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Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top photo credit: Private Fred L. Greenleaf crosses a deep irrigation canal during an allied operation during the Vietnam War. (Photo: National Archives)
Agent Orange is the chemical weapon that keeps on killing
November 27, 2025
November 30 marks the International Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare. Established by the United Nations in 2015, the day honors those who have suffered from chemical weapons and reaffirms our collective commitment to ensure these horrors never happen again.
Since the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) entered into force in 1997, 197 nations have ratified it.Israel signed but never ratified; Egypt, North Korea, and South Sudan have not signed. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced in July 2023 that all chemical weapons stockpiles reported by member nations, including those in the United States, have been destroyed. It is one of the greatest disarmament achievements in modern history.
And yet, for many, the scars of chemical warfare are still fresh.
When most people think of chemical weapons, they recall images of gas masks, sarin attacks, or mustard gas — tools of modern barbarity. For countless families in the United States, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the legacy of chemical warfare is bound to a different name: Agent Orange.
Between 1961 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 20 million gallons of herbicides over southern Vietnam, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, and parts of Cambodia. Nearly two-thirds was Agent Orange, later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) — a potent, long-lasting dioxin. TCDD is a known human carcinogen and an endocrine disruptor, linked to cancers, reproductive disorders, and birth defects that can span generations.
By the letter of the CWC, Agent Orange is not classified as a “chemical weapon.” If you ask a Vietnam veteran suffering from Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, or any of the 19 types of conditions the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) associates with Agent Orange exposure, you’ll hear a very different story. To them, it was every bit a weapon designed to destroy life and health.
The numbers tell a sobering tale. The 1991 Agent Orange Act allowed the VA to presume that all veterans who served in Vietnam were exposed, qualifying them for care and compensation. A 2018 Government Accountability Office report found that over 757,000 veterans — about one in four who served — were receiving benefits linked to Agent Orange.
The 2022 PACT Act broadened that circle to veterans who served in other areas where Agent Orange was used. By 2024, more than 84,000 new Vietnam-era veterans were granted compensation, many due to exposure. However, the VA still excludes most of their children from benefits for birth defects or disabilities — unless their mother, not their father, served in Vietnam. This injustice persists even as evidence grows of intergenerational impacts.
For years, the U.S. government avoided addressing the damage overseas as well. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that the United States and Vietnam began working together to clean up the lingering dioxin contamination. Thanks largely to the tireless advocacy of former Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and his team, the U.S. has since provided over $333 million for environmental cleanup at Da Nang and Bien Hoa air bases, and $139 million for health and disability programs in affected Vietnamese communities. During his trip to Hanoi earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to these cooperation and to strengthen defense ties.
This vital cooperation, however, stops at Vietnam’s borders.
In neighboring Laos, families endure the same suffering without support. The War Legacies Project has documented hundreds of children born with severe birth defects in the sprayed regions of Laos — eerily similar to those seen in Vietnam. Before his retirement in 2023, Senator Leahy secured $1.5 million for disability programs in Laos, followed by another $3 million over the next two years. Yet earlier this year, the OKARD (“Opportunity” in Lao) project — one of the few programs supporting people with disabilities along the Ho Chi Minh Trail — was quietly eliminated. Those families have once again been left to fend for themselves.
Fifty years after the Vietnam War ended, the toxic legacy of Agent Orange and other dioxins lingers on. The CWC may not list it among banned weapons, but its effects — decades of suffering, intergenerational illness, and ecological ruin — make that a distinction without a difference.
As we remember victims of chemical warfare, we should also remember those whose suffering falls outside the neat lines of international definitions. Agent Orange was intended to strip away jungle cover, but what it truly laid bare is the long shadow of chemical warfare on human lives.
The United States has taken commendable steps to make amends in Vietnam. True reconciliation and moral leadership require going further. This means expanding support for communities in Laos and Cambodia who were also victims of undeniable actions by our country. It means ensuring that veterans and their families here at home receive the validation and care they deserve, including children born with disabilities that may be linked to their parents’ exposure. It also means continuing the scientific research needed to understand these generational effects fully.
Chemical weapons may no longer sit in our arsenals, but their ghosts persist in the soil of Southeast Asia, in the bodies of our veterans, and in the DNA of their children. To honor the victims of chemical warfare, we must not only remember those felled by sarin or mustard gas, but also those still living with the hidden wounds of Agent Orange.
As long as those wounds remain untreated, our work to end chemical warfare remains unfinished.
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Top image credit: RELEASE DATE: October 24, 2025 TITLE: A House of Dynamite ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
You have 19 minutes to decide whether to kill tens of millions
November 26, 2025
WARNING: This article contains spoilers.
What if you were the president of the United States and you had just minutes to decide how to respond to an impending nuclear attack?
A new film, “A House of Dynamite” — released in theaters early last month and made available on Netflix on October 24 — chronicles a chaotic, confusing, and terrifying conference call involving the president and his top advisers after U.S. military officials detect an intercontinental ballistic missile headed toward what they eventually conclude to be Chicago.
The film — directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim — has received positive reviews from critics and movie-goers alike. And indeed many articles have been written praising it for bringing awareness to the underappreciated reality that, despite the end of the Cold War some 30 years ago, we still live under the constant, and real, threat of nuclear armageddon.
One major criticism of “A House of Dynamite,” however, is that it never tells us what the president decided to do. Bigelow and Oppenheim have explained that their intention was for that omission to generate conversation, so we asked experts how they would have responded.
But before getting to that, we should briefly describe the situation as it is portrayed in the film.
Military officials detect a missile launch somewhere in the Pacific and initially believe it to be a test. After it has been confirmed to be a nuclear ICBM heading toward the United States, the president and his team have 19 minutes — less time than it takes the average American to commute to work — to decide how to respond.
The first point of consideration is that no one has any idea who launched the attack. Speculation about the culprit ranges from North Korea, China and Russia to a rogue captain or an unintentional launch. And ultimately, the U.S.’s feeble missile defense attempts fail.
At that point, there are seven minutes to impact and Lieutenant Commander Reeves, the Presidential Military Aide — played by Jonah Hauer-King — who carries the so-called “nuclear football” gives the president — played by Idris Elba — a black binder laying out potential response options, “select, limited, and major,” should POTUS decide on a nuclear retaliation. General Anthony Brady, head of U.S. Strategic Command — played by Tracy Letts — advises the president to act.
The STRATCOM commander points out that U.S. adversaries are already mobilizing their forces.
“Perhaps … they are simply and innocently responding to our posture. It is also possible that they've seen our homeland is about to absorb a catastrophic blow, and they are readying to take advantage of that,” he says. “Or, this is all part of a phased coordinated assault with far worse to come. I simply don't know. What I do know is this: if we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window to do so. We can strike preemptively or risk 100 ICBMs, launching our way, at which time this war will have already been lost.”
The president then asks, what if the attack on Chicago is a one-off.
“I think we’d all welcome any indication of that. As unfathomable as it was just five minutes ago, I’d accept the loss of 10 million Americans if I could be absolutely certain that it stops there,” Brady says. “Of course in absence of that certainty, we can all certainly say a prayer and rely on the goodwill of our adversaries to keep us safe. Or we can hit their command centers, silos, and bombers while they’re still on the ground, eliminating their ability to take further action against us. We’ve already lost one American city today, how many more do you want to risk?”
Within the logic of this film and the time constraints the president is under this appears to be a very compelling argument, particularly if the focus is solely on protecting the United States and ensuring that it survives. There are so many unknowns, and they have already crossed the line into a worst case scenario.
At the same time, General Brady’s recommendation is also very extreme, to say the least.
Enter deputy national security adviser Jake Baerington, played by Gabriel Basso, who has to step in because his boss is under anesthesia for a routine medical procedure that morning. With six minutes until impact, and after the Russian foreign minister in a phone call tells him Russia was not responsible, Jake advises the president against any kind of retaliation, “for now at least.”
“Sounds to me like we know nothing new,” Gen. Brady interjects, referring to the call with the Russian foreign minister.
“Wrong, general,” Baerington shoots back. “We do what he’s asking, if we hold back there’s at least a chance.”
“Jake, if I do what you’re suggesting. I let whoever did this get away with it, how is that any different from surrendering?” the president asks.
“Sir if you want to look at it that way, then I’m telling you your choices are surrender or suicide,” Baerington says.
With two minutes until impact, the president steps away from the call. And when he comes back, about to give his orders, the film ends.
Stephen Schwartz, a nonresident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and an independent expert, told RS he wouldn’t be pushed around by General Brady or anyone at STRATCOM and would not order a retaliatory strike. “Yes, the American people would almost certainly demand action if Chicago was destroyed,” he said, adding, “but as president I would not be rushed into making an irrevocable decision that could easily lead to the end of the country and the world as we know it.”
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told RS that he would have followed Baerington’s advice.
Kimball said he would remind his team that the United States has nearly 1,000 invulnerable submarine-based nuclear weapons available for him to use at any time. “In this situation, it would be impossible to destroy all or even most enemy missiles on land and sea with a pre-emptive U.S. strike,” he said. “Adversaries would launch their weapons before a U.S. counterstrike designed to ‘limit damage’ from further attacks could hit them.”
Kimball added that a counter strike of the kind that General Brady recommends in the film “would result in the destruction of empty silos, the murder of hundreds of millions of people, and a massive nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland. That would be suicide and surrender.”
Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, said he would not respond immediately, which he acknowledged, “could draw harsh public backlash, but it would be far preferable to a possible counteract that could put even more U.S. residents at risk.”
Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, said that even if we knew who did it, he would not have retaliated at all. “Nothing could bring back those 10 million deceased people in the Chicagoland area,” he said. “A counter attack would only kill more innocent people, and likely lead to an all-out nuclear war, possibly ending most if not all human and non-human life on Earth.”
Indeed, the 1983 film “War Games” famously reminded us that the only way to win a nuclear war game is not to play. And “The Day After” — the infamous made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC that same year — shocked the American consciousness about the sheer devastation a nuclear strike would bring and the chaotic, dystopian aftermath that would result. That film had such an impact that, as one observer noted, President Reagan’s “speeches had veered from warmonger to Gandhi-esque peacemaker, declaring that ‘we’re all God’s children.’”
Three years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first international agreement that reduced nuclear weapons stockpiles and eliminated a class of nuclear weapons altogether.
Subsequent treaties have further limited and/or reduced Russian and American nuclear weapons arsenals. And today, New START is the only remaining international agreement legally placing limits on nuclear weapons, but it is in danger of collapse as expiration nears.
But even with New START in place, the U.S. and Russia (along with seven other countries) have thousands of nuclear weapons amassed in their arsenals, enough to literally destroy the world many times over.
Perhaps “A House of Dynamite” will help spark renewed public debate about our nuclear weapons policies that may one day finally compel our leaders to say “enough is enough.”
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Top photo credit: Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 首相官邸 (Cabinet Public Affairs Office)
Takaichi 101: How to torpedo relations with China in a month
November 26, 2025
On November 7, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could undoubtedly be “a situation that threatens Japan’s survival,” thereby implying that Tokyo could respond by dispatching Self-Defense Forces.
This statement triggered the worst crisis in Sino-Japanese relations in over a decade because it reflected a transformation in Japan’s security policy discourse, defense posture, and U.S.-Japan defense cooperation in recent years. Understanding this transformation requires dissecting the context as well as content of Takaichi’s parliamentary remarks.
The controversy centers around applying Japan’s “survival-threatening situation” law to Taiwan.
Approved by Japan’s Diet in September 2015, this legislation enabled Japan to exercise to a very limited degree its right of collective self-defense even if Japan itself were not attacked directly.
The law imposed three stringent conditions: (1) an attack against a foreign country with which Japan has close relations threatens Japan’s survival and poses a clear danger to fundamentally overturn the people’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, (2) there is no other appropriate means to repel the attack and ensure Japan’s survival and protect its people, and (3) the use of force must be limited to the minimum extent necessary.
During the Diet deliberations in September 14, 2015, the government explained that contrary to the general notion of collective self-defense under international law, the Self-Defense Forces according to article 88 of the Self-Defense Force Law would be limited to the defense of Japan and would not be involved in the use of force overseas to fight in another country including the victim of the attack.
The Abe government at the time avoided any mention of a Taiwan contingency. In fact, the conventional view was that because Japan did not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign country consistent with the 1972 Japan-China normalization communique, an armed Chinese attack against Taiwan in itself would not constitute a “survival-threatening situation.” Most Japanese security experts thought that a Chinese attack on an allied country like the United States in the context of a Taiwan scenario would be necessary.
While prime minister, Shinzō Abe was careful not to provoke China by mentioning Japan’s military involvement in a Taiwan contingency. But after his retirement, he became more openly supportive of Taiwan. In December 2021, during an on-line appearance at a Taiwan think tank event, Abe stated, “A Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan. In other words, it is also a contingency for the Japan-U.S. alliance.”
Then during a Japanese television program in February 2022, Abe called on the United States to drop its strategic ambiguity regarding the defense of Taiwan. While reiterating that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency,” Abe declared that the establishment of Chinese air and sea superiority around Taiwan would “affect Japan’s territorial waters, or at least our exclusive economic zone.”
During a gathering of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in July 2021, then Deputy Prime Minister Tarō Asō declared that Japan with the United States “would have to defend Taiwan” if invaded by China and that Taiwan experiencing a “big problem” could “relate to a survival-threatening situation for Japan.”
While visiting Taiwan in August 2023, Asō, who was then LDP vice president stated, “I believe that now is the time for Japan, Taiwan, the United States and other like-minded countries to be prepared to put into action very strong deterrence. It’s the resolve to fight.”
And in September 2025, Asō in a Tokyo meeting with Taiwan legislators stated that “Taiwan is a country that shares fundamental values with Japan.” China protested Asō’s remark by insisting that “Taiwan is a province of China, never a country.”
Before becoming prime minister, Takaichi echoed Abe and Asō. In her first run for the LDP presidency in September 2021, she argued that a Taiwan crisis would be a threat to Japan and the possibility of deploying Self-Defense Forces would be high. During her second run for the LDP’s top post in September 2024, Takaichi suggested that a Chinese maritime blockade on Taiwan could qualify as a “crisis that threatens the nation’s existence.”
Moreover, Abe and Asō played a major role in Takaichi’s path to the prime ministership. Abe endorsed Takaichi during the September 2021 LDP presidential race. The Asō faction’s support was critical to Takaichi’s victory in October 2025.
This political context motivated former Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party to grill Takaichi about what constitutes a “survival-threatening situation.” Okada was concerned that Takaichi as prime minister might adopt an expansive interpretation of the “survival-threatening situation” law that exceeded the understandings reached during the September 2015 Diet deliberations.
After having the director-general of the Cabinet Legal Affairs Bureau confirm the September 2015 government’s restrictions regarding the “survival-threatening situation” legislation, Okada got Takaichi herself to confirm this understanding. He then noted how some politicians have been making careless remarks about what would qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” despite these officially acknowledged restrictions.
Okada gave as an example Takaichi’s own comments that a Chinese maritime blockade of Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation.” He questioned how that could be since Japanese ships could bypass the blockaded area and Japan would still be supplied with energy and food. Takaichi responded that the U.S. military intervening to break the blockade that then led to an armed clash or a blockade imposed in the context of war could be considered a “survival-threatening situation.”
Okada criticized her answer as being an overly expansive view of the concept since a blockade on Taiwan would not necessarily threaten Japan’s survival.
Emphasizing the importance of considering worst-case scenarios, Takaichi then referred to different ways that China could seek to bring Taiwan completely under its control such as “closing off its sea lanes, the use of force, misinformation, or cyber propaganda.” She then declared, “If [China’s control of Taiwan] involves the use of warships and the exercise of military force, I believe this could undoubtedly constitute a case of a survival-threatening situation.” Especially problematic in this statement was the absence of any reference to a Chinese attack on U.S. forces. This implied that a Chinese attack on Taiwan in itself could threaten Japan’s survival and thereby permitting the use of force.
In addition to being the first time a sitting Japanese prime minister has explicitly mentioned a Taiwan contingency as a “survival-threatening situation,” Takaichi’s remarks angered China because they reflected a sea change in Japan’s security discourse, defense posture, and U.S.-Japan defense cooperation.
Mainstream Japanese defense experts now openly argue that China’s control over Taiwan could be an existential threat to Japan. Japan has been deploying new defense capabilities in its southwestern region (including the recently announced missile deployment on Yonaguni Island near Taiwan), and the U.S. and Japan are enhancing military planning, coordination, and joint exercises to more effectively respond to a Taiwan crisis. Moreover, in March 2025, the former chief of the Joint Staff of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces was appointed to be an adviser to Taiwan’s Cabinet, suggesting that Taiwan seeks to advance security cooperation with Japan.
From the U.S. and Japanese perspective, these developments aim to deter China’s use of force against Taiwan at a time when Beijing is increasing its economic and military pressure on Taipei. But from China’s perspective, Japan with the United States is interfering in a Chinese domestic issue, encouraging Taiwan’s pro-independence forces, and impeding the possibility of peaceful unification of Taiwan with China. A possible Japanese military role in a Taiwan scenario is especially infuriating to Chinese because of Japan’s colonial rule over Taiwan after 1895.
Under current circumstances, Chinese diplomatic and economic coercion against Japan could accelerate the militarization of the Taiwan issue and increase the risk of a dangerous military incident.
So what should Japan do to help defuse this crisis?
Ideally, as former Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka has recommended, Prime Minister Takaichi could retract her Diet remarks and apologize for going beyond the Japanese policy and practice of not commenting on specific hypothetical scenarios related to survival-threatening situations. But that appears to be politically difficult if not impossible, especially after Xue Jian, the Chinese Consul-General in Osaka, posted on social media a threat of beheading Takaichi. Since this malicious and inflammatory post was quickly removed, a helpful Chinese next step would be to reprimand the Chinese diplomat for his unprofessional conduct after recalling him to Beijing.
In response, Japan should reassure China with a more robust articulation of its one-China policy. Rather than simply reiterating that Japan continues to abide by the 1972 normalization communique, Tokyo should explicitly say that it does not support Taiwan’s independence, as Prime Minister Keizō Obuchi orally conveyed to Chinese President Jiang Zemin in November 1998. In addition, Japan should declare that it opposes unilateral changes in the status quo, including the independence of Taiwan.
Regarding the “survival-threatening situation” law, Japan should explicitly state that it does not consider Taiwan to be a sovereign country and should confirm that its actions will be consistent with its long-held strictly defensive defense doctrine (senshu bō’ei). In other words, Tokyo should publicly reaffirm that even under a “survival-threatening situation,” Japan’s Self-Defense Force would be limited to the defense of Japan and would not be using force overseas to fight in another country or territory such as Taiwan.
These statements, if made by Prime Minister Takaichi herself, would give more credibility to Japan’s claim that her November 7 remarks did not entail a substantive policy change regarding Taiwan and may clear the way for stabilizing Sino-Japanese relations.
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