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F. Stephen Larrabee
For F. Stephen Larrabee's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2008
The next crisis could take place in Ukraine
PRAGUE — The Russian invasion of Georgia has sent shock waves throughout the West and the former Soviet space — especially Ukraine. Indeed, Ukraine could be the next potential crisis.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2007
A war of nerves in Turkey
SANTA MONICA, Calif. — With the political standoff surrounding the selection of a new president intensifying, Turkey is entering a critical period that could have a profound effect on both the country's internal evolution as a secular democracy and its relations with the West. The presidential candidacy of the moderate Islamist Abdullah Gul, currently the foreign minister, has been rejected by Turkey's highest court, and the parliamentary election scheduled for November has been moved up to July in an effort to break the political impasse. But these steps are unlikely to defuse tensions between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government and Turkey's military, which sees itself as the guardian of the country's secular state.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2007
America mismanaging missile defense
PRAGUE -- Missile defense has suddenly emerged as a divisive issue in Europe. Rather than enhancing European security, the Bush administration's plan to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic threatens to increase strains with Russia and deepen divisions with America's European allies, particularly those in Eastern Europe, where support for U.S. polices has been strongest.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2007
Central Asia's other 'Turkmenbashis'
SANTA MONICA, California -- A dictator's sudden death almost always triggers political instability. But it is doubly dangerous when it poses a risk of regionwide destabilization and a scramble for influence among the world's greatest military powers -- the United States, Russia and China.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces