This article by Kiyoteru Tsutsui and Charles Crabtree was originally published in The Hill.

On Sept. 16, Yoshihide Suga was elected as Japan’s 99th prime minister, following the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Suga was Abe’s right-hand man, serving as the chief cabinet secretary and achieving the longest tenure in Japanese history for this position. Now as prime minister, Suga is widely expected to continue many of Abe’s policies and has publicly vowed to do so. 

True to his words, his cabinet appointments include many holdovers, and his policy pronouncements so far demonstrate few deviations from Abe’s agenda, which Suga helped shape. Suga will first focus on measures to address health and economic setbacks caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and then will pursue other goals such as regulatory reform, digitalization to improve efficiency in government agencies, and the reorganization of small firms and local banks to increase their productivity. 

None of these is a radically new idea and, at least initially, Suga is unlikely to steer Japan away from the direction that Abe set over the past seven years and eight months. However, there are some key differences between the two men that could produce different electoral and policy outcomes for Suga’s administration.

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This op-ed by Kiyoteru Tsutsui originally appeared in the Nikkei Asian Review.

When asked about his favorite historical figure at a recent Liberal Democratic Party presidential election debate, Yoshihide Suga picked Hidenaga Toyotomi, the younger brother of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, one of Japan's most iconic historical figures known for uniting the country in the 16th century.

A much less recognized figure, Hidenaga was Hideyoshi's right-hand man who managed a ragtag group of ambitious and fiery vassals and played a key role in guiding Hideyoshi's ascent to the top. The parallel is obvious. Much like Hidenaga was to Hideyoshi, Suga has been the point man behind Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister who recently announced his resignation for health reasons.

Elected president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday, Suga will officially take center stage as Japan's next Prime Minister on Wednesday, when he is formally chosen as prime minister at an extraordinary Diet session. The question now is whether the 71-year-old chief cabinet secretary is ready to lead the world's third-largest economy and what will be his policy focus?

Continue to read the complete op-ed in the Nikkei Asian Review >> 

As protests continue in Belarus over the disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, Steve Pifer explains how the government’s response to COVID-19 and a blatantly stolen election prompted the wide-spread demonstrations. He also warns how Russia’s current support for Lukashenko could backfire by pushing Belarusian public opinion away from Russia and toward the West.

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John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, announced that the intelligence community would cut back on its briefings to Congress on electoral security. Amy B. Zegart, the author of three books on U.S. intelligence, including “Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community,” the standard book on the relationship between Congress and intelligence agencies, explains what the decision meant.

Read the rest at Washington Post

On August 28, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced that he will step down from the position, citing serious health concerns. What is his legacy and what lies ahead? Below, I list his three major accomplishments (hits) and disappointments (misses) and consider who is likely to succeed him.

Hit: Abe’s greatest accomplishment is that he kept winning elections and stayed in power, becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Japanese history. In a country where only one prime minister (Koizumi) lasted more than two years in the last three decades, this is a significant achievement. He started his (second) term in 2012 when Japan was still reeling from the triple disaster of 2011 and the mismanagement by the then-ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). He initially restored confidence in Japan, energized the economy with bold policies, and brought stability to Japanese politics. The weakening and eventual disintegration of the DPJ facilitated his streak of electoral victories, but he deserves credit for launching several policy initiatives to revitalize the stagnant and aging economic giant and for incorporating social welfare policies – many of which were proposed by opposition parties – to stave off dissatisfaction among voters. He raised the consumption tax rate twice and still won six straight elections, an amazing feat considering how past prime ministers faired after a tax hike.

Miss: Despite this long period as prime minister, it is not entirely clear that he accomplished major policy goals. Abenomics – Abe’s signature economic policy – reinvigorated the Japanese economy, shooting stocks up to great heights, but the economy as a whole did not grow any faster under his watch and per capita GDP shrank, exacerbating economic inequality. Revising the Constitution, widely seen as his ultimate goal as prime minister, did not come close to being a reality, even though he launched a number of trial balloons. Abe also proposed many new policy initiatives with catchy phrases – womanomics, work-life balance reform, reviving rural Japan, etc. – but was often criticized for producing only an impression that he is doing something (yatterukan) rather than actually getting things done.

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Hit: Foreign policy was Abe’s strong suit. Having outserved most G7 leaders, his stature at international meetings rose to a height few Japanese prime ministers reached before. Overcoming the initial perception as a hawkish nationalist ideologue, he demonstrated savvy pragmatism in foreign affairs, developing strong relationships with the United States, particularly with President Trump, and recovering from the rocky start with President Xi to forge a practical partnership with China. His administration also passed a series of legislation that advanced realist security policies and popularized a vision of Free and Open Indo-Pacific, which other countries including the United States bought into. Furthermore, despite the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Abe marched on and led the charge toward the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a rare example of Japan leading a multilateral agreement without support from the United States.

Miss: Yet, Abe failed to achieve some key foreign policy goals. The issue of abduction of Japanese by North Korea, which prompted him to national prominence when he was a young cabinet member under Prime Minister Koizumi, did not see any progress, nor did territorial negotiations with Russia – another foreign policy issue he expended a good deal of capital on. South Korea was another thorn on his side: the “comfort women” agreement could have been Abe’s major accomplishment, but domestic political turmoil in South Korea led to President Moon’s scuttling of the agreement, which sent the Japan-South Korea relations into a downward spiral. This development had more to do with South Korean politics than Abe, but he still could have tried to repair the damage. Instead, he threw in a towel on Moon and escalated tensions with South Korea, when the two countries should be close allies collaborating to cope with China’s assertiveness and the North Korean nuclear threat.

Hit: Abe’s cabinet accumulated enormous power over bureaucrats by holding authority on personnel decisions, which is critical in controlling them. This shift of power from bureaucrats to politicians was what the DPJ advocated when it became the ruling party. Abe nearly perfected this transfer of power and established a system under which the prime minister can take the initiative for new policies, going over opposition from career bureaucrats, and seek voters’ judgment about the merits of the policy in subsequent elections. This departs from decades of political practice in Japan, whereby bureaucrats set major policies, and most politicians merely parrot policy goals, which is unconducive to major policy changes needed to energize the stagnant economy and society. Abe leaves in place the cabinet apparatus that could empower the next prime minister to launch major policy initiatives.

Miss: The downside of the concentration of power is corruption. A series of scandals that revealed excessively cozy relationships between Abe and his supporters threatened Abe’s hold on power in the last few years. As is often the case, the coverup was worse than the initial infraction in the major financial scandals, and other transgressions challenged the public’s sense of fairness as Abe’s supporters – politicians, government officials, business leaders, journalists, or celebrities – allegedly received special treatment. The lack of accountability undermined Abe’s credibility toward the end, and the weakened administration struggled to handle the coronavirus crisis. Despite the relatively low numbers of coronavirus cases and victims in Japan, Abe received few applauses for his handling of the crisis. Even though his health was the main reason for his resignation, all these recent developments sapped the energy out of his cabinet, setting the stage for his resignation.

Who’s Next?

Abe’s abrupt departure prompted a number of party leaders to jockey for the successor position. As of this writing, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has all but secured the position, having picked up support from key factions within the ruling LDP. Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba will remain on the ballot but other major candidates such as Defense Minister Taro Kono have decided not to run this time.

Suga has been the most important partner for Abe in the cabinet along with Deputy Prime Minister Aso, contributing to the consolidation of power in the cabinet and executing various policy initiatives and legislative successes. Suga would likely carry forward many of Abe’s key policies, and with his tactical savvy and the potent cabinet apparatus that he helped create, has the potential to become a powerful prime minister. On the other hand, he would only have a year before the next election for LDP presidency (because he would be filling Abe’s remaining term) and he would have to account for Abe’s negative legacies, in some of which he is seen as complicit. These factors lead many observers to predict a short stint for him, but Suga is a scrappy self-made man who rose from a modest background, and his political instincts and already strong hold on power are not to be underestimated.

From 2001 to 2004, I was the senior American official to visit Belarus. The United States and European Union were thoroughly dissatisfied with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s authoritarianism, and US policy mandated that no official higher than a deputy assistant secretary travel to Minsk. EU officials and EU member states observed comparable restrictions.

Washington had no particular geopolitical interest in Belarus, and trade was minimal. During my first visit in February 2002, the primary objective was to persuade the Belarusian government to ease up on repression, respect human rights, and allow a bit more political space. We presented Belarusian officials two lists. List A enumerated actions the US government wanted Belarus to take; List B laid out steps that Washington could take to improve bilateral relations. We told our counterparts that if they indicated what things from List A they would do to improve human rights and the political atmosphere, we would tell them what actions from List B the United States would take in response.

The Belarusians gave us nothing.

My second visit to Minsk came in March 2004 on a joint US-EU mission to encourage the Belarusian government to improve its human rights record. My EU colleagues and I presented a coordinated position. We noted our readiness to improve relations, including taking steps sought by Belarusian officials, provided that the government ease domestic repression. Once again, the Belarusians gave us nothing to work with.

I then traveled on from Minsk to Moscow for consultations and raised Belarus with a Russian deputy foreign minister. I noted that the United States and Russia had competing geopolitical interests regarding Ukraine, but that this was not the case with regard to Belarus. There was no push in Minsk to join the European Union, and zero Belarusian interest in NATO. Neither Washington nor the European Union clamored to pull Belarus closer. The primary Western aim was to get Lukashenka to ease up on the repression. Was this an issue on which the United States, Europe, and Russia could work together?

My Russian interlocutor listened politely, but his body language answered all too clearly. The domestic political situation in Belarus did not trouble him. And, in any case, if something needed to be done there, Russia would handle it on its own.

That Moscow meeting has come to mind once again in recent weeks as Belarusians have protested against a sham election. They are protesting in a way they have not protested in the nearly three decades since Belarus became an independent state. While Lukashenka, who has held power for 26 years, rails against Western interference, Western criticism focuses on democratic norms and a stolen election. There is no burning desire to pull Belarus into the West. Both the European Union and NATO have more than enough on their plates.

Likewise, the protests in Belarus are about democracy, not about a Westward geopolitical course. Presidential candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who according to credible exit polls won the August 9 presidential ballot, has said: “[The protest movement] is neither a pro-Russian nor an anti-Russian revolution. It is neither an anti-European Union nor a pro-European Union revolution. It is a democratic revolution.”

The absence of a geopolitical component to the current protests is perhaps not surprising. Indeed, it is worth underlining that of all the states to emerge from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus seemed the least certain about what to do with independence and the most interested in maintaining close relations with Russia.

As in 2004, Moscow presumably has no desire to coordinate with the West on how to handle the crisis that Lukashenka’s inept leadership and stolen election have caused. In going it alone, the Kremlin faces a choice. Does it choose to back Lukashenka or an increasingly restive population?

The Russian government could choose to side with the Belarusian people. They could help ease the authoritarian president out of office and into a pleasant retirement in a dacha near Moscow, perhaps with former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych living next door. In that case, Russia would likely gain a stable Belarus as a neighbor, with a population still – or perhaps even more – favorably disposed toward Russia and Russians.

There is an obvious drawback to this approach. The emergence of another pluralistic political system on Russia’s western border could give rise to greater questions from the Russian public as to why they cannot enjoy similar rights.

Backing Lukashenka would enable Russia to avoid such questions, but it could entail something significantly worse. A violent and prolonged crackdown supported by the Kremlin would lead to an increasingly radicalized Belarusian population that views Russia as thwarting its desire for a greater political voice. To Moscow’s disadvantage, this might bring geopolitical factors into play that are currently absent from the debate in Belarusian society. It could also fuel interest in “joining” the West.

On August 27, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has already organized a reserve police force to assist Lukashenka if necessary. He should reconsider this. Over the past six years, Kremlin policies of intervention have been instrumental in pushing Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West. Does Moscow want to repeat this mistake with Belarus?

Much like Donald Trump’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic, Putin almost certainly hopes the protests in Belarus will just fade away. If they do not and the standoff deepens, Putin faces a hard choice. At present, he appears inclined to make the wrong decision, with potentially costly implications for Russia.

Steven Pifer is a William Perry Research Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Originally for UkraineAlert