At the corner of 18th and K Streets in Washington, DC, a banner keeps a running tally of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union updates the banner daily so that “corporate lobbyists and the foreign policy think tanks that dominate the canyons of K St. NW as well as the… Continue reading The Grim Numbers
I cut my political teeth on the anti-apartheid movement of the 1980s, working to persuade my college to divest from companies doing business in South Africa. It wasn’t easy work. What did I know about investment portfolios? We were a small group, and we didn’t have any business majors providing pro bono advice. We knew… Continue reading Divest Now?
When two young boys square off in the school playground, they will often appeal to higher powers. “My big brother can beat up your big brother!” they cry out as a scare tactic. Even if the two kids don’t come to blows, one will still try to impress the other by claiming that his elder… Continue reading Summit: Post-Playground Politics
I have a confession to make: I’m losing my faith in the political process. When it comes to foreign policy, the candidates are using their bully pulpits to sermonize in the dullest possible way: all heat and no enlightenment. They preach to the converted. They disparage the unorthodox and adhere to the party platform, chapter… Continue reading We Get Religion
They look like portals that deliver people from one planet to another, as in a science fiction movie. You turn a corner in Manhattan and there they are: full-sized figures in full military uniform emblazoned on graffiti-laced walls. The faces of the U.S. soldiers appearing in these arresting images are blurred as if in great… Continue reading Art as Jujitsu
The future has arrived, but the Futurists didn’t make it. In the early part of the 20th century, the Futurist movement of artists in Italy, led by Filippo Marinetti, glorified war as a dynamic organizing principle for their art work. If art was about energy – and the raw power of the modern machine age… Continue reading The Art of Anti-War
Kosovo almost got its own flag. According to the compromise proposal of UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, the international community was to grant “supervised independence” to Kosovo, the largely Albanian enclave in southern Serbia. This compromise plan provided Kosovo with its own constitution, its own national anthem, and perhaps most symbolically, its own flag. And… Continue reading The Taiwan of Europe
Name the country in the Middle East that is most anti-American. Egypt? Palestine? Lebanon? Try again. Try instead our key NATO ally, the third largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and one of the countries in line for membership in the European Union. Try: Turkey. According to a new poll from the Project on International… Continue reading Bazaar-o-World
As the call to prayers in Istanbul gets louder – thanks to more sophisticated amplifying systems – the number and size of Turkish flags have grown in proportion. This is the fundamental conflict in Turkey today. On one side are the secularists, the heirs of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. On the other… Continue reading Postcard from Istanbul
In the mid-1970s, Coca-Cola tried to sell the convenience store 7-Eleven on the idea of a 32-ounce cup for soft drinks. The 7-Eleven rep doubted that the public was ready to drink that much: the larger cup was “absolutely insane.” Alas, American consumers proved him wrong and soon came the Super Big Gulp (44 ounces)… Continue reading Xtreme Gulpism
Bush is on the ranch in Crawford, Texas. Members of Congress are back at home or are abroad doing important “research”. With the policymakers who have steered our country in the wrong direction absent from Washington, now is the time for YOU to start making US foreign policy. Foreign Policy In Focus is excited to… Continue reading Make Your Own Foreign Policy
As a member of the transition team, I’ve been asked to give a backgrounder on the “loss of global influence” issue that played such a major role in the last election. I’ve submitted my study entitled End of Empire and I would encourage you to read my full analysis. I’ve been told that you might… Continue reading Memo to the President, 2020
After finally receiving $24 million in frozen assets, North Korea shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in July. The optimists cautiously celebrated the move as the first step toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and the eventual establishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Pyongyang. The pessimists drolly pointed out that we’re back… Continue reading Three Hard Truths
Poor Roh Moo-Hyun. The South Korean president’s popularity rating has dipped as low as 10% recently. His backers on the left have savaged him for pushing a free-trade agreement with the United States. With only a few months remaining in his term and the presidential elections coming up in December, he faces a likely victory… Continue reading Seoul Searching
Welcome to the new format and location for World Beat, the e-zine of Foreign Policy In Focus from the Institute for Policy Studies. Every week we bring you a short commentary and a rundown of the latest FPIF content. This week: our Independence Day edition. On July 4th, Americans descend into paroxysms of patriotism. There… Continue reading We’re Number 96!
For the last six years, Dick Cheney has been the whiff of sulfur emanating from the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Although the vice president’s office has largely been a ceremonial post, Cheney was never one to stand on ceremony. He took advantage of serving a president with little knowledge of global affairs to create a… Continue reading The Bad Egg
At the Take Back America conference last week in Washington, DC, the Bush foreign policy was clearly unpopular. References to the Iraq War debacle, to extraordinary renditions and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, were sure-fire applause lines. Indeed, Bush’s foreign policy has been so obviously unpopular, as revealed in last November’s elections, that the conference organizers… Continue reading Take Back American Foreign Policy
FPIF, June 19, 2007
Enemies don’t have cultures. They have leaders, usually tyrants. They have armies, usually large and menacing. They have propaganda, usually dull and artless. Enemies are not civilized enough to have culture. Culture humanizes, and humanity is the last thing you want in an enemy. It might mess up your aim. One of the most popular… Continue reading Culture of Evil
The North Korean film projectionist is thinking back on her earlier life. When she was younger, she tells the camera, she dreamed of acting. She wanted to play a heroic role on the screen. Her eyes take on a wistful look. And there is a hint of pain in her voice. In any other country,… Continue reading Screening North Korea
Every so often the Bush administration rediscovers realism. Last week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a pitch for her own doctrine under the name of “American realism.” She told an audience that “American realism deals with the world as it is but strives to make the world better than it is.” It is amazing… Continue reading Rice’s Realism
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it is not. Let’s start with the bad news. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz woke up the other day and discovered that he’d turned into an unpresident. Instead of appointing a worthy successor, President Bush chose Robert Zoellick,… Continue reading Metamorphosis
On the island of Okinawa is a very unusual war memorial. The Cornerstone of Peace resembles the Vietnam War memorial in certain respects: large black walls inscribed with names. But the Cornerstone of Peace has a different shape: curved, concentric walls rather than an angled slash. More importantly, the Okinawa memorial lists all of those… Continue reading Memorial Daze
I’m from Jersey. So whenever the Boss sings, I listen. He’s always sticking up for the little guy, the Tom Joads, the downsized, and the downtrodden. He’s patriotic, but it’s a bittersweet patriotism. You remember: when the Reagan campaign in 1984 and then the Dole campaign in 1996 wanted to use the song “Born in… Continue reading Listen to the Boss
Every culture, it seems, has the same joke: Put three Koreans—or Albanians or Poles or Kenyans or Californians—in a room. After an hour of debate, they’ll form four political parties. We are, by nature, a factious species. We huddle together in large crowds for football games or New Year’s celebrations. But when it comes to… Continue reading Divided We Stand
In 1990, I thought that another world was not only possible, it was happening before my eyes. With hundreds of other activists, I was in Prague to attend the Helsinki Citizens Assembly (HCA). The Berlin Wall was no more, the Cold War was receding with breathtaking rapidity, and a new age of people’s movements seemed… Continue reading Another World
Our allies should organize an intervention. I’m not talking about a military intervention, though some neighborhoods in the United States might welcome UN peacekeepers to replace the local constabulary. I’m talking about one of those interventions that friends organize when one of their buddies has become a drug addict or keeps driving when drunk or… Continue reading America the Exceptional
It’s a scandal worthy of the Yes Men. Over the course of three years, this band of merry pranksters impersonated World Bank officials and told bemused audiences that Spain should outlaw the siesta, corporations should adopt “compassionate slavery” for workers in Africa, and fast food restaurants could solve the global hunger problem by serving a… Continue reading The Yes Man
The state, according to classical liberals, is a problem. It meddles in the economy. It over-regulates. Through the tax system, it robs Peter to pay Paul. If only the state would get out of the way, these purists argue, then the invisible hand of the market would magically set things right. Equilibrium would reign, and… Continue reading The Self-Hating State
Gamblers in Las Vegas frequently cling to the illusion that they can win. Some do. Most don’t. The casino owners—usually called “the House”—have rigged the system in their own favor. The flashing lights, free drinks, and oxygen-enriched air in the casino distract the gamblers from this elemental rule. Sure, you might hit 21, score big… Continue reading Trading with Vegas