Japan

Back during my second run at college I wrote for the Daily Texan. Here’s a piece worth revisiting: Free Tibet, stop Darfur, save Congo! The Daily Texan April 11, 2007 While dodging flyers for the cause d’jour, I chuckle a bit at the student lobbyists who ask me if I’d like to “help free Tibet […]

A test of the U.S. military’s Aegis missile defense system in Hawaii appears to have ended in failure on Wednesday, when the SM-3 Block IIA missile launched to intercept failed to connect with a mock offensive ballistic missile launch. This marks the second failure of the Aegis missile defense system in the past year, coinciding […]

China actively wants to change the status quo in the Pacific and poses a more immediate threat to Japan. Russia has also been building up its Pacific fleet to be a formidable force in the region. Most of Japan’s response has been geared towards Japan’s acquisition of more military equipment and systems. China and Russia […]

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Kevin Lord, 35th Operations Support Squadron commander, relays information during an 18-ship F-16 Fighting Falcons elephant walk at Misawa Air Base, Japan, Sept. 16, 2017. Exercise Beverly Sunrise 17-07 is an annual wing-wide readiness exercise planned months in advance to test the readiness of the 35th Fighter Wing. The exercise assesses the […]

Last weekend saw a lot good news about the current status and future of the F-35 in the international market. Belgium has shown interest in purchasing 34 F-35s from Lockheed Martin, potentially adding another European nation to the list of operators. Japan announced that it deploy its F-35s at  Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture […]

In an interview on Wednesday, President Donald Trump accused Russia of undermining the international effort to force North Korea to relinquish its pursuit of nuclear weapons and more advanced ballistic missile platforms. Over months of escalating tensions between Kim Jong Un’s aggressive North Korean regime and a U.S.-led coalition of nations bent on seeing their […]

Despite tensions on the Korean peninsula temporarily cooling as the Winter Olympic games approach, North Korea has made it clear throughout diplomatic talks with their neighbor to the South that they are unwilling to discuss a dismantling of their nuclear program. Although the United States has agreed to postpone military exercises until after the games, […]

General Robert Neller, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, did not mince words when addressing deployed Marines over the holidays when it comes to the challenges facing America’s national security apparatus in the coming year.  Chief among these concerns, (which include threats ranging from small extremist groups to burgeoning super power China) is the […]

Two Marine Corps helicopters were forced to conduct emergency landings in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture since Saturday, further inflaming tense relations between the people of the island and the American military presence operating nearby. On Monday, a U.S. Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing at a waste disposal site near […]

The United States and South Korea took a tentative step toward peace with Kim Jong Un’s North Korean regime this week, but whether or not diplomacy can yield any lasting results is yet to be seen. Although the focus of Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s address for many was his quip about a “nuclear button,” […]

Throughout months of rising tensions between Kim Jong Un’s North Korean regime and a consortium of foreign nations led by the United States, one question has loomed like a dark cloud over the diplomatic effort to avoid war: can sanctions actually affect any real change? A new series of sanctions making their way to a […]

Approximately 220 South Korean Marines and 220 U.S. Marines pushed through the snow and bitterly cold air together in early December during a joint training exercise. The three weeks of training in sub-zero temperatures happen every year, this time at next year’s location for the Olympic Winter Games. The Marines pushed their bodies and honed […]