At 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2025, Japan fell silent for one minute. At the exact time when, fourteen years earlier, the largest earthquake and tsunami in the nation’s recorded history struck eastern Japan, people across the country paused to offer profound condolences for the more than 20,000 who died or remain missing.
It appears that realism—a view based on the assumption that states aim to maximize their own national interests in an international community where there is no world government—has never been as useful as it is when looking at the COVID-19 responses of each country.