Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

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?

Japanese are disappearing in slow motion and so far, there is no rescue plan.

Impressive as China's economic accomplishments over the past generation have been, new demographic realities may ultimately force us to revise today's received wisdom about the future of "China's rise."

A more powerful but unfriendly Russia could pose America and the West with plenty of problems. But there is a real chance in the years ahead that we may instead confront a *weaker* Russia: controlled by an ambitious and aggressive directorate surprised by the course events are taking, and not shy about resorting to nuclear diplomacy.

Withholding needed arms from Taiwan in the present makes a future conflict--and US intervention therein--more likely. A cordial relationship with Beijing today wouldn't seem to be worth the future costs to the United States.

Thinking back to his days as secretary of state, Mr. Shultz is quoted saying: "The world was not ready for a world free of nuclear weapons." It still isn't.

The heroic and indispensable actions of Self-Defense Forces (Japan's military) in the wake of the March 11 earthquake may have changed Japan's relations with its military forever.