Hillary Clinton is a commie symp. That’s a familiar line from the rabid right, which hasn’t yet gotten the news that the Cold War is over. Google the secretary of state’s name and “communist,” and you’ll get over a million links, some of them to neo-Nazi websites. Folks say the craziest things on the Internet.… Continue reading The New New Anti-Communism
“An Arms Race in Northeast Asia?” Asian Perspective, Winter 2009 “China’s Military Spending: Soft Rise or Hard Threat?” Asian Perspective, Winter 2009 Landlords, Peasants, and Intellectuals in Modern Korea (Review), Korean Quarterly, Winter 2009 “Bye Bye Dubai,” Providence Journal, December 31, 2009 “The Art of Extraction,” Foreign Policy In Focus, December 23, 2009 “A New START?” World Beat, December… Continue reading 2009 Archives
Asia is in the midst of its most peaceful period of the 20th century,” The Economist editorialized in 1993, “yet its nations are continuing to arm themselves at an alarming rate.” A similar assessment came from Newsweek: “East Asia’s arms race already makes it one of the few places where defense budgets are rising—and the… Continue reading An Arms Race in Northeast Asia
Introduction The rapid growth of China’s economy and its increasingly vigorous diplomatic engagement with regional and international institutions have given rise to much discussion of China’s “peaceful rise” to great-power status. At the same time, the Pentagon has identified China as the only potential hegemon on the horizon that stands a chance of challenging the… Continue reading Chinese Military Spending: Soft Rise or Hard Threat
Review of Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 310 pages. Of all the relationships between the United States and its adversaries, the rift with Iran appears to be particularly long, deep, and difficult to repair. Iran’s seizure of U.S.… Continue reading Guardians of the Revolution (Review)
Review of Sergio Fabbrini, America and Its Critics: Virtues and Vices of the Democratic Hyperpower (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008); Sergio Fabbrini, Compound Democracies: Why the United States and Europe Are Becoming Similar (New York: Oxford, 2007); Sergio Fabbrini, ed., The United States Contested: American Unilateralism and European Discontent (New York: Routledge, 2006). During… Continue reading Transatlantic Clash of Civilizations (Review)
The teacher assembles a collection of chocolate-chip cookies and toothpicks. This is how the elementary school children are supposed to learn about the costs associated with coal mining. Each cookie is a mining property. The students each receive $19 in play money, which they use to buy these properties. They examine the cookies closely to… Continue reading The Art of Extraction
Richard Nixon was the greatest peacemaker in U.S. history. He orchestrated the historic opening with Beijing. And he presided over the most significant arms control treaties of the détente period: the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the ABM treaty. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let’s start over. Richard Nixon was the greatest warmonger in U.S.… Continue reading A New START
In the Maldives, the cabinet strapped on scuba gear and met under water to emphasize the risk of global warming to their island nation. In Nepal, the ministers put on oxygen tanks and conducted their business high up on Mt. Everest to focus attention on the impact of climate change on the world’s highest peak.… Continue reading Crapshoot in Copenhagen
Here’s the premise: an entire region is up for auction. “Mark your calendars for an opportunity of a lifetime,” reads the ad copy. “In a bold step towards the future of global real estate, Nayruz invites you to bid for the ultimate luxury: the Middle East.” In her “corporate intervention,” entitled The Equity Is in… Continue reading Why Dubai?