On the eve of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the end of World War Two, and the first anniversary of progressive political leadership by the Democratic Party of Japan, redress campaigns for wartime forced labor are bearing promising fruit and entering a decisive phase.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced on July 14 it would start talks on compensating the 300 Korean women who were deceived as teenagers into toiling without pay at a Nagoya aircraft factory. The so-called “teishintai” (volunteer corps) workers lost their lawsuit at the Japan Supreme Court in 2008, but last December the Japanese government issued seven of the women refunds of 99 yen (about one dollar) for pension deposits withheld during the war. The move enraged the Korean public and led to persistent protests at Mitsubishi offices in Tokyo and Seoul.

This is a short, pragmatic guide designed to assist researchers, particularly graduate students and other novice scholars, through initial stages of Japan-based study. All of the advice here is designed to help researchers address what they should do, how they should do it, and the long-term dividends they can enjoy through careful conduct in the field.

The island of Guam is a most remarkable place of cultural distinctiveness and resourcefulness and of great physical beauty. The Chamorro people who have lived here for 4000 years also have an historical experience with colonialism and military occupation more long-lived and geographically intensive, acre for acre, than anywhere else in the Pacific and perhaps even in global comparative scale (Aguon 2006). It is today embroiled in a debate over when, how, or if the United States military will acquire more land for its purposes and make more intensive use of the island as a whole.

The five-page “Investigative Result on the Sinking of ROKS Cheonan” (hereafter “Investigative Result”) released by the Joint Investigative Group on May 20, just over two months after the sinking of the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) warship Cheonan that killed 46 sailors, minced few words in blaming the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) for the catastrophe. “The Cheonan was sunk as the result of an underwater explosion caused by a torpedo made in North Korea. The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korea submarine. There is no other plausible explanation,” the report stated. Soon after, the ROK, backed by the United States and Japan, along with a number of Western states including England, France, and Australia, condemned the attack and vowed “stern action,” appealing to the United Nations Security Council to impose stronger sanctions on its northern neighbor. The United States and the ROK also announced plans to conduct joint military drills in the West Sea to deter further DPRK aggression. The DPRK, denying involvement and offering to send its own fact-finding team to participate in the investigation, was rebuffed by the ROK. It then repeated its 1994 threat to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire” should the ROK penalize it over the incident. Russia and China, among the few states that have not signaled acceptance of the conclusions drawn by the Investigative Result, urged restraint and further investigation. Russia initiated its own private investigation and found (but has not yet published) results contrary to those of the Investigative Result. China, countering U.S.-ROK plans to hold military drills, on June 20 began its own six-day live ammunition drill in the East China Sea.

The exchange of artillery fire between South and North Korea on 23 November, 2010 had predictable results – a great increase of tension on the peninsula, a show of force by the United States, and a torrent of uninformed media articles and pontificating from the security industry. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor armed the Mujahideen in order to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, thereby starting that long and continuing war (and paving the way to 9/11 for that matter), opined that

If these actions are deliberate it is an indication that the North Korean regime has reached a point of insanity. Its calculations and its actions are difficult to fathom in rational terms. Alternatively it is a sign that the regime is out of control. Different elements in Pyongyang, including parts of the military, are capable of taking actions on their own perhaps, without central co-ordination.2