This is John Batcher, conversation with my colleague Josh Rogan of the Washington Post writing global opinions

about his conversation with Fumil Kishida, the Japanese Prime Minister outgoing,

about the threat east and west by the

adversaries on the Eurasia. The Prime Minister makes a fundamental important point.

You must do both. You can't choose one over the other. Can't go east and not go west. Can't go to Europe and not take into account Asia. Here's Josh to explain more of this tonight.

Yeah, he's very clear. He said Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow and he said the

security of the Euro-Atlantic and the security of the Indo-Pacific are inseparable.

What he's doing there is he's pushing back against voices,

again, both in Asia and inside the United States who say,

oh, well, we've got to choose, you know,

forget about Ukraine, we have to focus on Taiwan or

forget about Taiwan and Ukraine. What he's saying is that it's all connected and you

can't have security everywhere if you don't have, if one of those two continents Europe Asia is allowing aggressors to stomp out democracies

and commit war crimes with impunity, it's just not going to work.

So yeah, I think that's what he was trying to tell Americans is that you can't abandon Ukraine to focus on Asia.

It's not going to work and you have to do both.

And here's the good news.

Japan's willing to help you but you know without the United States

it's just not going to happen.