Ichiro Ozawa

When Ichiro Ozawa, a longtime Diet member and power broker, published Blueprint for a New Japan two years ago, his main goal was to reverse the country's reluctance to play a larger role in world affairs. Ozawa, at that time a senior leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (ldp), was obsessed with Tokyos refusal to provide on-the-ground support for the U.S.-led forces during the Persian Gulf War, despite repeated requests from Washington. He called the episode a defeat whose origins could be traced to the politics of indecision ' and the lack of a clear center in Japanese politics. Unless Japanese politicians revised the rudderless postwar system, Ozawa argued, the country would go the way of ancient Carthage, whose belief that wealth alone could sustain a nation ultimately caused its demise. Since then, Ozawas complaints about the failure of Japans lead ership have grown even more acute. The Kobe earthquake, which left more than 5,500 dead in January, is the most prominent and tragic example. Socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama vacillated, unsure of his own powers; ministries responded with detachment and little coordination; and the military waited for deployment orders that came too late. In the eyes of the Japanese, the tragedy easily sur passed the Persian Gulf War as a display of systemic paralysis

Bay · Civil engineering · Economics · Economy · Political science · Engineering · Japanese History and Culture

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