Christian Caryl

Can insurgencies be crushed by purely military means? Many counterinsurgency -theorists doubt it, arguing that guerrilla wars are won and lost primarily on the political front.

Many world leaders seem ready to cede Asian supremacy to Beijing— but China may not be ready for the role.

Sure, Aso is atrocious. But so were his predecessors. Here's why Japan's politicians are so bad.

Comparisons between the United States today and Japan in the early 1990s just keep growing. The Japanese call that period the "Lost Decade," as it was marked by anemic growth, plummeting prices and the lingering death of insolvent banks.

North Korea's dictator may be ailing, but don't hope for change soon.

Tourists soak their sorrows away in Japan's thermal baths.

Japanese stock markets have tanked this year. America is in the midst of its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And Switzerland? Wait, isn't that the country whose GDP is outweighed by a single one of its now beleaguered banks?Currency markets don't seem to be thinking quite that way.

The financial crisis may seem to spell the end of American military hegemony, but the world still needs a cop.

Japan blocks most online campaigning—but insurgents are starting to push the rules.

Most nations are applauding George W. Bush's late-term embrace of talking to U.S. enemies, with the notable exception of Japan. Even Europe, once the epicenter of Bush bashing, will grudgingly praise his latest concessions on climate change.

In a new memoir, a New York Times correspondent pulls back the curtain on an often hidden war.

Japan has little tie to America's toxic securities, but its market melted down anyway, as fear ran wild.

Japan's new leader favors big government projects and pork-barrel spending. Sound familiar?

Amid the frenzy of speculation on the whereabouts of Kim Jong Il—is he dead, sick, paralyzed?—it's worth remembering that the North Korean leader has a history of disappearing for weeks or months at a time.

Kim Jong Il's regime has inflicted great suffering, but his sudden absence would be even worse.

Japan's automakers are zooming ahead in the eco-car race. Their lead may turbocharge their country.

A new nuclear-disarmament deal could change life for North Koreans—if it lives up to all it promises.

A rare feature film about North Korea depicts the struggles of refugees with poignancy, heft and heart.

Global warming tops the agenda of the July G8 summit of leading industrial nations in Hokkaido, but warming of a more beneficial sort is coming to Japan, too.

Japan's insularity is becoming a drag on its economy and threatening its future.

A new documentary on Japan's wartime past has provoked a conservative campaign to ban the film.

Evidence of an investor exodus from China is mounting. Some 200 Taiwanese firms have left the city of Dongguan, says a Taiwan trade group. The Federation of Hong Kong Industries predicts 6,000 to 7,000 of its factories in the Pearl River Delta will shut down this year.

As Japan's economy stalls, Yasuo Fukuda has gone missing in action.

The leader of an influential Sri Lankan Buddhist movement discusses war, religion and why monks shouldn't get involved in politics.

Throughout Asia, Buddhism is growing fast, playing an increasingly political—and, in some spots, militant—role.

Once upon a time, the country was a leader in technology. Now it's struggling to find its place in the digital age. Can an entrenched corporate culture change?

Toru Okuda was in trouble. He'd slaved away for years to realize his dream of opening a gourmet restaurant in Tokyo, and by 2003 he had finally pulled it off.

Japan's grim determination to keep hunting whales long after most states gave it up drives environmentalists round the bend. But never has it threatened relations with a key ally—or, arguably, the core of Japan's current foreign policy—till now.In recent weeks, Australia's new pro-green Labor government has demanded that Tokyo call off a current whaling expedition in Antarctica, has ordered an armed customs ship to monitor the operation; it's even considered sending in Air Force...

Like smart businesses everywhere, Japan's infamous underworld gangs are reinventing themselves to cope with increasingly global competition.

Despite its vaunted high-tech industries, Japan's propensity to look inward is crippling the country's ability to innovate and compete.