At this AEI event, Taro Kono (LDP) will offer his vision for what Japan needs to win its future, followed by a panel discussion with AEI and Japanese scholars.

The Japanese military is emerging from decades of pacifism. But do the country's political leaders have the vision and the will to make the country strong again?

There is a great deal to remember this week, the one year anniversary of the devastating Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis. Few events in recent history have combined to such an intense degree natural disaster, technological failure, humanitarian relief, and government scrutiny. 

One of the great weights around the neck of Japanese politics in the past decade has been the refusal of older party leaders to make way for a younger cohort of politicians who might have better ideas for bringing Japan out of its economic slump. This inertia only became more prominent after the March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis.

Japan's economic performance has largely been written off over the past two decades. It shouldn't be—reform could build on the country's strong fundamentals.

This event will discuss the impact of Japan's August 30 elections.

Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan has done the political equivalent of committing ritual suicide to atone for the sins of being a failure. Japan now has a dead prime minister walking, the fifth in as many years. Does any of this matter? It's getting harder for Japan specialists to assert that it does.

Noda's most important challenge will be an apathetic citizenry that has lost faith in its leaders and whose demand for competent leadership from the DPJ has been dashed by the failure of former prime ministers Kan and Yukio Hatoyama.