Two decades ago, as Japan's economic engine hurtled along at full throttle, the Justice Ministry announced a policy that seemed to signal an end to its attempt to keep the world at bay. After years of restricting new immigrants to a trickle of white-collar professionals, the country would start accepting mostly unskilled workers to feed a labor shortage in its hungry factories.

It has been seven years since the US military launched air strikes in revenge for the 9/11 terror attacks. The Taliban have not been suppressed and Afghanistan remains in a state of war. Although overshadowed by the war against Iraq, this too is a war of aggression. A Japanese photo journalist examines the US-Afghan War.

For several years, informed observers independent of the national security bureaucracy have called for terminating current specific American policies and tactics in Afghanistan– many reminiscent of the US in Vietnam.

Informed observers decry the use of air strikes to decapitate the Taliban and al Qaeda, an approach that has repeatedly resulted in the death of civilians. Many counsel against the insertion of more and more US and other foreign troops, as pursued first by the Bush administration and then, even more vigorously, in the early days of the Obama administration, in an effort to secure the safety and allegiance of the population. And they regret the on-going interference in the fragile Afghan and Pakistan political processes, in order to secure outcomes desired in Washington. A New York Times headline, “In Pakistan, US Courts Leader of Opposition,” was barely noticed in the U.S. mainstream media.

Will Japan recover more quickly?

Conventional wisdom sees Japan faring among the worst of the industrialized countries in the ongoing economic crisis. Tanaka Kiyoyasu does not dispute this view directly; he concedes that “trade in Japan has declined at a much faster pace than that in the US” even if the overall “impact of the economic crisis on Japan has so far been relatively moderate.” But he maintains this does not tell us the whole picture. He cites studies to demonstrate a strong link between “vertical specialization and international trade” and then goes on to note that “vertical specialization is particularly clear in the case of FDI by Japanese multinationals” as opposed to those in the US.

How can Japan move toward gender equality, the elimination of authoritarian police practices and realization of the human rights enshrined in its laws and treaty obligations? Many Japanese human rights lawyers and activists believe that one important path forward lies through international institutions, especially those created under the auspices of the United Nations. In the latest round of an ongoing battle to enforce international norms in Japan, lawyers and activists presented a powerful case before the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva and succeeded in persuading the Committee to deliver stinging criticisms of Japan's failures to take action to remedy several longstanding human rights problems.

While mainstream education has received ample attention from scholars of Japan, the diverse kinds of private institutions concerned with the rehabilitation of so-called ‘problem youth’ have not hitherto been subjected to systematic analysis. This article offers an in-depth study of two starkly contrasting organizations, the Totsuka Yacht School and K2 International. We focus on the rehabilitation philosophies of these groups and examine how they view ‘problem youth’; the remedies they advocate; the critical incidents they have been implicated in; and how they have responded in their aftermath. These two organizations epitomize two important opposing paradigms of rehabilitation: one ‘disciplinarian’ and one ‘accommodating’, and therefore reflect different moral discourses regarding youth and the problems they face. Analysis of these groups illustrates how they are being challenged by current social and educational trends, but also how, as local actors, the charismatic leaders of these institutions also play a significant role in shaping the discourse. This study is among the first to map out the complex terrain of residential rehabilitative institutions in Japan. It also raises questions for educators regarding the meaning of ‘nonformal’ or ‘alternative’ education, helps youth specialists better understand the diversity of approaches employed in dealing with ‘problem youth’, and will be of interest to non-Japan scholars seeking evidence of approaches to rehabilitation which do not solely attempt to ‘medicalize’ youth as being ‘ill’ or to ‘activate’ them in order to return them to the labor market.