Living in Japan in the late 1990s, I was struck by the sheer number and variety of manga or comic books. You could go to a manga store and find an entire aisle devoted to your particular genre: golf manga, comics about the Japanese yakuza (mafia), mecha that focus exclusively on giant robots. Name your… Continue reading Graphic Foreign Policy
Elias is Swedish and has buck teeth. These are two strikes against him at the Danish school he attends. The resident bully, along with his fawning entourage, calls Elias “Rat Face” and subjects him to endless indignities. That all changes, however, with the arrival of Christian, an exchange student who is appalled at the treatment… Continue reading Libya and the Bully Problem
Peace has never been a particularly popular word in Washington, DC. This is, after all, the home of the Pentagon and the major military contractors, not to mention all the think tanks and congressional lapdogs that lie in the king-size family bed with them. But the word “peace” has acquired such a negative reputation inside… Continue reading Did 9/11 Make Peace Passe?
We make a bargain with our governments. We pay taxes and expect a set of government services in return. And in return for a guarantee of some measure of security, we grant the government a monopoly on legitimate violence. In theory, then, we forswear mob rule and paramilitary organizations, we occasionally accept the death penalty… Continue reading Governments Kill
Come October, Atlas won’t be shrugging, he’ll be groaning as global population passes the 7 billion mark. Until very recently, demographers predicted that these numbers would peak in 2050 at just over 9 billion and then start to decline. The latest research, however, suggests that despite declining fertility across much of the world, population will… Continue reading Feeding the World
I’m sitting in Starbucks the other day eavesdropping on the conversation at the next table. A man in a suit is trying to sell something to a couple. I’m having a difficult time determining the product. But the pitch is familiar enough. By buying a large number of these items and selling them to their… Continue reading Con Game
To: General Petraeus, Langley HQ From: Operative 650, Kabul office Re: Memo XE1955 General Petraeus: First, I would like to introduce myself. I was in close communication with your predecessor, Leon Panetta. My memos on outsourcing targeted killings to the Chinese and producing a new TV program Top Terrorist were well-received. Or, at least, I… Continue reading Debt and Empire
Scandinavians have a dual reputation for tolerance and homogeneity: a population of pale, polite people who speak English perfectly. But that’s your grandfather’s Scandinavia. Over the last several decades, the region has become a great deal more diverse after a steady influx of immigrants from the east and south. And the tolerance has become considerably… Continue reading Norway: The Enemy Within
In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin walks into the office of underperforming salesmen and shakes them to their core. He’s the guy from the head office, and his motivational speech has a whiff of sulfur to it. The top prize for sales that month, he announces, will be a new Cadillac. The second… Continue reading Third Prize: You’re Fired
Lady Gaga and Alice Walker don’t have much in common. One dresses in red meat; the other doesn’t even eat the stuff. One writes lyrics like “I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it’s free.” The other writes The Color Purple. But they are both cultural celebrities,… Continue reading Foreign Policy Goes Gaga