It's OK to Say Japan Is Rearming. It Is.

A very strange and rather short article came out yesterday from Richard Fontaine, the CEO at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will: this isn’t personal, this is professional.

I had to double-check the publication date as it just read, well, strange. But no, August 4th, 2026. Its title, Japan isn’t rearming. It’s adapting to a new era. It is something if it were written by someone else, I might ignore…but Richard isn’t just some rando anon pounding away on Substack…so here we go.

In the name of all that is holy. I know Richard has been in DC a long time and is well soaked in the Beltway NATSEC miasma…but someone has to put a marker down, might as well be me.

I’ll get to the substance in a minute, but let’s discuss word choice, clarity, avoiding hyperbole, and directness. Yes, even with all my inadequacy as a writer, even I feel more than comfortable “going there.”