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Global Affairs Session 74 7 August 2026 IRAN WAR REACHES JAPAN US spooked with Yen collapse Japan is caught in an unusual geopolitical-financial trap: the yen has fallen to four-decade lows, the Iran war has disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, and Japan’s dependence on Middle Eastern crude magnifies the cost of a weak currency. The United States has joined Japan in buying yen because a disorderly Japanese crisis could spill into Asian currencies and the U.S. Treasury market.

Global Affairs Session 39 19 May 2026 JAPAN’S MIRACULOUS RISE From feudal isolation to economic miracle, and the long road back Japan’s modern story runs from ancient Jōmon and Yayoi societies through Chinese-influenced classical courts and centuries of samurai feudalism, into the Meiji Restoration’s breakneck modernization, a stunning post-war economic miracle, and a painful asset-bubble collapse. Today Japan remains one of the world’s largest economies and a central Indo-Pacific power, deepening its U.S. alliance and regional partnerships even as it manages the legacy of its Lost Decades.

Global Affairs Session 25 29 April 2026 FROM PLAZA 1985 TO IRAN 2026 How the World Changed The Plaza Accord did not cause the Iran war, but it helped shape the dollar-centred financial system, Asia’s manufacturing and energy-demand structure, and the globalised economy through which a regional conflict now transmits worldwide economic and geopolitical consequences.

Global Affairs Session 24 28 April 2026 THE PLAZA ACCORD: HOW JAPAN WAS DESTROYED What China (and Iran) are doing This session traces U.S.-Japan relations from war and occupation to alliance and trade imbalance, then argues that the 1985 Plaza Accord’s yen appreciation weakened Japan’s export engine, encouraged monetary expansion, inflated an asset bubble and contributed to long-term stagnation. It then presents the lessons China - and states watching the Iran war of 2026 - may draw about currency control, strategic autonomy, sanctions-proof finance and vulnerable chokepoints.