Japan always looks before leaping. Nearly a decade after the Persian Gulf War, the nation remains highly averse to taking risks and is even timid about participating in international peacekeeping efforts in regional conflicts.
The border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is a good example. The two countries on the impoverished Horn of Africa on Tuesday signed a comprehensive peace agreement that formally ends the two-year conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki signed the accord in a ceremony at a government-owned resort outside the Algerian capital of Algiers in the presence of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.