The Geopoliticalmonitor’s Zachary Fillingham examines some of the defining political, economic, and military trends for Northeast Asia in 2014. 

A list of some of the critical economic and security issues facing the world in February 2013.

The Liberal Democratic Party’s Shinzo Abe emerged as the big winner in last week’s elections in Japan. But any forecast of the next four years of LDP rule must begin with the question: where exactly does the rhetoric end and the real policy begin?

Political sentiment in the United States seems to be turning against the interventions and nation-building projects that have characterized US foreign policy in recent years. The revulsion at the cost and size of government, including the cost of expensive wars in the Middle East, has been amply demonstrated during the debt ceiling drama of recent weeks.

The human cost of the terrible earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan last week is clear for all to see. What’s less obvious however is the geopolitical impact of the tragic events currently playing out in Japan.

Last week’s revelation of a highly refined capacity for uranium enrichment and the subsequent shelling of South Korean military positions on Yeonpyeong Island are both indications that Pyongyang is willing to push this crisis to the extremities.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the disputed Kurile Islands off the north coast of Japan will surely set alarm bells off within the Japanese defense establishment.

China’s embargo on rare earth mineral exports to Japan, instituted at the height of last month’s Sino-Japanese fishing boat spat, stands as an example of short-term domestic political considerations trumping long-term economic planning.

Beneath all of the historical score-settling that is driving a meteoric crash in relations between China and Japan there is a simple reality: China is attempting to fill strategic space that the US-Japanese alliance currently occupies. 

The anniversary of Japan’s surrender in WWII has come and gone with two noteworthy developments: no visits from the Japanese cabinet to the Yasukuni Shrine and a strongly-worded apology from Prime Minister Naoto Kan.