The trans-border political whirlwinds of today, including China's militarisation of the South China Sea and its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure push, have been driven primarily by domestic concerns, experts told the Japan Symposium organised by the Milken Institute think-tank yesterday.

War is the ultimate test for nations and their leaders. History is full of great leaders who fought and won military victories, from Revolutionary War hero George Washington to Abraham Lincoln’s civil war and World War II’s FDR.

The White House says President Donald Trump will declare a national emergency and take other executive action to allow construction of the president’s long-promised southern border wall, after bipartisan congressional negotiations provided less than a quarter of the $5.7 billion Trump wanted to start building more than 200 miles of wall.

Across the West, policymakers are grappling with the implications of a rapidly changing world order and the deep uncertainties accompanying it. As four new books by leading German thinkers show, nowhere is the need for clarity and an honest self-reckoning more acute than in the land of Kant and Bismarck.