Reckless words, policies catch up with Abe

Abe, whatever his ambition, is a veteran politician. His first term as prime minister burned out after only one year. He was convinced that his new programs for the economy and other areas would finally bring him lasting success and restore his Liberal Democratic Party's fortunes this time round.

Instead, as Japanese economists have said, Abe's much vaunted domestic reforms have plunged the country deeper into public debt. Abe never faced up to the vital restructuring reforms Japan really needed. As a result, the economy is floundering, the yen is falling and exports are stagnant.

At every step, Abe took the easy way forward. He thought that by buying popularity on the home front, he would also win the popular backing he needed for his militarization and confrontational policies abroad. But that has not happened. Abe's reckless spending has raised increasing alarm at home and it is having progressively less success in generating increased employment and economic growth. Whenever the Japanese people have had the chance to express their opinions on his risk taking and gambling in foreign affairs they have come out strongly against it.

US policymakers, diplomats and media pundits continue to treat Abe with kid gloves and give him the benefit of every doubt. They have forgotten the lessons of World War II when Japan invaded most of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region. And they need to ask what the impact will be on regional security if Abe continues his hawkish policies.

Abe appears incapable of learning from his mistakes. However, the anniversary of Japan's humiliation and total surrender to the Allied forces on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept 2, 1945, will serve as a further reminder to his people of what the old militaristic policies led to - and why they must never be indulged in again.

The author is chief global analyst at The Globalist Research Center and a senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, and has the book, Shifting Superpowers: The New and Emerging Relationship between the United States, China and India, to his credit.