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The U.S. and Japan sign a new security agreement in 2015 which removes a geographical constraint on Japan participating in joint action with the U.S. in protecting vital global interests. The agreement is called the Joint Defense Guidelines. The agreement will enable Japan's Defense Forces with the permission of its parliament to participate in such action. Earlier agreements limited action to the defense of Japanese territories. A new alliance coordination mechanism will be established with officials from diplomatic, defense and military departments of the two countries. Consultations between the U.S. and Japan will take place through this mechanism in peacetime and in emergency situations. The new guidelines also include joint development of weapons systems and sharing of military technology, and cooperation on cybersecurity, missile defense, reconaissance activity. Japan's reinterpretation of its Constitution will now be discussed in parliament in the context of this agreement, to clarify what other activities Japan can take on....

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Six cities have rejected the Olympics, with Calgary in Canada being the last one. The problem with hosting the Olympics is how much it costs. Cost overruns are common. 20141 Sochi WInter Olympics estimated budget was $10 billion, in the end it cost $51 billion. 

Brazil is the latest example of the problem. With huge needs in sanitation, epidemic prevention, infrastructure and public services, the country did badly by spending money on new soccer stadiums in the northeast which were not used after the World Cup soccer championship, and in the summer Olympics. 

Learning from these lessons voters in Calgary, Canada, rejected hosting  the Winter Olympics. Voters or local councils in Innsbruck, Austria, Rome, Italy, Bern, Switzerland, Hamburg, Germany, Oslo and Stockholm have rejected the idea of hosting the Olympics. Other problems are the environmental impact with deforestation to create Olympic sites.

 

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Efforts to repair strained Saudi ties with a visit by U.S. president Obama in March 2014.

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China limits the activities of the Carter Center. Contacts for village democracy are discontinued. Xi Jinping, China's president tells former U.S. president Carter to limit activities to U.S.-China relations.

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This WSJ editorial points out that the lack of action from the Obama administration has led to the current situation in the Middle East with Russian intervention, the wave of refugees from Syria, and the increasing sectarian conflict. It cites from president Obama's address to the UN General Assembly that "the nations of the world cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion," yet failing to take action in the Middle East to prevent this from happening.

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Von Mark Schieritz of Germany's Zeit Online describes the changes underway following the election campaigns in the U.S., and France, and the Brexit vote in Britain, all signalling the discontent of people left behind by the tech, capitalism, trade and globalization changes of the last two decades. The appeal of one time fringe politicians using racist slogans and divisive rhetoric to appeal to those left behind, appealing to people lacking intergenerational mobility, and without much hope for a better future, is a serious concern. People who are gullible enough, lack college education, or racially isolated so that they are not likely to look carefully at what is being offered in terms of programs and change of competing parties, and likely to overlook the hard and difficult road for corrective course of action, because of anger and pentup fears. Schieritz cites as part of this change the unanimously approved conclusion in its final declaration at the G-20 meeting in Chengdu, China- "The benefits of growth need to be shared more broadly within and among countries to promote inclusiveness." Yet this can be a sort of "too little, too late."  Bankers who are cited in an email going around Wall Street lack credibility with groups on Main Street, to people adversely affected by tech, trade and globalization changes that have been persistently ignored for over a decade, close to two decades. More convincing is the tone of Theresa May, the British prime minister's first statement outside 10 Downing Street- who spoke of the "burning injustices" and her determination to make this a top priority of her government. Still more convincing are the programs to invest $275 billion over 10 years in infrastructure put forward by the leading candidate in the U.S. presidential election of 2016, to provide easier access to public universities and colleges to those left behind, as a sure way to create new jobs and address intergenerational mobility. In fact every leading candidate had made the loss of upward mobility their central plank already in 2015, long before Trump and Sanders started their campaign. The real hope lies in western leaders Merkel, May, and Clinton, all keenly aware students of changes, all women by the way who have sensed the injustice and have the ability to come up with something new and promising for the future, after learning the lessons of the past. ...

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As David Ignatius points out in his trip to China, the China of post 2010 is a lot of things depending on who you talk to in China- cocky, scared, anxious. He comes away perplexed by the range of questions that come up in his mind. The wealth of the coastal cities is stunning, and at the same time as the leaders insist China is still a poor country with deep regional imbalances, and what is less mentioned, the rising inequality in society. How to pull it all together to make possible a transition to development that is evened out across all regions and sections of society and to allow freedom of expression, is a challenge for the new leadership of Xi Jinping in 2011.

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Guido Westerwelle, foreign minister of Germany, and former head of the Free Democratic party, made another misstep by describing Germany's support for economic sanctions as a key factor in the fall of the Gaddafi regime. He did not credit NATO's military intervention as the main reason. Westerwelle opposed German support for NATO's military intervention and Germay abstained in a UN security council meeting vote to authorize military force in protecting Libyans from Gaddafi's regime. The results of this policy are seen as diminishing Germany's international image, and seen as isolating it from its allies in Europe and NATO. The new head of the FDP, Phillip Rosler came out strongly to credit NATO for the military intervention, saying: "our deep respect and thanks goes to our allies, who decisively thwarted Gaddafi's murderous units." German chancellor Merkel sidestepped the issue by crediting NATO for its leadership. FDP's rank and file supporters believe that voters will hold the party to account for this and other missteps by Westerwelle. Former German foreign minister, and former Green's party leader Joschka Fischer told Der Spiegel magazine: this was "perhaps the biggest foreign policy debacle in Germany's post-war history." ...

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Sectarian conflict in Iraq between Shiites and Sunnis following the U.S. withdrawal. Efforts by former Baathist party members and officers in the Saddam regime to aggravate sectarian tensions.

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Entous, Malas and Abushakra of the WSJ give a detailed account of the series of smaller chemical attacks that ended with this large attack in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013, the actions of key participants, and the responses of the global community.

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Prof. Dershowitz says a stronger statement to Iran was warranted than that contained in President Obama's address at the General Assembly in Sept. 2012. Iranian president Ahmadinejad stated in his address that Israel will be "eliminated."