worse, even while providing private assurances that it won't let the situation get too far out of hand.
COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2012
Pushing Seoul-Tokyo forward
There is an old Russian proverb that applies to current Japan-South Korea (ROK) relations: "Forget the past and lose an eye; dwell on the past and lose both eyes!"
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2012
China must rein in N. Korea
Now what? Just when we thought things were getting better, North Korea pulled the rug out from under everyone, including itself, by announcing a planned satellite launch to commemorate Great Leader Kim Il Sung's 100th birthday celebration.
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2012
Breakthrough is close, again
The recent "food for freeze" agreement between the United States and North Korea has been described accurately by the State Department as reflecting "important, if limited, progress" and inaccurately by the media as constituting a "breakthrough" in the seemingly endless march toward Korean Peninsula denuclearization.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2011
U.S. nukes to South Korea?
Support for the U.S.-South Korea alliance has never seemed stronger in South Korea. The two countries appear to be in lock step when it comes to dealing with the North and their two presidents seem to genuinely like and respect one another, thus permitting an unprecedented level of trust and cooperation. That's the good news.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2010
Not China's coastal waters
Would someone please provide the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) spokesman with a map! Over the last few months, since it was rumored, then denied, and then confirmed that the George Washington aircraft carrier would be involved in naval "show of force" maneuvers off the west coast of South Korea, PLA interlocutors have been proclaiming they "resolutely oppose any foreign military vessel and aircraft conducting activities in the Yellow Sea and China's coastal waters that undermine China's security interests."
COMMENTARY
Apr 20, 2010
Between the lines of U.S. nuclear policy
HONOLULU — I have attended a number of discussions in recent years about U.S. nuclear weapons strategy and policy. All invariably begin with a presentation by a U.S. official or expert who proclaims that the United States, in the past decade, has significantly reduced the role and importance of nuclear weapons in its national security strategy and will continue to do so. This is then followed by a foreign (normally Chinese) expert who states with equal conviction and assurance that U.S. national security strategy has placed increased importance on the role of nuclear weapons and that the Pentagon is determined to develop new and more lethal types of nuclear weapons.
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2010
Obama on track in Asia
With one exception, U.S. relations with East Asian countries are better today than when the Obama administration took office. This is no small accomplishment since the Bush administration left Asia in good shape.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2009
Taiwan poll's weight overhyped
HONOLULU — Voters in Taiwan went to the polls in 17 counties and cities recently to elect mayors and magistrates. The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party won 12 of the 17 seats and enjoyed an overwhelming victory in elections of county and city councilors and township chiefs. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won only four of the leadership posts (with the remaining one going to a KMT renegade).
COMMENTARY
Sep 12, 2009
DPP scoring political points at Taiwan's expense
What's going on in Taiwan? A year ago, there were serious concerns about the viability of Taiwan democracy. The Nationalist Party (KMT) had achieved an overwhelming majority with a sweeping victory in Legislative Yuan elections and had regained the presidency as a result of a landslide victory by its chosen candidate, former Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2009
The path with North Korea
What is North Korea up to? Is it trying to undermine the six-party talks in order to force Washington to deal with Pyongyang directly, as some experts claim? Or, as others maintain with equal certainty, is it sending a signal that it is not interested in talks at all, given current domestic political uncertainties surrounding the poor health of leader Kim Jong Il?
COMMENTARY
Apr 22, 2009
Nuclear disarmament: too much, too soon?
There is no country on Earth more committed to global nuclear disarmament than Japan. Ever since experiencing firsthand the horrors of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese government and people have been steadfast in calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons from the planet.

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A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world