This very centralized and proud country, where the state matters more than elsewhere and the military had won so many wars, witnessed the complete collapse of both in the span of just two weeks. A non elected government that capitulated to Hitler offered a parochial, vassal like future.

But taking away Japan s sovereign right to use military force had one major consequence Japanese security was put almost entirely into American hands, reducing Japan to the status of a vassal state. That is why the main goal of nationalist minded Japanese leaders, starting with Abe s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, has been the return of full Japanese sovereignty by revising Article 9.

Japanese governments could devote their energy to building up the country s industrial wealth, while the US took care of security, and by extension much of Japan s foreign policy. It was an arrangement that suited everyone the Japanese became rich, the Americans had a compliant anti communist vassal state, and other Asians, even Communist China, preferred Pax Americana to a revival of Japanese military clout.

Japan long colonized Korea, and during WWII, Koreans were forced to join the Japanese Imperial Army a situation similar to that of Taiwan. But, whereas the struggle between China and Japan for dominance over Korea was the focal point of the East Asian drama, Taiwan was but a side show, a mere outpost to the Imperial Qing Dynasty, while Korea was a vassal paying tribute to China.

Though the conclusion of long negotiated gas deals between Russia and China may seem to reflect a deepening of the bilateral relationship, China extracted an exceedingly low price from Russia for the gas that it will receive. This, together with the fact that China has cut lending to Russia since the Crimea invasion, suggests that, in the longer term, the Chinese envision Russia as a natural resource vassal, not an equal ally.

On the contrary, the Minsk Protocol marked only the end of the beginning of Putin s program to turn Ukraine into a vassal state, and to restore a Russian veto over its neighbors international relations. His efforts to thwart Ukraine s European future will continue, as will his efforts to hollow out our democracy and replace it with a Kremlin echo chamber, unless the world imposes such a high price for his imperial ambitions that the Russian people refuse to bear it.