Since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Western countries have moved with unprecedented speed to impose economic sanctions, including a U.S. ban on Russian oil and gas imports announced Tuesday.

At the same time, hundreds of companies, from Apple to Volkswagen, have piled on in a boycott campaign not seen since apartheid South Africa. FedEx suspended deliveries in Russia. Royal Caribbean canceled its cruises. McDonald’s closed its nearly 850 locations.

More than 30 sports federations have blocked Russian athletes from competing internationally, just as some were poised to win major titles. An outraged Fédération Internationale Féline even banned Russian-owned entries in its cat shows. And a global army of volunteer hackers has responded to Ukraine’s call for help, pledging to attack Russian interests.

It all amounts to what some are perhaps flippantly calling a geopolitical “cancellation” of Russia. But the effects so far have been significant. The ruble has tanked and the country’s credit rating has been downgraded, with a default now seen as imminent. In just two weeks, Russia has become a pariah.

The idea is to force President Vladimir Putin to withdraw from Ukraine, without engaging in the kind of military actions that could escalate the conflict. Still, it remains to be seen how effective and sustainable this global pressure campaign will be, and whether the organic involvement of so many individual entities could make it more difficult to prevent unintended consequences. 

Mr. Putin appears willing to endure significant economic pain and cultural isolation in order to achieve his goals in neighboring Ukraine – and has reminded the world that Russia has one of the most advanced nuclear arsenals. 

Some experts warn that Mr. Putin might respond by retaliating, testing the resolve and cohesion of the Western alliance. On Wednesday, Russian forces were blamed for striking a maternity ward in Mariupol, injuring at least 17 people.

“Poking the bear might result not only in a growl and a flash of the claws; the bear might try to reach in and bite your head off,” says Henry Farrell, author of the forthcoming book “Underground Empire” and an international affairs professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Russian athletes arrive at Sheremetyevo Airport as they return from Beijing after being banned from participating at the Paralympic Winter Games, in Moscow, March 6, 2022. More than 30 sports federations have blocked Russian athletes from competing internationally.

Impressive, but how persuasive?

The effectiveness of sanctions generally comes down to the pain that sanctioning countries can inflict versus the resolve of the sanctioned, says Richard Nephew, who previously worked in the State Department and helped orchestrate sanctions on Iran. Those penalties were more comprehensive, but were implemented over seven years leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal. 

He says the West’s sanctions on Russia have been remarkable in terms of their speed, cohesiveness, and the size of their target – one of the largest economies in the world. 

So far, however, they have not succeeded in getting Mr. Putin to back down. 

It “just demonstrates how important this is to Vladimir Putin,” says Mr. Nephew, now at Columbia University. “Putin’s resolve is so much higher than the pain inflicted.”

Over the past two weeks, Western nations have levied a raft of sanctions against Russian financial institutions, including its central bank, that effectively freeze $600 billion in reserves that Mr. Putin had stored up. They have also cut off Russian banks from using the SWIFT messaging system that facilitates international transactions. More importantly, the sanctions prevent Russian entities from conducting transactions in dollars – a key mechanism for international trade. However, there is a carve-out to allow Russia to continue to sell its oil and gas. 

Germany suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had been expected to double Russian gas flows to Europe. Moreover, the United States has banned exports of key technology to Russia and prohibited Russian oil imports, which constitute 3% of daily U.S. consumption. It remains to be seen how much that may drive up the cost of oil, and whether Mr. Putin will even end up with a net increase in revenues.  

At least some of these measures won’t be fully implemented until later this month or even into April, but the ruble has already dropped by more than 20% and Russia has shuttered its stock exchange. Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay, and PayPal all suspended services as well.

Still, it’s not clear what impact all of this will have on the battlefield.

“It would be folly to think that sanctions are going to stop the Russian military,” says Brian O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council who previously helped design U.S. Treasury Department sanctions against Russia over its interference in Ukraine. Though there’s an outside chance they could impact the war, such as by affecting resupply networks, he says the main goal is isolating Mr. Putin, Russia, and the Russian economy.

Andrew Harnik/AP

President Joe Biden announces a ban on Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine, March 8, 2022, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington.

Meanwhile, the global boycott is growing by the day, with McDonald’s and Coca-Cola on Tuesday joining fashion lines like Burberry and Chanel, vehicle makers from BMW to Harley-Davidson, and retail stores from Ikea to H&M, according to a Yale School of Management list.

And 30-plus sports federations have banned Russian athletes from competing internationally, with others only allowing them to compete as neutral participants. Many federations also canceled events in Russia. The International Judo Federation suspended Mr. Putin as its honorary president. 

In addition, more than 300,000 people responded to a Ukrainian official’s call to form a global IT army, which has taken credit for temporarily disabling dozens of Russian websites, including those of President Putin, the Kremlin, the KGB, and the Moscow Exchange. Russia disputes the claims.

Merle Maigre, a senior cybersecurity expert at Estonia’s e-Governance Academy who previously led the NATO Cyber Center in Tallinn, says more advanced planning would have been required to carry out serious attacks like sabotage or planting a time bomb in critical infrastructure to wipe out data.

“The volunteer army will definitely make a few good morale stories, but they’re not likely to have a strategic impact. That is not to say they don’t matter,” she says, noting that morale in war is important. “But it’s important to keep things in perspective.”

The idea of all this adding up to a cancellation of Russia is “gimmicky,” says James Holmes, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, who says there’s long been a playbook for pressuring aggressors to desist from trampling on others’ sovereignty.

“You can’t really cancel or ‘deplatform’ a nuclear-armed opponent ... especially when that opponent is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council,” he adds. “Russia is going to have a platform to speak, whether it’s through words or more forceful means.”

Risk of unintended consequences

Even with an issue that seems as black and white as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there can be real human costs that go along with this sort of global blockade.

Some experts call for distinguishing between Mr. Putin and the Russian population, which could suffer humanitarian consequences – particularly if the West expands its sanctions. The blockade could also cause unexpected consequences in international finance. Ultimately, Western resolve could wane due to rising prices or a global recession.

“Sometimes when you take these measures, you don’t fully understand all the ways you’re changing these systems,” says Professor Farrell.

For example, when the U.S. imposed sanctions on Rusal, a Russian aluminum company, in April 2018, the price of aluminum spiked by 30% in a matter of days. The U.S. backpedaled, lifting the sanctions in early 2019.

Likewise, the international finance system is extraordinarily complex. “It’s basically like a house of cards,” he says. 

Another risk is that Mr. Putin may escalate military operations in Ukraine to try to beat the slow grind of sanctions and the Western boycott, which could hurt his standing at home ahead of 2024 elections. Or he could retaliate against the West. Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and many have interpreted his threat of “consequences ... such as you have never seen in your entire history” to refer to nuclear retaliation.

“Putin has said that he will regard the massive sanctions as an act of war. However, it seems unlikely he will respond to it directly with military retaliation against nations who are participating in the sanctions,” says Adm. James Stavridis, former NATO allied supreme commander, in a text message. “Far more likely is he will escalate in the world of cyber.”

In particular, he says, financial institutions may be targeted.

But no matter what means or methods Mr. Putin deploys, the one thing he’s not likely to win is the global messaging war. Ukraine’s successful shaping of that played a key role in driving the sanctions, the boycott, and the transfers of anti-tank missiles and old Soviet jets to Ukraine. 

“There’s no way that Russia wins back the narrative,” says Peter W. Singer, author of “Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media” and senior fellow at New America. “It’s not just when you’ve lost the oil and gas companies and Coca-Cola. ... When Switzerland and Sweden, who didn’t even put sanctions on Hitler, are joining in against you, you’ve lost the information battle.”

Fabrice Coffrini/Reuters

Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani appears on screen delivering a speech at a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Feb. 28. So far, tiny Qatar has been the only Arab Gulf state to answer the Biden administration call for energy, pledging to boost liquefied natural gas supplies to Europe.

For years, when prices at the pumps skyrocketed or an economic crisis loomed, American presidents knew just who to call.

Now with the Ukraine war sending oil prices to over $130 a barrel, and prospects of wider bans on Russian oil and gas threatening a global recession, Washington’s hotline to the world’s largest oil producers is suddenly going unanswered.

The reluctance of longtime U.S. ally Saudi Arabia to increase oil production is about more than economics, insiders and longtime observers say. It is a sign of changing perceptions of their U.S. relationship, the emergence of a multipolar world, and the consequences of a decadelong American pivot from the Middle East.

Rebuffed

President Joe Biden’s attempts to personally call Saudi and Emirati leaders to discuss oil production in recent days have been rebuffed, diplomatic sources and The Wall Street Journal claim.

On the Ukraine war, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have said little. Though Saudi Arabia voted in favor of the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the Russian invasion, the UAE abstained.  

So far tiny Qatar has been the only Arab Gulf state to answer the Biden administration’s calls for energy, pledging to boost liquefied natural gas supplies to Europe.

AP/File

A liquefied natural gas tanker is loaded at Raslaffans Sea Port in northern Qatar. While Qatar voted in favor of a U.N. resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine and has increased production at the request of the U.S., other Gulf nations are showing reluctance to respond to American requests for increased oil output.

After days of intense American diplomacy, the Emirati Embassy in the United States Wednesday voiced its support for boosting oil output with Emirati Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba saying in a statement the UAE “will be encouraging OPEC to consider higher production levels.”

It is a far cry from the 1980s, when Saudi Arabia expanded oil supplies at Washington’s request to weaken the Soviet Union as prices crashed, or in recent years when a president’s phone call could alter energy prices.  

While American officials express “surprise” over their reluctance, Arab Gulf governments insist that it is in fact the U.S. that has changed, failing to live up to its side of their special relationship.

They see their decades-old arrangement, American protection and security in return for American influence over the flow of Gulf oil, as articulated in the “Carter Doctrine” by then-President Jimmy Carter in 1980, as largely defunct.

As proof of America’s unreliability, Arab Gulf officials cite the U.S. war on Iraq that empowered Iran and allowed Tehran to station missiles pointing at their capitals, an Obama administration that ignored their security concerns in the Iranian nuclear deal, and the Trump administration’s refusal to retaliate when an Iranian drone strike damaged Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure in 2019.

The Biden administration’s determination to reorient American policy away from the Middle East and toward Asia – a pivot that began with the Obama administration – and its disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan left many Gulf governments convinced that America could no longer be counted on, despite the continued large-scale presence of U.S. military forces in the region.  

The recent barrage of Houthi missiles from Yemen into Emirati and Saudi cities heightens this sense of insecurity.

“The biggest difference between now and 15 years ago is the sense of Washington’s lack of reliability that is pervasive in the Gulf, especially among the countries that have been closely aligned to Washington for decades,” says Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute.

“As a result, these countries view strategic diversification of their foreign relations just as important as tending to their relationship with Washington. Their response to Ukraine is the biggest indicator of this shift.”

Russian tilt

In the past eight years, as Gulf states looked for other world powers to help protect their security, Russia, along with China, stepped forward.

When Russia intervened in 2015 to save the Bashar al-Assad regime from collapse in Syria, two years after President Barack Obama declined to enforce his declared “red-line” over Mr. Assad’s chemical weapon use, Gulf states sat up and took notice.

If America was pivoting away from the region, Russia was increasingly seen as a new power broker.

“The moment Russia entered the Syria theater militarily and saved Bashar Assad from an imminent demise, the region concluded that Russia is there to stay. Russia won this begrudged respect from countries in the region,” says Anna Borshchevskaya, senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

This led the UAE to sign a strategic security cooperation agreement with Russia in 2018; Saudi Arabia signed a similar agreement with Moscow in August 2021.

When the UAE purchase of F35 jets from America was held up by Biden administration concerns over Abu Dhabi’s ties with China, Russia offered its fighter jets as an alternative.  

Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service/AP

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud shake hands prior to their talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in March 2021. As the U.S. pivoted away from the Gulf region in recent years, Russia was increasingly seen as a new power broker – and Gulf states have refused to take a strong stance on Ukraine so as not to upset their ties with Russia.

When the U.S. withdrew its THAAD systems (Terminal High Altitude Defense) from Saudi Arabia abruptly last fall, Russia began talking up its S-400 anti-missile system.

Gulf states’ refusal to take a stance on Ukraine so as not to upset their ties with Russia “highlights the failure of American policy to change the perception that it is not reliable,” says Ms. Borshchevskaya.

Values disconnect

If security concerns pushed Gulf states toward Russia, a convergence of political interests and ideological harmony has cemented their ties.

As many Gulf states – all absolute monarchies – pushed back against democratic and Islamist movements post-Arab Spring, Russian President Vladimir Putin pitched a centralized, strongman model of governance as an alternative to Western democracy that prioritized economic stability over freedoms, which resonated in Gulf capitals.

This has led Russia, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia to back the same military strongmen in post-revolution Arab states, such as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt, warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya, and the military junta in Sudan.

In contrast, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have come under heavy criticism in the U.S. Congress and media for their roles in the devastating Yemen war, human rights track records, and support for armed actors in Sudan.

President Biden pledged on the campaign trail to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah,” and has refused to deal or speak with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de-facto ruler of the kingdom, freezing him out for his alleged role in the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Veteran diplomats say Mr. Biden’s refusal to engage with the crown prince has “complicated” U.S.-Saudi cooperation.  

Oil wars

Another reason behind Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to boost oil production is rooted in dollars – and sense.

OPEC-Plus is currently producing oil at rates set in an agreement hammered out with Russia in the summer of 2020 that ended a devastating four-month price war between Riyadh and Moscow that pushed oil to negative prices at the height of the pandemic and drained hundreds of millions of dollars from the Saudi treasury.

Having won the costly test of wills with Mr. Putin, the Saudi leadership is loath to upset an arrangement upon which its entire economic transformation is built.

“The problem is, the Saudis have all these elaborate plans predicated on having won the pricing war with Russia and with everything set at the current production levels – and now they are suddenly being told they have to up production,” says Mr. Ibish. “It’s a big ask.”

By boosting production now, experts say Saudi Arabia would see a short-term increase in revenue but a drop in medium- and long-term oil revenues, unraveling its 10-year plan to wean the kingdom off oil, build up a tech sector, and create jobs for its young population.

Quid pro quo?

While smaller Gulf states have signaled to Washington their willingness to boost oil production, they cannot act without agreement from Saudi Arabia, which may be holding out for U.S. concessions, starting with Biden’s treatment of the crown prince.

“The one demand the Saudis have is to rehabilitate [Mohammed bin Salman]. And domestically that is impossible to fulfill at the moment,” cautions Bruce Riedel, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The image of Biden running hat-in-hand to the Gulf is not one that is politically popular at home.”

The UAE, meanwhile, changed its position on oil production after Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday pledged Washington’s “commitment to help the UAE bolster its strong defensive capabilities against threats from Yemen and elsewhere.”

If Washington and Riyadh remain at an impasse, observers say other Western countries pressing the Gulf for more oil, along with the prospect of Venezuelan and Iranian crude being brought to market, may spur Gulf states to turn the spigot on.

“The world has changed in the past 10 days. This is an international crisis, not a European one, and it is no longer possible for regional countries to remain on the sidelines,” says Mr. Ibish.

David J. Phillip/AP/File

Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker holds up the trophy after the Braves defeated the Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 of the World Series on Nov. 2, 2021, in Houston.

Negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and its players’ union have been one, two, three strikes and out – pushing the sport to its first work stoppage in almost 30 years.

The current lockout – which so far has canceled opening day and some early season games – is a lesson in the complicated business of baseball. When it comes to confusing concepts like arbitration and the competitive balance tax, the players and owners feel that what’s good for one side is bad for the other.

But, as baseball struggles with record low viewership and record high game length, what’s ultimately good for players, owners, and fans is to stop canceling games and reach a deal, sports economists say. 

What is a lockout?

A lockout is when owners won’t let players play. That doesn’t mean the current impasse is all the owners’ fault, though. 

More than 50 years ago, players formed the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) to bargain for better working conditions with the team owners. Since 1968 they’ve done so every several years through a collective bargaining agreement, or CBA, which is essentially a giant contract defining the sport’s rules and finances.

The last CBA was signed in 2016 and expired last year. In part because many players don’t feel the recent deals have been fair, the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement by the Dec. 1 expiration date, which launched the current lockout. 

Why can’t players and owners agree?

The players and owners want opposite things, and both sides are focused almost only on finances. The business side of baseball is a game of its own, and it’s a zero-sum game.

“It’s really a game of chicken here,” says J.C. Bradbury, an expert on baseball economics at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. “Who’s going to flinch first?”

Both sides have reportedly made some concessions this week in an effort to prevent more cancellations. But the sense that one side’s gain is the other’s loss has been guiding the proceedings, and is most powerful when it comes to the competitive balance tax and arbitration.

Unlike other major American sports like football and basketball, the MLB has no salary cap. That means every team can spend as much on players as it wants, up to a limit. That limit comes in the form of the competitive balance tax (CBT), intended to keep the highest-earning teams from dominating with money alone. If a team’s 40-player payroll exceeds a certain threshold ($210 million in 2021), then every dollar spent above it is taxed with an additional 20% fee – a rate that rises each consecutive year a team exceeds it. The idea is to limit spending so teams like the Miami Marlins can compete with teams like the New York Mets. 

The owners want to keep the CBT threshold low and tax rate high for another reason though: They want to increase profits by lowering costs. Meanwhile, players want to earn more. The higher the threshold for the CBT, and the lower the tax rate, the more they can earn.

The same incentives apply to arbitration, baseball’s unique, arcane contract system for new players. Right now, players with expiring deals and at least three years of service – and two-year players in the top 20% of service time – may negotiate a new contract with their team. In an effort to let younger players bargain for more money, the MLBPA wants to make two full years the new threshold. The owners do not. 

Beyond that, the owners and players are debating proposals to expand the number of teams in the playoffs, how much revenue big-market teams should share with smaller markets, and a host of rule changes from pitch clocks to bigger bases. Gameplay, though, is less important to negotiations than revenue. 

“The financial issues right now are paramount,” says Tim DeSchriver, associate professor of sport management at the University of Delaware.

What does it mean for baseball?

It could mean a long stretch of dog days. Baseball’s last work stoppage in 1994 was disastrous, canceling an entire postseason and the World Series. The next year, attendance fell 20%, and it didn’t recover for years. 

A prolonged lockout now could add another unwelcome challenge to baseball’s roster. Between 2019 and 2021, MLB viewership dropped 12% and attendance dropped 33.9%. Pre-pandemic revenue was at an all-time high, says Professor DeSchriver, but attendance had fallen, and canceled games could push even more fans away.

Baseball’s attention should really be on the things that fans care about: speeding up gameplay and increasing on-field action amid record-low batting averages, says Ryan Eckert, a historian at Monmouth University in New Jersey and author of “A Game of Failure: The 1994-95 Major League Baseball Strike.”

“It’s about the future,” he says. “Nobody wants to start down a path where they’ll be in an even weaker position years from now, when the popularity and the profitability of the game overall is not trending upwards.” 

Even in this age of smartphones, octogenarian Wakamiya Masako feels older people in rapidly aging Japan are kept out of the tech loop. 

Retired from bank management for about 25 years, she has spent a lot of her time helping older friends and neighbors learn to use smartphones, and she’s developed the theory that they have a hard time because there aren’t games and apps aimed at their age group.  

One possible solution, she thought, was to create a gaming app to encourage and enchant older people into more comfort with their smartphones. 

“My friends were very much looking forward to such an app and encouraged me,” says Ms. Wakamiya. 

So she got some help from an expert, and her idea has made her famous at home and abroad for being one of the oldest app developers in the world, lauded by Japanese leaders and global technology executives for transcending age barriers.  

“Ms. Wakamiya asked me to develop a gaming app in which seniors can beat young people,” recalls Koizumi Katsushiro, president of Tesseract, a company that teaches computer programming and app development in the northeastern city of Shiogama. 

But he suggested she create the app herself, and that he would help her. The energetic Ms. Wakamiya took on the challenge, struggling for six months to create the game. 

“It was especially very difficult to organize the whole structure of the app,” she says of the challenge of learning to code. 

In 2017, at the age of 82, she launched Hinadan. The game features Japan’s traditional Hinamatsuri festival, a celebration of Girls’ Day. On the Hinadan app, which takes its name from a tiered stand for displaying traditional Japanese dolls, users must move dolls – puzzle-like – into appropriate positions according to roles: the emperor and the empress, court ladies, and court musicians with instruments. It has now been released in five languages. 

“I was pleased with the launch. But I did not think it was such a major achievement,” says Ms. Wakamiya, surprised at the global interest in her work. 

Hailing her as the world’s oldest app developer, Apple chief executive Tim Cook invited her to the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, in 2017. “The CEO hugged me!” recalls Ms. Wakamiya, blushing because Mr. Cook’s enthusiasm for her achievement broke Japanese custom. (Japanese people traditionally do not hug.)

Stephen Lam/Reuters/File

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, speaks under a projected photograph of gaming app developer Wakamiya Masako during Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, in 2017.

Ms. Wakamiya, who serves as vice chair of the Mellow Club, a Japanese online group for older people, soon found herself on the global speaking circuit encouraging older people to overcome discomfort with technology. 

Excel art

In 2018, she delivered a keynote address at a United Nations conference in New York on “Why are digital skills critical for older persons?” And she has published several books on aging and technology in Japan, including one titled “Life Becomes More and More Interesting After 60.” 

“Masako is an inspiration to all people, but especially to those individuals who want to live a long, rewarding, and purposeful life,” says Bradley Schurman, a former AARP official, author of the book “The Super Age,” and the moderator of the 2018 U.N. event at which Ms. Wakamiya spoke. “She has shown the world that curiosity does not need to wane in later life.” 

In Japan, her advocacy for the use of technology at older ages is particularly notable. Japan has struggled with difficult problems associated with its declining birthrate and aging population, including labor shortages and slow economic growth.

Those age 65 or older account for 29% of Japan’s population. That’s projected to rise to 38% by 2065, estimates the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Tokyo. 

Ms. Wakamiya began using computers a few years before she retired in 1997 in hopes of socializing online while looking after her aging mother at home. She says she found that, more than just a new way to expand her circle of friends, computer literacy enriched her life with opportunities to broaden her perspective and satisfy her intellectual curiosity. 

The deficit of online material for older people made her get creative: Using Excel spreadsheets, she saw patterns that she translated into art – designs for fabric and paper fans. She calls it “Excel art.” 

“Excel looks difficult for seniors. But I came up with an idea of drawing designs using its functions. Then, I got so excited as I was able to produce one new pattern after another,” says Ms. Wakamiya, who wore an orange-and-green checkered shirt she designed with Excel to her Monitor interview. 

She acknowledges computers made her become artistic where she was not before. 

Ms. Wakamiya has taught other seniors how to produce artworks online, using the Excel software as a design tool. “It’s very important for seniors to be creative and produce something original,” she says. 

Tech evangelism

Ms. Wakamiya, who sits on Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s digital policy committee, is known as an information technology evangelist with a mission to get seniors to acquire digital skills. The message carries weight, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people place importance on older people connecting online to avoid social isolation. 

On her own initiative, Ms. Wakamiya flew to Estonia, which is pioneering the e-Residency concept of digital nations, in 2019 to see how seniors are able to fit in its e-government systems. She also made a speech and held workshops on Excel art during her stay. 

Many older women note Ms. Wakamiya’s uplifting effect.

“We all feel uncertain about the future,” says Notake Yumiko, an architect and Mellow Club member. “But the way she lives sheds light on it. Ma-chan [an affectionate honorific for Ms. Wakamiya] is very smart. But she is still a humble person, which is so attractive.” 

Hashimoto Kayoko, retired from her career at a major trading house, stumbled upon Ms. Wakamiya at an Apple store in Tokyo, where she was giving an inspirational speech. 

“It was as though rain in the dark sky suddenly turned to a brilliantly sunny day. Ma-chan lights up my heart,” she says. 

“Ma-chan shows me a can-do attitude.”

Ms. Wakamiya, who lectures across Japan, encourages older people to be involved in volunteer work especially because many, particularly men, do not know what they are going to do in their post-retirement life. 

“While you contribute to society, volunteering can help broaden your perspective by meeting and working with those in different age groups. Some of them have high aspirations,” she says. 

Breaking age stereotypes  

“Older populations have many contributions to make to society, and they can play a big role as innovators, investors, and consumers in the economy too,” says Mr. Schurman. “Masako is helping to break age stereotypes. She’s showing that there is a life post traditional retirement that can last five, 10, or 20 years or more.” 

Ms. Wakamiya’s life after retirement made her see things differently because, throughout her four-decade career at a bank, most of her acquaintances were in the same business, she says. She recently realized that often, in Japan’s culture of perfectionism, many people are simply so afraid of failure they won’t try something new.

“You should not worry about failures. There are no such things as failures,” she says. “To just start something new is deemed a success because you still learn in the process.” 

Reuters

Ukrainian and Taiwanese people attend an event to pray for the end of the war in Ukraine at a temple in Taipei, Taiwan, March 3.

To some security experts, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks a new era of aggression by authoritarian rulers, especially against neighboring democracies. Just as noteworthy is how those democracies are responding.

Take the heroic resistance of Ukrainians. Their inspiring defense of their young democracy may help “empower [other] populations to speak up in dissent from such authoritarian efforts,” Avril Haines, director of U.S. national intelligence, told Congress this week.

In three democracies long threatened by bullying neighbors – South Korea, Taiwan, and Iraq – the invasion has been closely watched to see how much Ukrainians unite around a shared identity based on civic values. Also closely eyed is support of Ukraine by the United States and Europe. That Western resolve, says CIA Director William Burns, helps demonstrate “the resilience of democracies at a time when there’s been lots of speculation about them not being so strong.”

In South Korea, which has enjoyed a thriving democracy for more than three decades, a presidential election took place March 9 amid renewed ballistic missile launches by North Korea. During the campaign, candidate Yoon Suk-yeol cited Ukraine’s strength against Russia and the need for South Koreans to do the same with North Korea. Mr. Yoon won the election.

In Iraq, an election last October resulted in a victory for a coalition of three parties across religious and ethnic lines – and all in opposition to Iran’s support of violent militias inside Iraq. The coalition leader, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, promises a “national majority government,” a signal to Shiite-dominated Iran not to meddle in its neighbor. Mr. Sadr is still struggling to form a government.

For Taiwan, the Russian invasion sparked a renewed commitment to its democracy as an underlying defense against threats by China to take the island nation by force. “The determination of Ukrainians has moved the world, making Taiwanese feel the same,” said President Tsai Ing-wen.

As democracy took root in Taiwan during the 1990s, its citizens began to create a national identity separate from the mainland. More than 60% of the island’s 23 million people identify as solely Taiwanese, based on a 2021 poll. China has attempted to “weaken confidence” in Taiwan’s elected leaders, says Ms. Haines. In 2014, however, student protests in Taiwan, known as the Sunflower revolution, further cemented democracy and led to a distancing of trade ties with China. 

What’s at stake in Ukraine, says the CIA’s Mr. Burns, is “an incredibly important rule in international order that big countries don’t get to swallow up small countries just because they can.” The example of Ukrainians defending their democracy may just help other democracies keep that rule in place.