Japan in the past believed it was relatively safe from malign information operations, thanks to the linguistic barrier and a generally high level of public trust in traditional media.

But in the wake of some high-profile Chinese disinformation and misinformation operations targeting Japan, the government in Tokyo has rightfully moved beyond these assumptions and is now increasingly aware of the power of information operations to undermine social cohesion and trust in political institutions.

This has been an important shift, but the Japanese government still has work to do. And important, it can learn from practices adopted elsewhere, including in Australia.

A China-backed campaign on the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2023 aimed to damage Japan’s international reputation. ASPI has also established that a malign actor created and spread disinformation and misinformation that negatively portrayed the Japanese government’s response to the January 2024 Noto earthquake. This was likely done to foster citizens’ distrust in the current government.

This is in keeping with the global rise in the incidence of information operations—the dissemination of disinformation, propaganda or misinformation intended to shape people’s thinking or behaviour.

Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy recognised the role of information warfare in cognitive and hybrid warfare and committed to establish a government unit to play a central role in responding to it. It is excellent foundation, but there is a scope to build out a more strategic approach to countermeasures.

The new government unit, which brings together resources from across ministries and agencies, can identify information operations and build a comprehensive picture of the key actors and their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs). As well as building the government’s own understanding, this can provide a better basis for public awareness and improve the government’s ability to make attributions for attacks when it sees fit.

This work could be supported by public fact-checking by non-governmental organisations and universities, who identify dis- and misinformation and call it out. There are several non-governmental fact-checking institutions in Japan, but a 2022 survey suggests their work was not well recognised in Japan, compared with that of similar organisations in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and South Korea.

As well as attribution, enforcement is also important. Following the Noto earthquake, several social media companies took measures such as removing posts after the government asked them to do more to moderate content.  However, this reminds us that under such voluntary commitments, companies might not act until the government asks them to do so.

That leaves regulation as one clear solution to force social media companies to take stronger steps to moderate content—and the Japanese began discussing such regulation in January.

Japan has in recent years publicly attributed several cyber attacks. However the government has not made public attributions of information operations, possibly because under Japanese law, these have not usually been illegal.

Attribution is not law enforcement; it should be done to hold malicious actors accountable when their actions pose critical threats to the country’s national security.

Japan’s Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs each publish facts and advice about information operations, including how to fact-check claims, but they do not specify actors or states involved.

Some local governments and researchers conduct education campaigns designed to encourage people to recognise disinformation and other information operations, and to take them seriously. Although these campaigns have had some success in enhancing people’s information literacy, they are largely ad hoc and only reach some sections of society. Substantial work is needed to standardise these programs and reach wider audiences.

News media reporting is another key element in that it can reach this larger audience. However, in Japan, it tends to focus on importance of fact-checking, rather than covering information operations as a broader societal phenomenon.

When it comes to improving international co-operation, Japan initiated the G7 Hiroshima AI Process. This resulted in the release of a Code of Conduct for organisations developing advanced artificial intelligence systems that included measures to reduce the risks that the systems could be used to create and spread disinformation and misinformation.

Japan has also been deepening collaboration with some of its neighbours—for example holding a workshop on countering disinformation with Southeast Asian countries in December 2023.

Japan should take advantage of progress being made elsewhere by studying and, where appropriate, adopting frameworks and best practice from around the world.

There are two particular measures Japan can adopt. First, the Japanese government should consider publishing details of foreign information operations activities to raise awareness of the breadth of activity and the national security implications. The Australian Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police publicise TTPs associated with specific actors, as well as advice on the measures people should take if they suspect foreign interference activities.

Even if the Japanese government stops short of public attribution, agencies might be able to publicise TTPs and advice without identifying actors or states involved in each case. Introducing actual cases or modus operandi, ideally amplified through media reports, is effective to raise public awareness of the threats to national security. The government is already using this approach to improve Japanese companies’ understanding of the risks of intellectual property theft by foreign actors.

The Japanese government should encourage—and fund if necessary— universities, think tanks and NGOs to identify and investigate information operations. Researchers have deep expertise in specialized fields, independence from government—which can enhance their credibility among some audiences—and research flexibility to identify actors behind information operations, their motives, intentions and impact on national security. Together these qualities make independent researchers important assets in the fight against mis-and disinformation.

Conversely, Australia can learn from Japan’s diplomatic approach. In response to information operations targeting the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Japan’s MOFA released the International Atomic Energy Agency’s scientific evidence and assessment, providing a credible alternative narrative based on evidence from an apolitical international body. This approach was successful, judging from the rapid drop in the number of disinformation posts on the topic by pro-PRC accounts. Australia should also take such an approach of working with international and expert bodies when possible.

Australia should also learn from Japan’s leading role in building international co-operation. Just as Japan initiated the G7 Hiroshima AI Process, Australia should take the initiative to help create standards and rules regarding countering information operations through the AUKUS partnership, the Pacific Islands Forum and other minilateral groups.

Creating a new framework is another option. Australia’s existing Cyber and Critical Tech Co-operation Program could be used to develop a new framework through which Indo-Pacific countries discuss hybrid threats including information operations, as ASPI has proposed.

Overall, there are many things that countries can learn from each other. As Japan gathers momentum on its response to harmful information operations it can continue to learn a lot from—and offer a lot to—its friends and partners.

The virtual summit of BRICS leaders in Beijing late last month brought a slew of proposals to strengthen the group’s economic and geopolitical influence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a plan for a new reserve currency based on a basket of the currencies of the five members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, while also promoting the use by members of Russia’s financial messaging system as an alternative to the Western-dominated SWIFT network that Russia was barred from in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

China’s vice–commerce minister Wang Shouwen suggested establishing a free-trade agreement among the five, noting that although they collectively represented about a fifth of world trade, only 6% of their trade in goods and services was with each other. None currently has so much as a bilateral trade agreement with another.

Perhaps most significant was Chinese President Xi Jinping flagging expansion of the group’s membership. ‘Bringing in fresh blood will inject new vitality into BRICS cooperation and increase the representativeness and influence of BRICS,’ he said.

‘It is important to advance this process to allow like-minded partners to become part of the BRICS family at an early date.’

Like a character in a novel springing to life, the BRICS group of nations leapt off the pages of a 2001 Goldman Sachs research report to become a global institution with ambitions to become for the emerging world what the G7 is for advanced nations. The aspiration is for it to become the peak body for the emerging nations capable of coordinating economic policy.

Leaders’ summits of the five nations have been held annually since 2009. The group has established an infrastructure-funding institution, the New Development Bank, and has also organised a ‘liquidity fund’ to support members in the event of a financial crisis. Other efforts to institutionalise the grouping include cultural programs and a BRICS sporting tournament.

Yet the organisation is hampered by the fact that the five economies have very little to do with one another, with little commonality of purpose. While China and Russia would both like the BRICS to become the anti-G7 that rallies the emerging world in opposition to the ‘hegemonic’ West, both India’s Narendra Modi and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa flitted from their screen-based BRICS summit to the Bavarian Alps to participate as observers at the G7 summit, to which they had been invited, along with the leaders of Indonesia and Senegal (which holds the presidency of the Organisation of African Unity). For Modi, it was his third G7 summit, which he sees as testimony to India’s status as a great power.

The original 2001 Goldman Sachs paper highlighted the size and growth prospects for Brazil, Russia, India and China (South Africa was a later addition to the group) and argued for their inclusion into global governance. A follow-up paper in 2003 predicted that by 2040, the four original BRIC nations would have a combined economic weight greater than the six major nations of the G7 (excluding Canada). By the early 2000s, the G7 appeared anachronistic as a forum for shaping global economic policy given the growing importance of the developing nations.

In reality, moves for expanded global governance had already been taken with the formation of the G20 in 1999 (initially as a finance ministers’ group); however, the four countries latched onto the idea of becoming the peak body for the emerging world, which was otherwise represented by the unwieldy United Nations–based ‘Group of 77’ (which in fact now has 134 members).

As a group, the BRICS members have argued for greater representation for emerging nations in multilateral institutions including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and UN institutions. However, they have never taken a coordinated stance on broader economic policy issues within the G20 or elsewhere.

The trade and investment links between the nations are weak. There has been no real growth in trade between the five members since 2011, and the trade that does take place is mainly the sale of primary products by Brazil, Russia and South Africa to China, and China’s sale of manufactured goods in return. Excluding China, internal BRIC trade is less than 3% of the total exports of Brazil, Russia and India, and 6% for South Africa.

A Brazilian study shows only 0.1% of Brazilian offshore investment is in fellow BRICS nations, while the corresponding figures for other members are Russia 0.4%, China 2.3%, India 3% and South Africa 24%.

Although Wang spruiked the potential for a BRICS free-trade agreement, there was no mention of this in the final communiqué. India demonstrated its reluctance to join any trade deal that included China by pulling out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in 2019. Even Russia and China have only a trade-facilitation agreement which comes under the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union.

Putin’s proposed new reserve currency was also not mentioned in the ‘Beijing declaration’ at the conclusion of the BRICS summit. The notion would be to create a product like the International Monetary Fund’s ‘special drawing rights’ (SDRs) based on a basket of the most liquid member currencies. As the global head of markets for the ING banking group, Chris Turner, noted, the primary considerations for a reserve currency are safety, liquidity and return.

The cost of insuring against the default of five-year bonds issued by BRICS countries is more than 20 times higher than the cost of similar insurance against SDR currencies. Although the returns on BRICS currencies are higher than for the US dollar or the euro, their liquidity is poor. ‘We doubt the mercantilist nations involved in BRICS would want to transfer valuable FX reserves into this more local sphere of influence,’ Turner said.

Even Xi’s dream of expanding BRICS membership may be hard to achieve. China, as this year’s chair of the BRICS, invited the foreign ministers of Argentina, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand to attend a BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in May.

According to the Pakistani media, China also wanted to invite Pakistan’s foreign minister, but this was vetoed by India. Turkey, which is sometimes named as a candidate, might not get the support of Russia, while Mexico may be seen as too close to the United States.

Argentina has taken up an invitation to join the BRICS development bank, which it sees as a precursor to joining the group. However, existing members may be reluctant to extend access to the group’s ‘contingency reserve’ to a country whose economy is so notoriously mismanaged. Iran has also expressed its wish to join the group.

As the final communiqué emphasised, the existing five members needed to ‘clarify the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures’ governing the admission of new members before there could be any expansion.

The G7, like the BRICS, is also a somewhat arbitrary grouping with no claim to act in the interests of anyone else. Relations between its members have also been fractious at times, notably during the Trump administration. However, the economic links between the members are robust, including a large share of their trade and investment, and they have proven able to coordinate their economic policies at points of international crisis.

US President Donald Trump’s behaviour at last month’s G7 meeting in Biarritz was criticised as careless and disruptive by many observers. Others argued that the press and pundits pay too much attention to Trump’s personal antics, tweets and political games. In the long run, they argue, historians will consider them mere peccadilloes. The larger question is whether the Trump presidency will prove to be a major turning point in American foreign policy, or a minor historical blip.

The current debate over Trump revives a longstanding question: are major historical outcomes the product of human choices or are they largely the result of overwhelming structural factors produced by economic and political forces beyond our control?

Some analysts liken the flow of history to a rushing river, whose course is shaped by the climate, rainfall, geology and topography, not by whatever the river carries. But even if this were so, human agents are not simply ants clinging to a log swept along by the current. They are more like white-water rafters trying to steer and dodge rocks, occasionally overturning and sometimes succeeding in making it to a desired destination.

Understanding leaders’ choices and failures in American foreign policy over the past century can better equip us to cope with the questions we face today about the Trump presidency. Leaders in every age think they are dealing with unique forces of change, but human nature remains. Choices can matter; acts of omission can be as consequential as acts of commission. Failure by American leaders to act in the 1930s contributed to hell on earth; so did refusal by American presidents to use nuclear weapons when the United States held a monopoly on them.

Were such major choices determined by the situation or the person? Looking back a century, Woodrow Wilson broke with tradition and sent US forces to fight in Europe, but that might have occurred anyway under another leader (say, Theodore Roosevelt). Where Wilson made a big difference was in the moralistic tone of his justification, and, counterproductively, in his stubborn insistence on all or nothing for involvement in the League of Nations. Some blame Wilson’s moralism for the severity of America’s return to isolationism in the 1930s.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was unable to bring the US into World War II until Pearl Harbor, and that might have occurred even under a conservative isolationist. Nonetheless, Roosevelt’s framing of the threat posed by Hitler, and his preparations to confront that threat, were crucial for American participation in the war in Europe.

After World War II, the structure of bipolarity of two superpowers set the framework for the Cold War. But the style and timing of the American response might have been different had Henry Wallace (whom FDR ditched as vice president in 1944), instead of Harry Truman, become president. After the 1952 election, an isolationist Robert Taft or an assertive Douglas MacArthur presidency might have disrupted the relatively smooth consolidation of Truman’s containment strategy, over which the latter’s successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, presided.

John F. Kennedy was crucial in averting nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, and then signing the first nuclear arms control agreement. But he and Lyndon B. Johnson mired the country in the unnecessary and costly fiasco of the Vietnam War. At the end of the century, structural forces caused the erosion of the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev speeded up the timing of Soviet collapse. But Ronald Reagan’s defence buildup and negotiating skills, and George H.W. Bush’s skill in managing crises, played a significant role in bringing about a peaceful end to the Cold War.

In other words, leaders and their abilities matter. In a sense, this is bad news, because it means that Trump’s behaviour can’t be easily dismissed. More important than his tweets are his weakening of institutions, alliances and America’s soft power of attraction, which polls show as having declined under Trump. He is the first president in 70 years to turn away from the liberal international order that the US created after World War II. General James Mattis, who resigned after serving as Trump’s first secretary of defence, recently lamented the president’s neglect of alliances.

Presidents need to use both hard and soft power, combining them in ways that are complementary rather than contradictory. Machiavellian and organisational skills are essential, but so is emotional intelligence, which produces the skills of self-awareness and self-control, and contextual intelligence, which enables leaders to understand an evolving environment, capitalise on trends and apply their other skills accordingly. Emotional and contextual intelligence are not Trump’s strong suit.

The leadership theorist Gautam Mukunda has pointed out that leaders who are carefully filtered through established political processes tend to be predictable. George H.W. Bush is a good example. Others are unfiltered, and how they perform in power varies widely. Abraham Lincoln was a relatively unfiltered candidate and was one of the best American presidents. Trump, who never served in office before winning the presidency and entered politics from a background of New York real estate and reality television, has proved to be extraordinarily skilled in mastering modern media, defying conventional wisdom and engaging in disruptive innovation. While some believe this may produce positive results—for example, with China—others remain sceptical.

Trump’s role in history may depend on whether he is re-elected. Institutions, trust and soft power are more likely to erode if he is in office for eight years rather than four. But in either event, his successor will confront a changed world, partly because of the effects of Trump’s policies, but also because of major structural power shifts in world politics, both from West to East (the rise of Asia) and from governments to non-state actors (empowered by cyber and artificial intelligence). As Karl Marx observed, we make history, but not under conditions of our own choosing. American foreign policy after Trump remains an open question.